October 22, 2023
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Stewardship Sermon – Week Four
Ephesians 3:14-21; Mark 4:1-9
Fearless Sowing
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Today we conclude our fall stewardship emphasis. Our theme has been “Fearless Generosity.” It’s based on the verses we heard today from Ephesians:
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
The verse calls us to recognize that God’s vision is a whole lot bigger than ours. It compels us to think about God’s imagination. Just think: the One who created all things – how great is God’s imagination? God brought this big, amazing universe and all its astounding creatures into being. God imagined the vehicle for the world’s salvation through Jesus Christ.
When you think about it that way, you realize just how puny our prayers are in comparison. What do we ask God for in our prayers? Only what we ourselves are capable of imagining. But God’s imagining – that is the scope of all that is.
And that incredible power and wisdom and vision is at work in you and me! What could happen if all of that was released within our lives, if we opened ourselves up to God’s visioning? Wow.
By our confidence that God is able to accomplish far more than we can ask for or imagine, we are opened to LIVE and SERVE and GIVE in FEARLESS GENEROSITY.
Today we hear one of Jesus’ very familiar parables. Jesus tells about a farmer who sets about sowing seed in his field. It was some small grain, like wheat or barley. Rather than planting each individual seed underground, he used the broadcast method. He flung the seeds about by the handfuls.
And you know how the parable goes. The seeds land on a whole variety of soil conditions. Some are far less conducive to fruitful outcomes. But the farmer is undeterred. He throws his seed every which way, and where it lands, that’s where it goes.
Ask any farmer and they will tell you: planting a field involves risk. So many things can go wrong. Not enough rain, too much rain, hail, an ill-timed frost. Crop farming is risky business.
But what farmer doesn’t also feel the surge of delight and hope while they plant their crops? Even if all you have is a backyard vegetable garden, you know the uplifting emotions that come with placing those seeds in the ground!
Stewardship is like that big bag of seeds. The contents of that bag contains our WHOLE life. Inside it are all the very many individual bits of our lives. Each one is like a tiny seed. There we find each one of the days we are allotted. All of our relationships are in there: with our family, our animals, our neighbors. Our footsteps on the earth are there, too, as we walk with creation. It holds all of the books we’ve read, the information and the wisdom we’ve gleaned. Our abilities, our talents, they’re seeds, too. Our degrees of privilege and our areas of vulnerability, they’re in there, too. All of our assets, from our possessions to our money. EVERYTHING about us is in that bag! And all of it is meant to be sown.
Only you can be the caretaker of your life. Every aspect about you and your personal place in the great web of creation – these are under your care, your STEWARDSHIP.
Stewardship is what we do with our lives. These are the golden seeds in our sowing pouch.
Like the sower, we know that utilizing and caring for these gifts comes with risk. We know that not all of our endeavors or efforts will take root and come to fruition. There will inevitably be failures. But one thing is certain: without sowing, there will be no harvest.
When we look to our Lord, we see exactly how he scattered every single aspect of himself. He fearlessly sowed all that he was. He didn’t consider equality with God as something to be clung to. He poured himself out into our human form. Through his words, he challenged the comfortable and comforted the challenged. Through his actions, he compassionately and generously. He risked the criticisms of the religious leadership and courageously sowed the seeds of his compassion.
And in the end, he himself became the seed sown. As he said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain.”
That is what he did as he went to his cross. He fearlessly sowed himself. When they removed his lifeless body from his cross and laid it in a tomb, it seemed as if his life had ended in complete failure. But it could only be through dying that the fruits of salvation would come into harvest.
And so, as people of faith, we now fearlessly sow the seeds of who we are. We place our confidence in the faithfulness of God to provide and sustain our days and our actions. We sow in confidence and hope. In faith, we believe that God is always at work within us. We sow fearlessly, for we know that God has the power to accomplish abundantly, far more than we can ask or imagine.
