Humusology

A sermon delivered to St. Timothy Lutheran Church,
 Charleston WV

July 13, 2014

Based on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

The Parable of the Sower

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. ² And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. ³ And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. ⁵ Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, ⁶ but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. ⁷ Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸ Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹ He who has ears, let him hear.” 

The Parable of the Sower Explained

¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. ²⁰ As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, ²¹ yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. ²³ As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” (ESV)

The Gospel of the Lord!

Grace to you and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

When I was completing my Master’s degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I also worked at Trinity College across the road, on the Grounds Crew. Here’s a picture of me on my mobile office during the time.

 That’s my daughter Leah assisting me (She’s now 35 years old! Parents, they do grow up! )

In addition to mowing the grounds, part of my job was taking care of the plants and flowers around campus – mostly a pretty good job if you like gardening, but with one rather significant drawback – the native soil at the college looked like this:

Hard packed clay. Even the weeds had a hard time coming up in it! Needless to say, this was not the most ideal medium to plant flowers in. It’s like trying to get something to grow in the pot with no soil at all!

So, we had a challenge to get things to grow – and I think we succeeded rather nicely. Here’s a picture of a large bed of Verbena plants after we improved the soil. (That’s Leah again modeling for us.)

Looks beautiful and lush – a veritable carpet of color….What you don’t see is what we had to do to produce this kind of result: dig out all the clay soil with a backhoe/front end loader, install drain pipes and then create  a nice crumbly, well-drained soil with lots of nutrients for the flowers to feed on.

Once the flowers were planted, we added fertilizer and watered it regularly. And because we gave those plants every advantage to thrive –  they rewarded our efforts by growing into a beautiful display – a hundredfold return on our investment! 

Well, I think this was rather what Jesus had in mind in telling the parable of the soils. The soil is an overt metaphor of our heart condition. But as we start out, there is something of a paradox to note: Soil is supposed to represent our spiritual condition – and by implication, we are held responsible for the condition of our heart. But the last time I checked, soil doesn't actually do anything to itself to improve. 

When I walked the grounds of Trinity College I didn't see great swatches of ground undergoing self-improvement projects. There were no little shovels toiling away to aerate that impenetrable clay.  No, -  soil is basically passive. If it’s going to improve, something has to be done to it – either naturally over time, or ‘unnaturally’, by the aid of human beings. In other words, we have to do something to our hearts to improve their condition!

So what I’d like to propose is that we do a little study of soil and its improvement so that we can draw parallels with our spiritual lives and understand some things we can do to improve the soil of our hearts.

 And I’d like to propose that we call this study ‘Humusology” after the Latin word for ‘earth’ or soil – where we get our word for Humility – the essential condition for us to be ‘Hundredfold Souls’ – People who yield a hundredfold spiritually.

Recipe for Good Soil 

So, I understand that a recipe for good soil is basically an equal mix of three elements: Humus, Sand and Compost. The mix is important. Too much compost and the active decay of the organic material might burn your plants. Too much sand and all the water drains out quickly. Too much humus, and the plants won’t have enough nutrients to grow.

Let’s look at each element a little more closely:

Humus is basically the part of organic waste that has broken down as far as possible and has become very stable – but also rather sterile. It remains part of the soil for hundreds of years and can only be destroyed by an intense fire.

Sand is pretty self-explanatory. It’s what you get when rocks break down into smaller grains. 

And compost is what you get when organic stuff such as leaves and grass clippings break down. At Trinity College, we made compost in 9- foot wide bins, and turned it periodically with the backhoe/front end loader until it had broken down into a rich dark substance that looks and feels like coffee grounds. That’s the fast way.

You can also pile up your organic materials in a pile and let it sit there for a year or two and then sift it to get the same product. It’s great stuff and it makes every gardener   

happy, happy, happy.

Mother Nature makes soil, in a slow, but rather amazing process that can be seen in these pictures I took in my back yard.

Much of the soil in WV was built up like this:  Weather erodes and cracks the rock, creating bits of sand – into which plant seeds fall and begin to grow. The plants help to break down the rock and create organic waste as they grow and die.

Vines can trap the organic material and hold it, allowing it to mix with the bits of sand and eventually create a soil. In this picture we can see that soil has been held vertically against the rock face.

 Trees can then take root and further contribute to this process. 

Eventually you get a lush forest.

Now, of course, this is only the briefest scratch on the surface of soil science, but it’s good enough for our purpose – and that is to help us understand how to be Hundredfold Souls: those who are truly Humble – down to earth- and who produce an abundant harvest in God’s kingdom.

To be humble is a First Principle of the Spiritual Life. It’s not an option. Either you voluntarily get with the program, or it will be done to you, just like it says in Luke 14:11: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Humility starts with reckoning correctly about: Myself and God. [slide] Psalm 100 (v.3) puts it very eloquently: “Know that the LORD, he is God!  It is he who made us, and not we ourselves…”

The Humble person knows that, like soil, we did not make ourselves, but that we were made by Him, and that only in Him, do we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

The Humble person also knows that we live “In Conspectu Dei” –‘in the sight of God’ and that because of this, we have a healthy respect or ‘fear’ of God and his opinion of us and our actions. At the same time, living in the sight of God means living in the LOVE of God.

This Creator God LIKES us and wants us to succeed in becoming Hundredfold Soil people! He knows that we are essentially weak - that we can’t really do anything truly Good on our own, - and that we are stupid, like sheep.

 But we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture (Psalm 100:3).  He is our Shepherd (Ps. 23) and he will guide us even in the darkest of times.

So, with all that as background, I’d like to suggest that our three basic soil components can be matched with three basic spiritual practices to assist in our journey to Humility. 

Silence – links with Humus

Prayer – links with Sand

Holy Reading – links with Compost

Silence

Remember what we said about Humus? It is the organic part of the soil that is the stable because it has finished the decomposition process. Practicing Silence is like tapping into the ‘Ground of our Being – God Himself.” It is where we find the essence of our existence – the pure nakedness of being. It is in quiet listening that we confront our own inner noise, and connect with God face to face. But for that very reason, practicing Silence is scary, especially for those of us tied to our digital devices.

On July 3, just 10 days ago, Yahoo news reported on related studies done by the University of Virginia and Harvard University about how people respond to spending time alone (http://news.yahoo.com/time-alone-many-rather-hurt-themselves-185257727.html). Here’s the opening line of the article:

“Many people would rather inflict pain on themselves than spend 15 minutes in a room with nothing to do but think…” !!! 

 “Researchers asked [people] to sit alone in an unadorned room, with no mobile phone, reading or writing materials, and then report back on what it was like to entertain themselves with their thoughts for between six and 15 minutes. Turns out, more than 57 percent found it hard to concentrate and 89 percent said their minds wandered. About half found the experience was unpleasant. …

Then researchers wondered how far students would go to seek some stimulation while sitting alone with their thoughts… each subject went into a room for 15 minutes of thinking time alone. They were told [if the silence became too uncomfortable] they had the opportunity to shock themselves…

[Two-thirds of the male subjects …gave themselves between one and four shocks while they were alone.]

A quarter of the women … decided to shock themselves, each between one and nine times.

All of those who shocked themselves had previously said they would have paid to avoid it!”

Silence can be very uncomfortable! And those who have tried to practice it over the centuries are no stranger to this fact. Yet, at the same time, sitting in silence is where we hear from God, 

just as the Psalmist says,”For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Him comes my salvation.’(Psalm 62:1) Learning to be comfortable in silence is like tapping into the stable part of your internal soil, the place where you can rest and find renewal. It’s a vital practice for those who wish to become Hundredfold Soil people.

Prayer- the Grit of Daily Life

Moving on, let’s consider Prayer as Sand. Sand, as we all know, is gritty. In the wrong place – like your gas tank, sand can be very destructive. A Sand storm can do great harm.

Yet ‘sand-blasting’ can rescue a rusty old piece of metal and return it to service as a shiny, almost-new wrought-iron fence or car body.

It’s the abrasive quality of sand that we both fear and admire. And that’s why I’m likening Prayer to Sand. I call it the ‘grit of daily life’ because one of the best ways to pray is in a daily rhythm – day in day out, morning and evening, persevering through thick and thin, making a habit of seeking the Lord for His will and His strength in all things. Moreover, the Goal of Prayer is to KNOW God.

We've talked about Silence already, and it’s readily apparent that in Silence we spend time with God, we listen and we talk to him about our joys and concerns. But I’d also like to talk with you a little about the value of corporate prayer because as a culture, we've become so individually focused that we tend to discount the value of praying with others in a formal way.

Early in Church History, the Desert Fathers and mothers read these words in Psalm 119:164: “Seven times a day I praise you…” and they thought “It would probably be a good idea to actually do that!” Out of this conviction came the “Liturgy of the Hours”, a series of ‘offices’ or corporate prayer services, based on key hours of the day.

 Each one of these offices has a particular theme and particular Scripture verses, corresponding to the ‘need of the hour’ as it were: 

At 2 am, in the middle of the night, comes ‘Vigils’ with its theme of attentive and expectant “Keeping Watch” for the coming of the ‘dawn from on High”, Jesus Christ. 

At Daybreak, ‘Lauds’ (Latin:‘Praise’) is celebrated.  It’s a service of praising God as a new day dawns. 

At 6 am comes “Prime” – or the First Hour of the day as it was reckoned by the old Roman system. Its theme is Adoration and dedicating one’s day to God. 

 9 am signals Terce, the third hour, with its request for strength to meet the challenges of the day. 

12 noon is called Sext, the ‘sixth’ hour, when Jesus was nailed to the cross. It’s obvious theme is conflict and the apparent triumph of darkness over light. 

None, the ninth hour comes round at 3 pm our time. Its theme is Perseverance in the heat of the day, through the difficulties of the day. 

At 6 pm or thereabouts, Vespers celebrates the fulfillment of Christ’s finished work on the cross and returns thanks for that work.

Finally around 9 pm, Compline marks the completion of the day and re-dedication of oneself to the Lord as we submit to the mini-death of sleep. 

As the Liturgy of the Hours moves proceeds each day, a similar thematic pattern can be seen across the week, always beginning again with the Lord’s Day, and the celebration of the Resurrection, the central truth of our Faith. 

We in the Liturgical tradition are very familiar with the Seasons of the Church year as well, which traces Christ’s life and ministry through Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. 

These thematic patterns are similar to the gears of a fine hand-made watch, which interlock and reinforce each other as the tick along. 
While we don’t have any more time to explore this now, I encourage you to Google ‘Liturgy of the Hours’ for more about this ancient spiritual practice. 

Holy Reading: Composting the ‘Organic Material’ of Life 

Our last practice is Holy Reading (‘Lectio Divina’ in Latin).  . 

This is first and foremost understood as the daily reading of God’s Word. It’s a slow and deliberate process of reading a passage until something ‘stands out’ or speaks to me. Then, I slowly mediate on this like a cow chewing its cud, asking what I hear God saying to me about my own life and about God’s kingdom life. Praying, I respond, to what I have heard, hopefully saying ‘Yes’ to what God is doing in my life. In the process, I allow myself to be conformed into the Image of God’s Son, Jesus Christ (contemplation).
  
The necessary precondition for Holy Reading is the willingness to enter into my own discomfort – to look at the things that might be decaying in my life, and need to be infused with Christ’s life. I call this “Composting the Organic Material of Daily Life’ – and as the image implies, it may be an odiferous process.

As we noted previously, decaying organic matter becomes compost. This is living stuff which heats up as it dies and decays –and makes a stink while doing so. It’s a pretty good picture of the suffering and struggle of our lives. It’s smelly, messy business; painful to live through. We’d rather run away from it, but if we can submit to the process, the Lord uses it to create richness and depth in our souls.

It should be noted that to feel dry or arid during this composting process is normal and to be expected. Nothing spiritually valuable happens in our lives, but that it is hot, stinky and difficult.

Our constant comfort in the midst of this pain is that Jesus is with us always – even when we don’t feel his Presence.

 He told us he would ‘never leave us or forsake us’, that he would always be with us, even to the end of the age. (Deut. 31:6; Mt. 28:18-20) It’s this great Truth that we strive to hold on to as we share in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, and one that will ultimately reward us with the Knowledge of Him, and the power of his resurrection. (Phil. 3:10: “…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”).

So there we have it, Humusology 101, the down and dirty guide to becoming Hundredfold Souls

– those who ‘hear the word and understand it, who bear fruit and yield thirty, sixty or even a hundredfold harvest of the ‘fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God “(Phil 1:11).

May God, who intends this great thing for us, also give us the power to fulfill it in the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN. 

As our prayer response to this message, let us stand and sing the hymn, “Simple Gifts’. 

1) Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 
  'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd, 
  To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight, 
  Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

2) Tis the gift to be giving, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to give love as it ought to be,
And when we give ourselves in the place just right, 
  'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true humility is gain'd, 
  To serve one another we shan't be asham'd,
To serve, serve will be our delight, 
  Till by serving, serving we come 'round right.

3) Tis the gift of the Spirit, 'tis the gift given free
'Tis the gift to love God as he ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 
  'Twill be our Salvation, our love and delight.
When true felicity is gain'd, 
  To bless our Creator we shan't be asham'd,
To bless, bless will be our delight, 
  Till by blessing, blessing we come 'round right.