Tell me about your garden!  Does it have WEEDS?

    By “garden” I DON’T mean that spot where you may have planted your beans and tomatoes or your summer flowers.  You may or may NOT have one of those.  But I mean the place in your heart where God has planted the SEEDS OF ETERNAL LIFE!  Does IT have weeds?

    Our First Lesson, from Isaiah, chapter 55, beautifully DESCRIBES God’s DESIGN for such a garden.  LISTEN:  “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall MY WORD be that goes out from my mouth.”

    And then, in verse 13, God promises:  “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle.”

    Yes, A GLORIOUS PICTURE, here in Isaiah!  GOD’S WORD, like fertile seed, falling into the ears and hearts of people--causing the earth spiritually to BLOSSOM in peace, harmony, joy!  But, in all honesty, it hasn’t seemed to HAPPEN that way, has it?  For thousands of years the Word has gone forth, the seeds’ been planted.  But where IS this EDEN the Bible keeps talking about?


    Yes, wherever the Word has sounded, tender sprouts of faith have budded; plants have even flourished.  But, at the same time, many have died!  In fact, often God’s garden has seemed to shrivel!  In Old Testament times, frequently the Word fell on deaf ears; people forsook the Lord for idols.  And in Jesus’ day, many folks heard his “good news” but turned away from him.

    And what about TODAY?  After more than 2,000 years, God’s garden still doesn’t seem very healthy, does it?  The most recent Gallup Poll, done in 2008, reveals that only 42 percent of North Americans attend worship on any regular basis at all.  And the figure is much lower in Europe.

    Now WHY doesn’t God’s garden come up to the beautiful scene depicted by the prophet here? -- Jesus, in our Gospel today, gives us some answers.  Standing beside Lake Galilee, in Luke, chapter eight, he faces a huge crowd.  I like to think of his looking up and suddenly spying, in a nearby field, a sower casting out seed.  Yes, with his apron filled with the tiny particles, the farmer walks along, scattering them into the furrows.  Instantly Jesus finds a new sermon illustration.  “Why that’s the way God’s Kingdom comes!” he cries.  “Like a sower scattering seed, so the Lord scatters the “Good News” into the hearts of people!”

    And yet some seeds don’t fall onto good soil at all, but onto the packed path, where they're trampled, and birds (who, in the parable, represent the Evil One) gobble them up!  Other seeds, explains Jesus, fall onto ground with no subsoil -- only hard rock, just beneath the surface.  Of course, these seeds immediately spring up; but they can’t put down roots.  So in time of temptation and trial, they die.

    Still other seeds, Jesus says, fall among thorns.  And, friends, here in the thorn patch I’d like us to linger for a few moments.  For I’m convinced it’s the thorns that pose the most danger to the seed God’s planted in you and me!  In Jesus’ parable here, the thorns quickly grow up and choke the tender plants.  Now, these briers that shoot up and threaten our gardens can fool us, can’t they?  To a farmer sometimes the ground looks clean enough.  Simply turning over the topsoil with a plow makes any plot look weed free.  But buried deep with in the clods, invisible, often will remain malignant roots, ready at any time to GROW once more --and incredibly FAST! Jesus here explains that the thorn-weeds are “THE CARES AND RICHES AND PLEASURES OF LIFE.”  --How EASILY do they CHOKE the Word planted in us!

    Just consider the peril that the "cares" of life pose to our spiritual lives!  Some years ago I stood in the village churchyard at  Grasmere, in the English Lake District.  And as I gazed at the tombstone of poet William Wordsworth, I thought of these lines from his pen:


    Friends, the world IS "too much with us"!  The cares of life, if we let them, WILL eventually make us “give our hearts away!”  And before we know it, they’ll make us not only see little in Nature that is ours, but little in God, as well!  Take that working woman or man who devotes so much time to business or profession that NO ROOM remains for worship, for prayer!  Or take that retiree who spends so many hours at golf or bridge or tennis -- or serving on committees and in clubs -- or even volunteering in charitable organizations, activities that, in themselves, are wonderful, who, unfortunately, soon crowds out regular prayer, meditation, and church!  And that young person, who--perhaps to please parents or grandparents--over commits herself/himself to athletics and clubs.  He or she can do the same.

    Sadly, few of us are so expert at spiritual agriculture that we can always distinguish the weeds from the good plants.  Sometimes we don’t discern the difference until it’s TOO LATE!  Yes, friends, “the cares . . . of life,” says Jesus, very quickly can choke our spiritual gardens.  And so can what he calls life’s “riches and pleasures.”  Einstein once said, “I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward.  The example of great and fine personalities is the only thing that can lead us to fine ideas and noble deeds.”

    Yet today, I’m afraid, far too many of us, even within the Church, are less like Einstein than like the man whom poet Lew Sarett describes:


    How many of us are nurturing poisonous weeds in our spiritual gardens?  Weeds that eventually will strangle our spirits?  The poison weeds of life’s “cares and riches and pleasures?”

    If there a remedy for the deadly weeds in our gardens?  An herbicide to control those malignant thorns before they strangle us? -- YES, THANK GOD!  And please don’t think me frivolous to CALL this nullifying agent “DDT!”  -- NOT, of course, the insecticide DDT!  THAT was banned from the market YEARS ago because of its HAZARDS to human beings, to animals, and to the general environment.  But I mean “DDT,” standing for “DISCIPLINE,” the “DEITY,” and “TIME.”

    Of course, “discipline’s” a word that’s out of fashion these days.  That doesn’t make it any less important!  If you have a backyard garden, you know what TREMENDOUS DISCIPLINE it takes to make it produce!  Why, keeping down the weeds alone takes hours!  An old farming proverb is “One year’s seeding makes seven years’  weeding!”  To be sure, science has given us many weapons against weed, especially chemicals.  But, I understand, NOTHING takes the place of the daily drudgery of pulling up the weeds BY THEIR ROOTS!

    What’s true in our backyard gardens is true of our spiritual gardens!  The daily discipline of prayer!  The weekly discipline of worship!  The constant discipline of deeds of love and service done, in the name of Christ, for brothers and sisters in need!

    The DEITY is an even more important agent to nullify the poisonous, choking weeds.  Indeed, it’s Christ who’s the only ULTIMATE remedy.  For Christ first put the seeds of the Word into our hearts.  And who can more effectively DESTROY the weeds than the very One who planted the garden?

    Some years ago, John Gray, then minister of Dunblane Cathedral, Scotland, was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Kirk.  And in his sermon to the gathered ministers and elders, he lamented the seeming decline of Christianity in Britain.  But he went on to sound an OPTIMISTIC, TRIUMPHAL note:  “We must declare,” he said, “that Christ is the Way of Salvation for [people] and for nations . . . . Every Sunday Service should be a GREAT OCCASION, to be approached with EAGERNESS  and EXPECTANCY.  Whether a handful or hundreds gather to listen, it is a great occasion, for the people are hungry for a Word from the Lord -- and that Word has been given to [God’s] ministers to proclaim and to his people to live.”

    Friends, when you and I gather in this place to worship, this Word confronts us!  It takes hold of us -- through Scripture, Sermon, Sacrament, and Music!  In corporate worship the great Sower applies to our famished spiritual gardens not only the nourishing rain to make the plants grow, but the herbicide to destroy the weeds and set us FREE!

    Finally, TIME is also an important agent to nullify the thorns that beset our souls.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a garden.  We Presbyterians believe that sanctification is a life-long process.  The struggle must continue--to the end of our time on earth.

    Well, then, do you, do I, have weeds in our gardens? -- OF COURSE!  How could we NOT have?  You’re kidding yourself if you think any garden can be weed-free.  The rooting up and throwing out must go on--with the TOIL that such involves.

    But THANK GOD that CHRIST, the MASTER SOWER, is also the MASTER WEED KILLER!

PRAYERS:
         O God, how swiftly the weeds spring up in our gardens!  How hard it often is for us to recognize them as weeds!  Indeed, how foolishly have we at times watered and nurtured the thorns, but neglected the tender shoots that you so graciously have planted in our hearts!
    Deliver us, we beg you, from the disastrous results of our negligence and idolatry.  Rouse us to the danger that weeds pose to our souls.
    But, above all, cast us back into the arms of the Master Sower, who alone can effectively save the crop from their clutches.
    Merciful God, who by the gentle sprinkling of baptism first nurtured the seeds of faith within us, send upon us now, we pray, the refreshing rain of your Holy Spirit; that the fragile stem that the sacrament produced may continue to grow and flourish.  Teach us that in your garden we are but tiny branches of the true Vine, who is Christ, and that unless we abide in him, we cannot produce fruit, but, instead, will wither and die.
    Bless, O God, your Church, the very agricultural implement through which the Master Sower works.  And particularly let your benediction rest upon this congregation and its leaders, and those congregations and parishes represented here today.  Bless our nation -- and every commonwealth on earth, that peace may prevail everywhere, and all know justice and freedom.  Indeed, bless all creation, that in your providence, it may once again blossom, like Eden, and be filled with the heavenly fruit of joy.  Nourish, we beg you, those of our brothers and sisters whose bodies, minds, or spirits need a special dose of your mercy, particularly any in this holy place today who may be in pain.
    Finally, keep us aware of your children who, having tended your garden in this world, now live forever with you in the perfect Eden of heaven.
    For we make these our prayers in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.  AMEN.