Sowing the Seed

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Grace, mercy and peace be to you. From God our father and from our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I mentioned to that, that the teenagers, on average, spend seven and a half hours a day in front of screens. And, well, you know, I spend some of my day in front of screens, too. Right? Probably a lot of you do, too. By screens we mean. What do we mean? What's the screen? Yes. TV, tablet. What's another screen? Computer. Nintendo VR? Yeah, I suppose so. Phone. Phone. Tablet. IPad. Computer. [00:01:09] Speaker B: TV. [00:01:13] Speaker A: Phone. A projector? Got a new one. [00:01:20] Speaker B: That's good, Hannah. [00:01:22] Speaker A: All right, one more. Elmer. A watch. Good. Thanks for bringing us further. [00:01:29] Speaker B: And. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Encompassing all the screens. All the screens. So God's word is like a seed. We just heard. Did you hear that? God's word is like a seed. Okay, and does anybody have a garden? Yeah, got a garden. And what do you put into a garden? Seeds. Right. You put a seed into a garden. Is that because that's a good place to store a seed? That's right. But we've got to hold on. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:13] Speaker A: If you want to say something, raise your hand. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:17] Speaker A: All right. If you have a garden, probably, maybe this time of year, you might be starting to put seeds in it because you're wanting those seeds to grow into something, right? You put a seed in that garden, you put, like, a tomato seed in your garden, and it's going to grow into, hopefully, a tomato plant that gives you tomatoes, which is. That's a wonderful thing, right? Or if you want a nice big tree in your yard, you could maybe plant it from a seed or buy a tree from the store that's been planted from a seed. Or maybe not, but we'll leave that. But the seed becomes this big, tall tree, right? Seeds grow things. Well, Jesus said that the word of God is like a seed. The word of God is like a seed. Now, the thing about the word of God is that it actually enters into you. Do you think about that, like, when you hear the word of God? So let's say you are a child of God. Just by believing in Jesus, you are God's child. [00:03:35] Speaker B: Okay? [00:03:36] Speaker A: I just spoke God's word, and you know what? It entered into you. How did it enter into you? Anybody know? Hattie? Through our ears. Exactly. It's like the words just right went in through your ears. Okay? And Jesus said, God's word is like a seed. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Okay? [00:04:01] Speaker A: Now, when you hear that you're God's child, what can that grow into? If that's a seed, that you're God's child, what can that grow into me? Yeah. You just heard who you are and what family you're a part of. You're a part of God's family, right? And that can grow as you grow, as you think about that, as you remember that word, because that word's in you now, right? But to tend that word, you think about it. You remember it. [00:04:43] Speaker B: Okay? [00:04:43] Speaker A: So maybe you hear an insult or you're feeling bad about something and you remember that word. God says, you're my child and I love you. [00:04:53] Speaker B: Wow. [00:04:53] Speaker A: That can grow a little. Delightful. A delightful plant, that plant is. I suppose it's you, but it's God's word producing somebody, right? You are a child of God. That's who you are. That seed entering into you can produce fruit. Now, Jesus also said that there are some things that can keep that seed from producing fruit from growing. That's one of them, right? The devil wants to take those words away. He doesn't want you to remember those things. He doesn't want you to remember that you're forgiven. He doesn't want you to remember that when you do wrong things, you should be sorry for them and ask for forgiveness. He doesn't want you to remember that you're a child of God. There were some other things, too, okay? One of them is the thorns, right? You could think of those like weeds. Did you know that weeds come from seeds, too? Yeah. So if you have a patch of dirt that never gets any water, it might just be sitting there as a patch of dirt. But if you start watering it, things are going to start growing. You know why? Because it needs water to grow. Yeah, but where'd the plants come from? I guess that's my question. The seeds. Because just lying there in the dirt, there are seeds already. Sometimes seeds are carried by the wind just blowing around. [00:06:38] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:39] Speaker A: Like, let's say a plant at the end of the season is dying. And so it says, oh, time to produce seeds. And so up at the top of the plant, there are a bunch of seeds. Like the dandelion seeds. [00:06:50] Speaker B: Right? Okay. [00:06:51] Speaker A: And so the wind carries them somewhere, they land in soil, and then you forget about them. But then if you start watering that, you're going to get some dandelions, even a couple of years later. Sometimes they're dropped by birds. Sometimes you stick it in the soil on purpose. They grow from seeds. But see, even the weeds grow from seeds. And you don't want weeds in your garden. But somehow those seeds get in there, right? Blowing on the wind or whatever. [00:07:25] Speaker B: Okay? [00:07:25] Speaker A: Now, if you think about that God's word is like a seed. You know what other words are like seeds, too. [00:07:35] Speaker B: Okay? [00:07:36] Speaker A: And there are some seeds that you really don't want in you that you don't want to grow in you. There are seeds you don't want. So we have to be a little bit careful. So that's why your parents or grandparents or your family is a space in which that garden is tended. [00:08:03] Speaker B: Okay? [00:08:03] Speaker A: Let's say the garden of your heart, the soil of your heart. And there are things your parents don't want getting into your heart because they don't want bad things to grow in your heart, right? [00:08:14] Speaker B: Okay? [00:08:15] Speaker A: The church is the same way. We come here and we hear the word of God, and we don't want other things creeping in. Right? We want to put all those other things away. That's what being in the wilderness is about during lent. It's having everything else stripped away, even good things, for the sake of focusing, right? So let's say for each of us, for each of us, we have the responsibility to think about what seeds we're receiving, about what we're paying attention to on a daily basis, right? And what we want to do is remember God's word. We want to look to Jesus, but then on a family level, and let's say an extended family level, or whatever garden God has given you to tend, or whatever relationships you have and find yourself in. We're tending gardens, and you want to think about what we're letting into that garden, because we don't want God's word choked out. This Sunday in the gospel reading, Jesus compares himself to a seed, and of course, he's the word of God in the flesh. He compares himself to a seed, a seed that's put in the ground. Remember, he's gonna. Next Friday, we're gonna celebrate Good Friday. When he's crucified and then buried, he compares himself to a seed that goes in the ground in his burial. And then because it's gone in the ground, then it grows and bears fruit in the resurrection. [00:10:13] Speaker B: Okay? [00:10:14] Speaker A: If you think of the word of God, think of it as Jesus in your heart. [00:10:19] Speaker B: Okay? [00:10:23] Speaker A: How are you good soil, or how do you keep from being bad soil? Let's say that doesn't receive Jesus well. Remember Jesus. Look to Jesus. That's what it means to have faith in him. That's what it means to live by. Faith in him is to look to Jesus and remember him. And as you look to him and remember him, he is growing in your heart. [00:10:48] Speaker B: Right? [00:10:49] Speaker A: And Jesus is everything good. He's the son of God become a human being for us. And as we look to him in faith, he is making us into him. He is growing in our heart. So St. Paul said, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. That's the goal. That's the goal. And God does it by his grace. Here lent. We remember we've got enemies. We've got things working against that. Our attention is drawn in lot of directions. We want to focus it in and look to Jesus, who alone gives true life. In Jesus name, amen.