Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
November 9, 2025

Sermon

Camille Cook Howe
Pastor

Genesis 1:26–31
Mark 4:1–9

A few weeks ago we were at the Children’s Museum of Chicago, and there was a table where children could build their own seed packets. They picked the seeds they wanted and then mushed them into some wet biodegradable paper. You formed a little ball, spritzed it with water, and then put into a Ziploc bag. There were instructions for what to do at home to plant and care for the seeds. My son lovingly and earnestly picked flower seeds, shaped it together into a ball, and looked at me with delight, saying, “Mom, we can have a garden!” I was skeptical that the mush in his hand would ever blossom into flowers, but I smiled and nodded. Then this week, you know what I found in my purse? The Ziploc bag. The wet ball of fresh seeds now looked like a tiny lifeless pellet with absolutely no future. I felt some combination of regret and remorse holding that pitiful little bag. It could have been a garden — with some vision and some effort and some investment and some love. It could have blossomed and grown. It could have taught my son, and myself for that matter, that gardens grow, and with our own hands it can be so. Such was not to be the case for those seeds.

Mark’s Gospel includes three parables about seeds: the one read today about the sower, one about the rapid growth of the seed, and then the famous mustard seed parable. All of these stories are intended to capture our imagination. All of the parables are supposed to help us think in new ways and explore the mysteries of God’s word preached to people by the lakeside, on the green grass, from the front of the boats, in the midst of their normal lives. Jesus wanted to capture the imagination of the people by using relatable stories to try to activate their hearts and minds and imaginations and hopes for the future.

Barbara Brown Taylor said, “If we want to speak of heavenly things, we may begin by speaking about earthly things, and if we want to describe that which is beyond all words, we may begin with words we know such as: man, woman, field, seed, bird, air, bread, sea, fish, joy. … The kingdom is like these things; the kingdom is found in these things. … If we cannot find the kingdom here we will never find it anywhere, for earth is where the seeds of heaven are sown” (Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven).

I hear those words and again I feel badly about that Ziploc bag of seeds that will never be planted, the garden that will never grow. And I wonder just how many times I miss these parables in front of me. How often do my skeptical lenses, my hurried lifestyle, or my own problems get in the way of seeing the kingdom of God that is around me?

If you read today’s text with the wrong lenses, then what you see is someone going around throwing seeds all over the place in a pretty poor and ineffective manner. Some might say the sower in this text was irresponsible, indiscriminate, wasteful, or perhaps just overly optimistic. Is that what we would say about Jesus: too excessive in his compassion, too indiscriminate in his forgiveness, too generous with the words of his sermons? Should Jesus not have been more considered in how he spent his time and where he shared his words in order to maximize yield?

Or is that just our consumer-minded, efficiency mindset approach to things, wondering about the return on investment with how the seeds were being distributed and where the seeds were landing? Obviously before you go scattering seeds, you would want to survey the land and level the ground and till the soil and add some fertilizer. This is not great stewardship of the seeds, if you ask me!

And this is why we need Jesus. Because Jesus has a whole different approach to life, a whole different approach to faith, a whole different approach to giving. With Jesus, faith and love and grace are not doled out in small measures to the chosen few. The kingdom of God is open and expansive and extravagant! The way Jesus lived and taught was like the sower who scatters the seeds of goodness, compassion, and salvation everywhere, all the time, not counting the cost, not worrying the seeds did not take root but rejoicing where seedlings sprouted, and faith took hold, and growth happened, and joy was shared.

We like to focus on the birds, the rocks, and thorns and count up the seeds that never grew into trees and flowers. But Jesus tells this story as good news, with positive and hopeful outcomes. He said, “Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’”

This is a good news story. So forget about the birds, forget about the rocks, forget about the thorns. Instead look to the places where the kingdom of God is alive and growing on earth!

In Westminster Abbey in London there is a tablet in honor of Canon Samuel A. Barnett who worked on improving the social conditions of the people living in the overcrowded slums in East London. On the tablet honoring Barnett is the carved figure of a sower who is walking through fields and lavishly sowing seeds. Next to the figure are the words “Fear not to sow on account of the birds.” There were plenty of birds in the slums of East London, but still Barnett worked faithfully. And through the years, the seeds did take root, and his ministry did flourish, and the kingdom of God grew, and his impact remains today. With his life and his faith, Barnett believed gardens could grow.

As we think about stewardship season, I encourage us to hear those words to us: “Fear not to sow on account of the birds.” The birds are the reasons not to give to the church this year, not to be generous and hopeful about the church in these times, not to invest in the future of the place with our time and our resources. The fear of the birds keeps us holding tightly rather giving and trusting and sharing.

Some say, “I don’t want to give to the church, because what I can give is small and it won’t make a difference.”

Some say, “That church is on Michigan Avenue. It has lots of money; I’ll give elsewhere.”

Some say, “That church has been running a deficit budget, so clearly they don’t know how to manage their money. I’m not giving them anything.”

Some say, “I don’t know about this new pastor. Maybe I’ll give next year.”

Some say, “This church does not do as much as I want it to do. Until I see improvements, count me out.”

Those are all reasons not to give to the church. But they are not necessarily reasons rooted in faith modeled after the hopeful, generous, and compassionate work of Jesus. Fourth Church does extraordinary things with many very generous people supporting our work — people who are here today and people who have gone before us. Yet we still have strides to make in balancing the annual budget and then growing so we can expand our ministry. Many of you have already sent in generous pledges, and some have increased your pledges from last year. Thank you! Last year, only 27 percent of our congregation pledged, and about 50 percent of our members made financial gifts to the church. What we need is for everyone who is a member of this church, those who have been members for months or for decades, to be part of the work of this place. All of us are called, in faith and hope, to invest in this place. Even though there are birds around and reasons not to give.

“Fear not to sow on account of the birds.” Giving takes faith. Giving takes hope. Giving takes vision. A vision that with the seeds we sow and with the example of Jesus before us there could be a garden. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” The work we do together, big or small, in the name and spirit of Jesus will not be in vain. That will give us courage in the coming year. That will fill us with hope in the coming year. That will help us to know that even our humble offerings can work together for good!

Thanks be God.

Amen.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church