Sowers to Sow
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
August 10, 2008
© 2008, Rev. Thomas Perchlik
It is good to be here. I feel happy to be back in this pulpit after four Sundays out. I have looked forward to this moment because I am proud to be part of this congregation. John Bohstedt, a member of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, is just as proud of his congregation. This past week he took issue with some of the media coverage of the shootings at his church. Bohstedt, a retired history professor from the University of Tennessee, sent an email message to Michael Paulson, religion correspondent at the Boston Globe. He wanted to make clear that his congregation was not terrorized. Our culture, expressed through our media, does much to encourage fear of the danger in the world and to play on the image of panic in disaster. Bohstedt said, "There are a lot more good guys in the world, but the bad guys get all the press...." The impression given is that violent people always cause chaos and disaster. In contrast, he said, "Real life is often NOT like that, and in this case — evil was overcome efficiently by LOVE." "It was remarkable," he wrote "how everyone was doing exactly what they needed to do — subduing the gunman, calling 911, tending to the victims, [protecting children] and evacuating the sanctuary..." Bohstedt wrote, "for every crazed wacko with a gun, there are thousands of civilized, rational, and loving people in East Tennessee who have produced a remarkable culture. ... more often than not 'there is METHOD in the 'madness' of crowds' — the METHOD of our TVUUC church is organized Love."
In a world where people wield guns to express hatred and fear, we need people who will pick up children, and books, knitting needles and gardening tools, to spread seeds of love and beauty. In a world where people do not understand one another and refuse to listen, it is essential that other people seek understanding and engage in dialog to grow the abundant fruits of the spirit. In a world where people divide themselves into petty groups, and divide humanity from the web of all living things, the earth cries out for people who remember that we are all connected and truth is one. In short we need sowers to sow seeds of peace, love and justice, and the purpose of this church is to give people the skills and knowledge and resources to be such sowers.
The image before us this morning is this glowing window of the Sower. It was the one saved for this congregation, by Frank and Phyllis Yuhas, from the dismantling of our old building that stood downtown for over 100 years. I want it to be an image of our strength and power as we move through this, our 150th year, and consider our future. If our primary image is the tree then the sower scatters seeds of the tree of life. Today we plant seeds of goodness, just as we reap the harvest of all the good seeded before us.
Some of you may remember that the image was inspired by "The Sower," painted by Jean-François Millet in 1850, in France at the end of the Second Republic. [Oil on canvas, 40 x 32 1/2 in. (101.6 x 82.6 cm), now owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.] Striding across rough earth a peasant sows winter wheat in a cool November twilight. In a patch of sunlight, behind and to the right, an ox-drawn harrow closes the soil over the grain. To the left, distant and hungry crows circle in the heavy clouded sky. This painting's dark, worked surface inspired one critic to write that the artist "seemed to paint with the very earth that is being planted."
Although Millet insisted that his art was not political, many Parisians found this strong, shadowed figure threatening. One one writer saw the peasant as sowing not wheat but "the seeds of discord and revolution." But Millet's concerns were aesthetic rather than political and he said his desire was "to make the trivial serve to express the sublime." He saw his art as revolutionary only in its assertion that the commonplace activities of ordinary people were worthy subjects for serious art. Instead of romanticized images of the countryside he wanted people to see the deep beauty of common labor and daily life.
Over time, people who admired his work picked up on its biblical reference. Many Americans felt the image reflected the gospel message of power, planted by grace, in each common person to become 'a laborer in the fields of the Lord' sowing seeds of the Beloved Community that Christians call the Kingdom of God. New versions of the image appeared. Van Gogh painted the image full of warm color as "Sower With Setting Sun" in 1888. People of this church, in the 1890s, asked a craftsman to surround the sower not with dark clouds but the light and color of stained glass and made it an image of fruitful labor. It was one reflection of the Universalist message, the importance of working above believing, and of the abundance of goodness that good labor could yield.{mospagebreak}
I heard that once a couple were driving down a country lane on their way to visit some friends. They came to a muddy patch in the road and the car became stuck. After a few minutes of trying to get the car out by themselves they saw a young farmer coming down the lane, driving some oxen before him. The farmer stopped when he saw the couple in trouble and offered to pull the car out of the mud for $50. The husband accepted and minutes later the car was free. When they thanked him and paid the farmer for his work he smiled and said, "You know, you're the tenth car I've helped out of the mud today." The driver looked around at the fields incredulously and asked the farmer, "With all that work, when do you have time to plow your land? At night?" "No," the young farmer replied seriously, "Night is when I put more water in that muddy patch there." We all want our labor to be fruitful, but we know that some work produces better than others. This farmer's work brought money, but also sowed seeds of discord.
When I first heard Jesus' story of the sower I thought that his so-called farmer seemed a little careless. It seemed like most of his seeds were trampled, eaten, dried up, dead from shallow roots and lack of water; or choked by thorns. Whatever happened to plowing and careful seeding? Over the years I have come to find that this is the way of things. Often our efforts, despite all our care, come to nothing. Business tides shift and work seems wasted, or we put effort in a relationship that falls apart. It is always possible that something or someone we love can be swept away by illness or addiction or accident. Even the best farmer knows that some seed does not come to fruit.
But the point of the story is not on the failures but on the results of the good soil. As Jesus says in his telling of the parable, (in all three synoptic gospels,) the seed that fell on good soil, produced a crop, thirty, sixty or a hundred times what was sown. There are two sources of this abundance. The first is the quality seed and the good soil, the second is the labor unmentioned, plowing, weeding, watering, needed to make the soil receptive.
The power that makes our actions productive is a quality of the seed and the willingness of the soil to be responsive to the seed. The Prophet Isaiah had come up with a similar image centuries earlier:
"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish... the purpose for which I sent it."
It is the vitality of God's voice that creates life. In the Jewish/Christian creation story God merely speaks and there is light and the rest of creation. The passage from Isaiah continues with an image of victory that is included in our hymnal as a benediction: "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Our response to the creative word of God produces, joy and goodness on the earth and bears seed for the sower. It is what the Hindu's call shakti, the creative, embodying power of the divine. For the Taoist it is the watercourse Way of the creative seed complimented by the yielding earth. For the Existentialist Humanist it is the power of love and the power of life, grown up in our genetic heritage from the experience of eons, to be in the nature of human living. The point is that the UU vision is one of a radical optimism that good soil will produce thirty or sixty or a hundred more seeds than we planted.
Beyond the deep nature of the universe as we know it, the second source of this hope and confidence is in the labor taken to sow the seed and preparing the soil, tilling, fertilizing, weeding and watering. That is why we are creating small group ministry in our church this year, to provide more places where the soil is made good. Churches should be places for weeding. tending, harvesting of the spirit. So it has been for a hundred and fifty years. In Jesus' time he told his followers,
"Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest' I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest... Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
{mospagebreak}It is a sad fact that trouble and trial usually make our purpose and mission clear and more impelling. There has been a great rallying of unity around the UU Congregations in Knoxville, as always when tragedy inspires a compassionate response. After the terrorist attacks on America in 2001 the overwhelming response of most of the world was one of unity and solidarity, at least until we turned on Iraq. The response to the Knoxville shootings has been similar. People of all religions, and of no religion, showed up at the vigil held at the Second Presbyterian Church the next night. There was good soil; there the earth had been well prepared; there the seeds had already been tended and were ready for harvest. The TVUU website states that they have worked for "desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women's rights and gay rights" since the 1950s. Their Current ministries involve emergency aid for the needy, school tutoring and a cafe that provides a gathering place for gay and lesbian teens. We are doing the same sort of work here in this community. This sort of hopeful labor produces a harvest of great love and more hope. For example, Greg McKendry, 60 years old, a member of the board and an usher, who died after taking one shotgun blast in order to protect everyone else there. Consider also Linda Kraeger, 61, a life-long educator who was a member of Westside Unitarian Universalist Church and had traveled across town to encourage a young child from her congregation.
During the rededication service last week at the Tennessee Valley UU church Rev. Chris Buice, [rhymes with rice] prayed with an overflow crowd at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, "God of many names, known in the spoken word and most profoundly in unspoken silence, we say with you and through you... these simple words, "We reclaim our sanctuary." " He continued, "This sanctuary, which has been defiled by violence, we rededicate to peace. This holy place, which has been desecrated by an act of hatred, we reconsecrate [by] love, This sacred space, which has seen death, we recommit to life. This holy spiritual home, which has known fear, we rededicate to faith and freedom." In this same spirit all UU people work to rededicate the world. In a world torn by war and personal violence we work for Deep Peace. In a world divided by hatred we invoke the unity of Love. On this Earth, our star-born home, we work mightily for freedom, for truth and for life. In his homily Buice noted, "A week ago a man walked into this sanctuary with the intention to inflict terror. He inspired acts of great courage" and then he added this bit of humor, "Reports tell us that he thought that liberals were soft on terror. He had a rude discovery [that was not the case.] He intended unspeakable hatred, he has inspired unspeakable love..."
UUA President, the Rev. Bill Sinkford, was asked by reporters if he thought the shooter would go to hell for what he did. Bill, in classic UU form responded by saying that the shooter did not need to go to hell, he had already been living there for some time. Many people have focused on the fact that he wrote that he was motivated by politics for what he did. I want to make clear that he did not attack a UU Church because we are liberal, he attacked people he did not know because he was lost. He had forgotten his essential humanness, he had forgotten that we are all connected. There was no need for him to be sent to Hell by God or anyone else, there was a need for him to be called back to compassion, hope and community. His pain at the church was also a personal pain, since he had attended UU events with his wife before they divorced several years ago.
The writer Eudora Welty once said about her writing, "My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible shadow that falls between people, the veil of indifference to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight." This too is our passion, our mission, as one of my colleagues put it, "The purpose of the religious community is to reveal the bonds that bind each to all."
The great preacher, Theodore Parker, reminds us that: "Truth never yet fell dead in the streets; it has such affinity with the soul of man [and woman that], the seed however broadcast will catch somewhere and produce its hundredfold." So it is that I end today with this blessing by Reverend Emil Gudmundson, of Minnesota: "Now, may we have faith in life to do wise planting that the generations to come may reap even more abundantly than we. May we be bold in bringing to fruition the golden dreams of human kinship and justice. This we ask: that the fields of promise become fields of reality."
