- Neighbors Hot Dog and S’mores Social on July19th 11-2
- INC Picnic on the Lawn on July 26th at 1pm
- Village Fair and 5K is on August 15th this year (third Saturday of August); mark your calendars. Please message Charlotte to register for the Race.
- Discussion Circle is on the last Sunday of June after Church. These discussions are here to to inspire, teach, guide, and challenge us–all are welcome to join us (we often explore sacred passages, poetry, and other words to inspire us toward freshness, surprise, and wonder).
Visit our Calendar of Events to explore our upcoming dates and times
All are Welcome. If you are uncomfortable with the word God, please feel welcome to insert your own word for the divine or Mystery in your life (Universe/Grace/Spirit/Divine).
These Reflections are written to be read aloud, please forgive any writing errors. You can find the recording HERE later on Sunday morning.
SUNDAY REFLECTION:
The Parable of the Sower is one of the longest parables of Jesus. He will go on beyond this reading to explain it more deeply to the smaller group of his disciples. He will tell his smaller group that they are ready to listen and see. They are ready to hear the whole truth of the parable.
The large group is given the parable to sit with and chew on to either use to learn and grow…or to forget about and move on to other things instead.
It is a lesson in listening and seeing. Being ready for the sower. Being ready to learn. Ready to practice.
Perhaps it is also a lesson in relationship. There is the sower (the teacher) and the land (the student). Relationship. One does not learn just because there is a good teacher before them. One must listen, see, and pay attention. One must practice, do the worksheets, the “busy work”, the “home work” to prepare for when things get challenging…perhaps we could call this the “test”. Life is full of tests and challenges that we can better prepare ourselves for.
The student must want to learn and the student must put in the uncomfortable work to learn.
There is a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. This parable is perhaps a reminder to ready ourselves so that when the teacher appears, we don’t miss the opportunity to grow.
One must want to learn, grow, and seek wisdom. There are a few different learners in Jesus’s parable. Those who are ready to learn. Those who choose not to learn. Those who are ready to learn even more (and perhaps become sowers themselves)!
There are so many excuses for why we don’t learn.
Often, we find ourselves blaming others. The teacher wasn’t a good teacher. The topic we didn’t like. The other students were worse than us (it’s boring). Or the other students are better than us (I got left behind). The other students were distracting. The lesson plan was unfair. The teacher was unfair. The test was unfair.
It wasn’t me. It was other people. See, how easy it is to fall into judgement and blame? (little note: this is not to say that these things are never true, but we must be care-full of what they are–maybe this parable is one of CareFull)
This parable asks us to look at ourselves. How can I be better? How can I be ready to learn more? How can I prepare myself for the inevitable challenges and tests of life? How can I be ready for growth? How can I be more faith-filled? Ready for deeper wisdom?
How can I better listen, see, and learn?
How can I be a better student?
There are seed planters and sowers all around us. Quiet people quietly emulating compassion, grace, and kindness. Speaking and doing Goodness. Easy to miss with all the whirlwinds around us. Are we seeing, listening, and learning?
Or are we so distracted by the storms, the thunder, the hail, the weather that we have given up and forgotten to “tend our own soil”? To seek Good seeds for our soil?
This parable asks us, each of us, how’s our soil? Are we ready for seeds to be plants?
What seeds are we allowing to be planted in our soil? One of my favorite teachers reminds us that we each have an altar of our soul, and we each choose what to let past the “guardian angel” to sit on that altar. We choose what we hold on to, carry, and put on the altar of our own soul.
How is the soil…and, as an aside, I love that I keep typing soul instead of soil. Maybe like the poem from Death Cafe yesterday…a little U does makes all the difference!!
Are we the trampled earth? We’re feeling so trod upon by the hard stuff of life that those seeds can’t fully take root. They start to grow in what little is there, but then they wither away. Maybe we’re too busy, too distracted, too overwhelmed, too scattered ourselves to tend to what matters most.
Maybe the seeds sit on the surface of our rocky soil. We chose the right seeds, but there is no soft place for them to take root. Our armor is so thick and strong that we have tightly closed the doors to new knowledge, new wisdom…new growth.
Or we let others come in and peck at away at our fresh seeds. They are stolen away from us before they even have a chance. We’re left with barren, empty ground.
Perhaps we allow so much in that our most precious blooms are crowded out…there’s no room for what really matters.
What is on the altar of our soul?
This parable encourages us to tend to our own soil. We cannot have a flourishing garden if we don’t tend to the soil. We might call this “self care” (self care is not selfish, but it can become selfish if we are not CareFull). We tend to our soil so that our bodies and souls are nourished with health, compassion, wisdom, kindness, forgiveness, tenderness, and growth. Hildegard of Bingen would call this “greening” ourselves. So that we become people of real influence, precious “influencers”, and perhaps seed sowers ourselves…
There is a saying that tells us to “Spread the Gospel. Use words only if necessary.”
Maybe this is all like a garden and a schoolroom. We tend to our own learning, but the group project is to tend to the community. We nurture our soil and by merely doing that, we influence others to tend to their own. We help others learn to tend to their own soil. As we become healthy individuals, we become a healthy garden. As we become a healthy “garden” (community) together, we encourage others to come together in Good community, as Good Gardens.
And anyone who has had a garden knows, this tending doesn’t end. It is a constant practice of attention, care, and tending. It is a practice of deepest Love.
Holy One, we seek to follow your Way. May we have the strength to tend to our soil. May we be the helpers that others need to tend to their own. May we, however we grow and bloom, come together as part of your great Garden. Together, as one people, on one beautiful Earth. May we do our part and trust that the garden will grow, the seeds will spread, and you will bring us the rain we need.
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 