Steadfast in Questions & In Mystery...

Gospel Reading: Matthew 13:3-13, 18-23

Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and or Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen

Sowing the seed is always tough… the rocks, the briars, the path, the good soil. My Dad grew up on a farm in Southwestern Minnesota. We spent time there in the summers, as some of you know, from the time I was 10 ‘till about 15. My Dad would smell the soil to know if it was “sweet” which meant good.

But I’m inclined to be more interested in the sowers than the soil. Year by year, season by season… we and the people around us are sowers in our own way.

Earlier in his gospel Matthew quotes Jesus again, but not with the mystery of a parable: “The harvest is plentiful,” he says, “but the laborers are few, therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers...” Farm country, big city, suburb… we are all called to faith by the living God to sow the seeds of faith ourselves, and care for one another… wherever we live, whatever our occupation.

Those summer trips from Brooklyn to rural Minnesota were how I got to know Uncle Don… my Dad’s brother in law, a farmer in the small town of Balaton until his death at 81 some 15 years ago…

It’s fair to say that in my childhood trips there I grew to adore my Aunt and Uncle and my three cousins on that farm…

I was a total city kid… All I knew was, if it had grass it was a lawn, if it had flowers it was a garden… and then, they planted memories in my soul that have grown into genuine images of joy, fulfillment, and faithfulness to God in the real world.

Uncle Don let me shoot at empty soda cans with a BB gun. He let me ride his horse, named Dynamite. He and Aunt Hazel bought me a cowboy hat to keep me from getting too sunburned when I helped him bale hay, as he drove the big green John Deere tractor...

He taught me to carry two buckets of pig feed into the pen, one in each hand, to keep my balance and not hurt my back. He picked me up with both his hands and dunked my dirty sneakers in the water trough when I stepped into the gutter in the barn my first summer there… he was a nice guy.

But I see him now as the quintessential image of a farmer, a laborer in the harvest. A sower of seed… But not just corn, flax, soybeans or alfalfa. He went out into the world, as people of faith do, as we do, to live our lives in the world's eyes in ways that are kind and helpful and not destructive or disruptive… we are not always great at it, not always successful. There are questions, there are mysteries. But I hope we are always faithful…

A few years ago, writing a story about these memories, I found his obituary.

A HS graduate, farmed as a child with his parents on that farm in Balaton; US Army in 1951. Korea for 15 months… came home a SGT 1st class, and took over the family farm. He was a Sunday School teacher, a Church Council member at the Lutheran Church; helped found the cemetery society there… served on the Balaton School Board for years, once as secretary and later as chairman… He got to present all three of his children with their HS diplomas. He had played Santa for them when they were small. Husband, Father, Uncle. A farmer who loved driving a tractor… he harvested crops in the fall of 1980, and died in the spring of ‘81. He loved his family.

A normal guy. I hope you have had an Uncle like that… or someone… like him.

I trust and know that many of you are in the midst of living your lives just like that, whether you have ever sat on a tractor or not… you are a sower of seeds … Gospel seeds of faith and hope and caring…

“The sower went out to sow the seed…” a farmer, but also the kind of Uncle who did great stuff for me.. a father of 3… active in church… and the school… a life of being present, and serving and shaping needs- into what? Accomplishments? No. Part of his life, just like yours, was spent simply trying to make things better for those around him.

Isn’t it a wonder that we possess this urge, this strength and energy, even in affliction… and in the midst of questions, disappointment, fear and anger… May we keep true to this calling, even on the rocky ground and especially in the thorny briarpatches of our lives.

Don’t be discouraged by frustration… the sower in the parable isn’t. God’s work (your work) is not in vain.. even when it seems hard or not useful or even when you feel unqualified.

Others see the story of the word of God that you plant… in your actions and your behavior… in your kindness and your generosity… in your inclusion of others not quite like our own images in a mirror.

Do that. Be that. Live that. As Saint Francis said: “Preach the gospel. Use words if you have to.”

I know it’s challenging more often than not. Faith is the gift of grace. Living your faith in the world's eyes is complex and mysterious, inconsistent, complicated and yes, difficult, these days in America. In the farmland, and here in the suburbs, and in our big cities… in our schools, in our local town halls, in our national government.

I follow the Sisters of Charity on line. The New York Times had a front page article in April. A Catholic Order for 209 years… The Sisters ran a hospital in NYC during the Civil War in what now is Central Park. Treated survivors of the Titanic, and were among the first to care for gay men with AIDS. Not farmers, but sowers of the seeds of faithfulness.

124 of them remain… their median age is 87… Some live now in the Bronx on the 9th floor of a subsidized housing building, full of the bustle and alienation of modern life… but the article said the 9th floor is a world apart; a small community of the Order’s most infirm Sisters, women who need tending, even as they tend to one another… like a line by an Irish poet … about our lives, lived in the community of our families and our towns and our nation, not just religious, but faithful: “being needed and also being needy”, even sometimes, on the same day…

Sister Mary Kay Finneran, 89, is quoted at the end… “I hear people talk about their beautiful relationship with Jesus,” she said... “mine is not like that. It is a little more question and mystery… that’s why it is called faith…”

Have faith. Like that. A little more questioning is OK. A little more mystery is sometimes awkward I know. But that’s quite OK too. You are called to live your life well, even in the awkward moments. Steadfastly sowing seeds of faith and kindness. You. Gospel seeds of faith and hope and caring. Quietly. A life of Word and Sacrament. You. A life of faith. In the world’s eyes. Amen.

Pastor William Carter | Sunday, June 7th, 2026 | Second Sunday after Pentecost