One of the first things that happened to me upon my arrival here in Riverside was a change in the colour of my thumb. Up until this point, the only colours my thumb had been were regular flesh, and black and blue, when I accidently hit it with a hammer. That all changed because when Jeff and Kris went on vacation and to Mississippi, as one of my tasks was to water the plants outside and inside the parsonage. Suddenly my thumb had turned green and as I reflect on my time spent here in Riverside, I have come to realize the position of student pastor means that a green thumb is necessary. Even more so, as followers of Christ, we are all called to be gardeners, people who plant seeds.
You see, for me as a student pastor, one of the best parts of my job is that I get to scatter seed as far as I can. Whether it is in a children’s chat, teaching a Sunday School class, preaching a sermon, building a labyrinth, having a shared meal, writing a newsletter article, discussion during a committee meeting, working with the confirmation class, or even during a short conversation while shaking hands at the end of a worship service, all of these moments are times when I hope I have scattered seeds which will eventually yield some amazing fruit. The disappointing part of being a student pastor is that a year is rarely long enough to really nurture such seeds so that they may bear fruit.
But between my joys and disappointments in my own gardening role is the life giving role in which you all play within God’s garden because the truth of the matter is that your pastors are not the true gardeners. Each and every one of you are the people who should be planting the seeds in the lives of your friends, your neighbors, your loved ones, every person you meet in the store, while you walk your dog, while watch a baseball game. Every moment we have to interact with another person is another chance to plant a seed which God will give water and light to in order that it yield fruit to be harvested for God’s kingdom.
Now remember the first scripture which we read today? Jesus tells us to enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.” I think that when we combine both of these scriptures, we can gain a better understanding of how we can plant our seeds in good soil so that we don’t just go about scattering our seed in thorny places where they will not take a good root.
As we try and walk that narrow path, we realize that the soil on the sides is incredibly fertile. The only problem is that this path is difficult to find. Almost everything in our own culture tells us that we should take the easy route in life. Instead of making a meal at home, we have countless fast food restaurants which offer to take the time and energy out of preparing the meal. Instead of taking mass transportation because it is more of a hassle, we all drive places individually so we can get there as quickly as possible. We spend more time in front of the television than sharing stories with our sisters and brothers in Christ. There are times in which we argue with one another in order to avoid doing the right thing because the right thing is hard to do while arguing is the easy way out.
Doing something hard over something easy is what God calls us to each and every day we decide to follow Jesus. Christ raises the bar! He does not allow us to buy our salvation with money or works. He calls us to follow and then continues on ahead of us, wondering if we will try to catch up.
When I was in college, the degree I cared most about was my political science degree. My first two years were taught mainly by the head of the political science department who was considered to be a fairly easy teacher. He would post the notes of every lecture he gave and would create the tests right from his notes. And while he did not require you to attend class, if you attended every class and had a B or higher average, you didn’t have to take the final. For two years, I thought his classes were the best thing going. I always got a B in each of his classes and never had to take a single final. If I wanted to take the easy road for an example in this story, my point could be how important it is just to show up, but the easy way is not the best way.
During my junior year, we got a new professor in the Political Science department. This professor said that every class you missed, your next paper would lose 5 percent of the grade. If he thought most of the class didn’t do the required reading, he would give the class a pop quiz. Not once did he simply lecture from the notes he took from the stuff we already read…the new professor actually was ahead of us in our discussions and learning. He did not require us to regurgitate information we could find in the library, he wanted to see if we could think for ourselves. At the end of the semester, I had a C minus in this class. It was the lowest grade I ever got in college. I probably should have been disappointed with myself, but the truth of the matter is that I thought it was the best class I ever had. In fact, the next semester I took another one of our new professors classes because of how much I learned. I was challenged in ways I had not been before, and it was a great thing.
Sadly, when I look at my senior year of political science classes, I again had the teacher I had my first two years and I fell back into mediocre work. It is the perfect example of how one of my teachers planted a seed of thorns and one teacher planted a seed which would have deep roots if they were not so close together. I have to constantly struggle with the thorny bush my first professor planted. It is the seed planted in my soil which makes me lazy, which makes me only do what I need to do instead of doing the hard thing which will cause me to be a better person. And thankfully, I still have the seed along side of it which calls out to me to push myself to learn even if it is hard, even if my grade will not be as high.
After the service today, when you’re having lunch with a family member or a friend, I challenge you to share a story in your life in which a seed was planted in good soil and it produced an unexpected yield in your own life. It is when you share these stories, it is like eating the fruit which was once a small seed. It has been planted, grown, nurtured and finally shared. When that’s done, you have more seeds which will hopefully find their way to fresh soil and you can continue following Jesus down the narrow road.
To wrap this up, I just want to thank you all for your warm gifts of hospitality and the love which you have shown me over the last year. I will never forget the time we all walked in God’s garden together. It was a wonderful experience for me and I will always look back on my time here as fruitful. Amen.
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