Lasagna Gardening

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
July 13, 2008; 9th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23) -- Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!"

"Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."

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A friend was telling me last week about starting a new garden. She used the lasagna method, where you layer various kinds of organic material, like making a lasagna. Then you let it sit and bake, and it creates rich soil. With this method of gardening, you don't do the back breaking work of pulling out the grass and weeds, digging the soil and moving the rocks. Instead you start by covering the ground, grass and all, with at least five layers of old newspapers. Then you build the layers on top of that. My friend used layers of recycled grass clippings and mulched leaves to create tiers of yard waste. She added garbage and refuse from their kitchen. Some topsoil. She said she got some horse manure from her Bishop. That opened to door for a few wisecracks. The whole thing was pretty messy and kind of ugly. She and her husband worked through much of the summer to get the entire patch ready by fall and before winter. It was important to keep the whole mixture moist and watered. Finally they covered the concoction with mulch and let it work and decay during the fall and all winter long. And they waited. Deep in the hidden, underground darkness, nature did its invisible business. Gradually the material broke down. The natural process transformed the layers of material. Finally, when spring came, it was ready. They planted seeds and seedlings which took root in the rich, fertile soil, and produced a bountiful garden.

Today's parable from Matthew's gospel is usually called the parable of the seeds. It might better be named the parable of the soil. The life and fruitfulness of the seed is entirely dependent upon the soil. If the soil is hard and unbroken, the seeds can't start. If it is shallow and rocky, the roots can't go deep. If the soil has weedy thorns, the seeds get choked out. If the soil is rich, there is abundant life.

The parable makes an apt metaphor for our lives. We are the ground of God's planting. Most of us have rocky places in our souls and hearts; most of us have some choking thorns in our history and our behaviors. All of us have fertile places in our lives where we welcome the processes of spiritual rootedness which promotes life and growth and fruitfulness in us and through us. There are many layers in the soil of our souls.

How does the soil of our souls become fertile?

One conventional image of spiritual growth imagines us getting our lives straightened out. We imagine that we need to clean up our act. Some people avoid churches because they think it's mostly about appearances -- that Christianity is mostly about looks -- looking like a Christian, and in their minds that is a cleaner, neater look than they are comfortable with.

But fertile life is messy. Abundant life makes use of the dead clippings and manure and even the scandalous stories that may make the newspaper. When all of that mess and junk is brought before God and watered with the transformative waters of baptism; when it is brought to God, piled up and given to God in faith; the deep, dark mysterious work of the Spirit happens. The old stuff is broken down to become the medium for new life and abundance. Death and resurrection happens.

Many of you have heard me talk about the mysterious process of healing that happens through the practice of contemplation. Thomas Keating, teaching Centering Prayer, says that while we sit with God in trusting silence, letting go of our attachment to thoughts and feelings, the Spirit works in the depths, below our thoughts and feelings, to unravel the emotional knots and to heal the hurts of a lifetime. Underground "divine therapy."

Many of you may remember the study on forgiveness that we've done a couple of times as a Lenten program. It's based on the book "Forgiveness: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Get on With Your Life" by Sidney and Suzanne Simon. Suzanne allows her own story of being sexually molested by her father to be the narrative for the journey of forgiveness. The process is not unlike the lasagna garden. It has layers. There is a stage of denial, when we cope by forgetting or ignoring the pain from the past. There is a layer of self-blame. There is a stage of being the victim, where we gain energy from our pity. There is the anger and indignation stage. Finally when you realize you are a survivor, you mulch the rich deadness of your hurt and denial and self-blame and victimhood and indignation beneath the realization that you have survived. And healing happens. Forgiveness happens, almost like a gift. You let go of the heavy rock you have carried for so long, you put down the emotional weight you have nurtured toward that other person and let them go. Life opens up and becomes fertile, hopeful, abundant in a new way.

Suzanne Simon now recognizes that some of the skills she developed while trying to survive in a threatening childhood environment have given her the gifts that make her an exceptional, intuitive listener as she helps others through their emotional traumas. As a child she became acutely aware of shifts in her father's mood which could signal danger for her; now she uses that same awareness in her professional practice to help heal others. As she looks back at her story, there was hard work involved in moving through the layers of coping and hurt; and there was quiet grace present as the meaning of her past was transformed and healed.

Part of good gardening is work. There is some sweat and effort necessary to bring the right organic elements together in a context that will promote healthy growth -- layering and watering and mulching.

Part of good spiritual growth is work. We take the time to bring to God all of the messy parts of our life; we add the fertilizer of the wisdom and insights of the scripture and tradition; we layer the rhythm of our pilgrimage offering our time in community and our time alone, time in service and time in prayer. We cover it all with the profound mystery of the weekly Eucharist, demanding our regular attention to the Spirit's watering of our souls.

Part of good gardening is waiting. Trusting in the invisible, mysterious, natural power of creation to work its miraculous recreation below the surface. Watching respectfully the movements of seasons and weather, of day and night, warm and cool, storm and peace -- the interrelationship of all things together in an ecological whole that is just the way it is.

Part of the spiritual life is waiting. Trusting in the invisible, mysterious, loving power of the divine who is always working below the surface to bring life out of death, healing out of hurt, wholeness out of brokenness. Watching respectfully the movements of the liturgical seasons and biblical stories, the patterns of return and renewal, of confession and forgiveness, of fervor and aridity, of faith and doubt, of desert and mountaintop -- the interrelationship of all things working together for good in God who is just who God is.

Maybe it is more than coincidence that the story of scripture is bounded by gardens. Earthly life begins in the garden of Eden; in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus embraces the dark destiny of his death; he is buried in a tomb in a garden, and on the third day when he is raised, Mary Magdalene thinks he is the gardener; the concluding book of Revelation imagines a tree of life in the paradise of God yielding her fruit every month, her leaves for the healing of the nations.

In some sense, we are all gardeners, and our life is the soil of the Spirit. Day by day and week by week we bring our stuff -- our refuse and our waste; our stories and our hopes. We give it all to God, layer by layer. We water it with Baptism and mulch it with Eucharist. And we wait in hopeful trust, letting the dark mystery of God work invisibly in our depths to transform our lives and make ready our hearts. Then in time, some seed takes root. And we become the abundant garden of God's fruitfulness, willing to offer our gifts and fruits for the nurture and healing of the world.

It is in one sense absolutely ordinary. As ordinary as dirt. Yet in another sense it is utterly miraculous. The miracle of life from death.

You are God's garden and God's gardener. Prepare the soil. Bring all the clippings and garbage and manure. It's okay to get your hands dirty. Don't forget to water. Cover and wait. Trust. Hope. Somewhere below the surface transformation is happening. And then a seed takes root. It digs down and finds sustenance. Quietly, naturally, something comes to bud. And before long it grows, "some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen."

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(Thanks to Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows for the story about her garden. Jennifer is the rector of Grace Church in Syracuse, N.Y. and chaplain to Syracuse University)

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