IS 55:10-11
ROM 8:18-23
MAT 13:1-23
We just
heard three passages from Scripture, the Word of God as we say after each
reading. The words in all three of these readings point us to a deeper reality
about the Word of God that does not solely dwell in books or even on the lips
of human beings, but is also scattered in every seed, held in every rain drop,
rooted down deep into the earth, and singing out to us in the symphony of the
sounds of creation. Before I share a few more words with you mediated through
my human body, I invite us to listen to the words of God woven into the
beautiful creation that surrounds us. What more do they have to offer, what
words of wisdom still want to be spoken? If you feel comfortable, I invite you
to place your bare feet on the earth, breathe with the trees who breathe out
what we breathe in, quiet the noises inside your head and heart and listen with
your whole body to what our more than human siblings have to share.
[Pause for
2-3 min]
Would
anyone like to share something they heard?
We are part of an absolutely incredible and complex
ecosystem. Our bodies are ecosystems unto themselves, and we are also just one
tiny part of this larger ecosystem of the environment in which we live, and the
wider planet of earth. We can’t live without water, without oxygen, without
another life form dying so that we can be nourished by its nutrients. The
Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh calls this reality interbeing. Just as the
plant is made up of sunshine, rain and soil, so too are we made up of sunshine,
rain, and soil when we eat the plant. If what we rely on to eat becomes sick it
can make us sick. We inter-are.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood this concept
as well. He reflected in his Letter from a Birmingham jail that, “All life is
inter-related. All of us are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly.
And the divine presence is woven into and throughout this
incredible micro and macro system of inter-being. We are both the seed and the soil
in the garden. The seed holds the full presence and potentiality of the
emergent divine wisdom and incarnation. But it is also reliant on the
environment that surrounds it to support this emergence and growth into what it
desires to become. This is the wisdom of our Gospel tonight and of past and
present prophets: the body of God is one giant living complex organism, and
what impacts one part of it impacts the whole, for better or worse.
I would say I'm a novice gardener, I wasn’t raised in an
agrarian environment like Jesus and his followers or like the ancient Jewish
people of the Hebrew Scriptures, but I desire to learn what my ancestors knew
about living in harmony with the land, and collaborating with the more than
human world to bring forth life and sustenance. One thing I am learning is the
importance of soil quality. Just like our Gospel pointed out, you need good
quality soil for the seed to sprout and grow and thrive. When you don’t have
good soil, the seed may never sprout, or it does but then it quickly dries out
and dies, or it gets choked out by other invasive species.
Our bodies, are gardens unto themselves and also part of
a larger garden. The lies we've been told about ourselves, about other living
beings, and even about God, create poor soil conditions within this body and
the collective body of the community. The same with negative thoughts and
behaviors that we direct towards ourselves and others. If you haven’t heard it
enough: you are good. You were born good. Your body is holy and sacred. You are
loved beyond your wildest comprehension and there is nothing you can do to
separate yourself from that love, except in your own mind. We have to nurture
the soil of our bodies to create good health so life can grow, just like real
soil and plants.
Systems of oppression can’t bear fruit because they rooted in bad soil. Systems of
oppression are death dealing, not life giving. White supremacy can never bear
fruit, patriarchy cannot bear fruit, homophobia and transphobia cannot bear
fruit, and this is why we are starving, because we are saturated in
environments full of rock and sand in which only weeds can grow. The seeds that
produce life and liberation are literally being choked out as they rise. We
have a duty to ensure that not only our body but all bodies under attack can be
nourished and healed and given the space to rise up and bear fruit a
hundredfold.
And because we are one living body, one living ecosystem,
we can do this for each other. Plants already do this for one another! Take the
example of trees. Trees are phenomenal for many reasons, but one is that when
one is sick or a disease threatens their health - they will send extra strength
and healing through an underground system of roots and communication to those
in need! Plants have underground railroad systems of deep root
communication to take care of one another. Mycelium that make up fungi do this
for many other plant species too. We have so much to learn from the words of
God, the wisdom of God, woven into creation.
I want to end with
this image from our second reading tonight of all creation groaning in labor
pains. The brilliant Indian scholar and activist
Arundati Roy has said "another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On
a quiet day I can hear her breathing." Well I can not only hear her breathing
but groaning, wailing, and shouting as she both births and midwife's this new
world into being.
We are the body of earth groaning in labor pains. I can
hear her in the streets reminding us it is our duty to fight for our freedom,
it is our duty to win, we must love and support one another, we have nothing to
lose but our chains! I can hear her in the unapologetic proclamations that all
black lives matter. I can hear her in the chorus of #metoo and #timesup. I hear
her in the cries of our youth shouting Fire and sounding the alarm as the
climate crisis worsens. I can hear her in the indigenous resistance to the
destruction of sacred land and ecosystems. And I can hear these birth pains in
the beauty being created all around me and through me in resistance to these
systems of oppression and this culture rooted in lies that has spread disease
throughout the body of God and poisoned the soil.
But if you’ve ever seen a flower sprouting up through a
crack in the concrete, you know there is hope. There is a saying I learned in
Spanish from the freedom fighters in El Salvador, “se puede aplastar algunas
flores, pero no se puede detener la primavera.” They can crush a few flowers,
but they can’t stop the spring. There is power in community. Life is strong,
and resilient, and new seeds are being planted every day. May we do all we can
to cultivate the conditions of good healthy soil within us and the larger
ecosystem so that we too can help birth and midwife this new world into being.
