Today we gather to give thanks to God the Father for the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the Lord’s Day. And for over 20 centuries Christians in every nook and cranny of the world have gathered to celebrate the surprising and world-changing Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

Because we can affirm that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again - we wait expectantly, like children on Christmas Eve, for God’s weekly gift of himself - as we offer simple bread and wine to God and receive back the very essence of God’s self - the Body and Blood of his son Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is the Holy Eucharist. The Great Thanksgiving.

Our liturgy, our corporate prayers, our reading and hearing the Word of the Lord in Scripture, our song, the Creed - all of these coalesce with our gifts of money, bread and wine and the gifts of our hearts to God and one another - all of these combine in a mystical way to transform us. To transform us as God sees fit - gently, silently, almost imperceptibly making us his own.

This type of growth or transformation is what I have been blessed with - from time to time - in my life in the church. I can take no credit. God has formed me and shaped me as God has seen fit.

I know that for many of us no such spiritual growth can be counted. We recognize that many here in the church today and many outside these walls are searching for a sign. Some sort of tangible evidence that there is a God. And that if there is a God, that in some way God cares. Painfully, we in the church realize that the church is not effectively addressing the needs of the human condition.

For many people, modern life is at the crisis stage - crises of meaninglessness, trivialization, alienation. People need to know if this church life is a spiritual life and does it really help us get to know God and to live authentic lives with holy and life-giving purposes.

Well, to tell the truth. God is a mystery. The fullness and totality of God Almighty is beyond human telling. So to be honest and effective we in the church can really do best to point to Jesus. Jesus was truly one of us and he understood and understands the human condition. Thanks be to God.

I have a hunch this is the reason he so often spoke in parables. Jesus knew that million dollar theological words were just that - words. Jesus was one of us. He understood our needs for particularity, for graphic, sensory information that we can chew on and examine.

Jesus speaks to us in this liturgy this morning. I believe he is here. Yes, he is beyond our sensory awareness but he is here and he has told us, his disciples here gathered, the Parable of the Sower.

Jesus is on the Galilee on a boat using the natural acoustics of the water to sow his Good News to the peasant population which worked the lake for fish and the hills for produce. The vast majority of his hearers, poor day laborers, (wholly dependent on the wealthy few who controlled the land and jobs), would wonder first - who is the Sower?** (see end note)

If it is a Land Owner, one of the wealthy few - the poor would have been appalled at the waste of the seed. Seed is not plentiful for the poor. How many gardens could that seed have planted? How much fruit has been lost? How dare the rich waste good seed!

If the Sower were a tenant farmer or day laborer working for a land owner, the hearer of the parable would have been sympathetic about the conditions of the soil and the difficulty of the work itself.

Here’s the point - the impossibly large harvest (no seeds produce 30, 60 100 fold) gives away the identity of the Sower. If a wasteful landowner realized a magnificent profit, this parable is hardly good news to the peasant workers that made up the vast majority of his audience.

But if the Sower were a fellow peasant, then the good news is that the crop will satisfy the landowner who oppresses that peasant, provide seed for the next growing season, pay Roman and temple taxes, and still leave a surprising abundance for the peasant to feed a family. However jarring it may be to our modern American ears, Jesus was a fellow peasant. He owned no land. He depended on others for provision. Yet, despite his material poverty, he was rich.

Jesus was a SIGN to those in HIS midst that were in a crisis of grinding poverty, which caused a crisis of meaninglessness, trivialization and alienation in his time. His healing, his teaching, his touch, were sacramental signs that God exists and that God cares, for the rich (which everyone naturally believed) but most amazingly, for the poor peasants.

Few here this morning are similarly impoverished and oppressed. But we are needy nonetheless. Deeply in need of grace to help us live authentic lives amidst the varying crises of our time.

So many of us sleep walk through our days devoid of a motivating central purpose, lacking clarity that we are both called to serve God and can find rewarding ways to minister.

There is a restlessness which pervades our culture. So many of us tend to glaze over life seemingly stuck in a state of superficiality.

We have experienced a sense of trivialization. Virtues like trust, respect and honor seem to be in shambles around us and within us. These recent corporate scandals have exacerbated a fear about our futures.

And who here, even in the midst of our own families and church friends, hasn’t experienced a sense of alienation and loneliness. Our church can be a place that fosters healthy community. Community that brings people together in a safe and caring environment.

Again I say that we should point to Jesus. Jesus is in our midst this morning. And Jesus is the Sower sowing seed. If it is a story that Jesus is telling us now - then he is daring us - NOW - to imagine that God’s grace -the seed cast about so indiscriminately, that God’s grace is so abundant that he considers you and I worthy of excess and waste. Have you ever been loved in a way that is excessive, wasteful, profligate and altogether unwise? Jesus says to us this morning - welcome to my world. My kingdom.

I love you and I need you to do nothing, nothing, nothing, to earn my love or deserve it.

And the way to receive that good news is accept the reality that we are, quite simply, soil for God. Soil. Just more my sake, for this one day only even, try not to figure out which soil in the parable describes your spiritual life.

I am quite aware that Jesus is teaching us a valuable lesson on the spiritual life and its snares. Lord, I know full well I have heard the word of the Kingdom and my hard heart has simply said no. I realize that I have heard the word and rejoiced - and fallen away. I recognize, at times too late, that I have been a thorn, and that I’ve been cut and wounded by other thorny people. I acknowledge, as well, that I have allowed the lures of the world and wealth to leave me impoverished. Like it or not, that’s my story. Maybe you know something about this as well.

By the way, I don’t particularly love dirt or soil. If you were to conduct a study of the homes I have inhabited in my adult life you would know I don’t like soil. I have killed healthy plants just by walking within 50 feet of them.

Nevertheless, for today, let’s each just be soil. God’s dirt. However your spiritual state may be judged today, remember that God considers you worthy of a vast, indeed excessive and wasteful love. Love shaped like a cross. Please just try to accept this love. Bask in it. You need it.

I need it. And this love, God’s wild love, is what we have to share with a world adrift from it’s spiritual center. A world that is struggling with meaninglessness and alienation and a sense of being trivialized.

As your new rector I have been told of the difficulties you have endured. As a congregation, you know something about the cross. My heart goes out to you. I want you to know just how much I respect you for your persevering love for one another and your steadfast commitment to God.

With you, I give thanks for the ministry of Joe Di Paola and Susan Barnes. The wardens. The leaders. One and all. I give thanks for new friends like Chuck and Carolyn Huffman. The hard times of the last few years are a part of who we are. We are God’s soil. Soil needs fertilizer and mulch. Let’s allow the Sower to use the past as fertilizer and mulch. Traveling through adversity, as the cliché goes, can make us stronger. And, indeed, more aware of the fragility of love. And what did Father Joe say about our church - "this is the house that love built’.

So again, let’s just be soil and allow the Sower to cast unlimited seeds of grace and hope - that together we might bear fruit, 30, 60 or even 100 fold. For Jesus is doing something excessive and wasteful and wonderful here. So we just breathe easy, and relax, and allow God to shape us and form us as God sees fit. Amen.

** I owe much of the sociological analysis of the parable to John J. Pilch in his commentary, The Cultural World of Jesus pp 109-110, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota.