Seventh Sunday of Pentecost, July 12, 10:30am
Sermon: Rootless
Accompanying Scripture: Matthew 13 : 1 – 9, 18 – 23

Rootless
Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23 7/12/2026

For many years I proudly used my compost pile. I used a careful mix of brown and green. I put foot scraps in it to avoid sending them to the landfill. I turned it as often as I found time to, which wasn’t often, yet, it heated up as was intended. After many years of faithful use, I made a huge discovery: my compost pile moved!

One day I poked around in the pile and discovered a variety of tiny bugs moving through the compost. I later learned that they digested the brown and green and left behind rich soil.

What an amazing world we live in, I marveled. That we can use our left-over trees and grass and food and tiny bugs convert them to soil. When God created the world, God thought of everything.

This morning, Jesus tells a parable of a sower who tosses seed will-nilly on the ground, on the rocks, on paths pressed down from hundreds of people walking on it. Even the birds partake of this lavish, extravagant handout.

We may well ask what it all means, only for Matthew to explain it to us. Most of the seed was wasted because it was rootless. And Jesus describes what happens when people become rootless in their faith.

So, we have a parable and the explanation. What more is there?

On a recent hiking trip, I noticed a tree growing up through a rock. The rock was about six feet high and ten feet wide and ten feel deep. This was a boulder of sizeable proportions. On second look I realized that a long time ago a seed had dropped in a crevice of the rock and miraculously grew. It put roots down and eventually split the rock in half. A seed, fallen on the rock, didn’t die and wasn’t snatched away by birds.

Where it found enough soil to exist I don’t understand. But, I do know that I will return to that hiking trail so I can study it some more.

Faith is like that. Most of the time it grows in the rich soil of Biblical study, meditation, and discussion. Once in awhile it comes to life with no explanation at all. I’ve met people who don’t attend church display deep faith, while meeting church goers who don’t get it.

So, does that mean we don’t need the church? Should we disband, close the building and go our own way? I think not. And I say this not because I want to continue getting paid, but because of my own experience watching people work out their faith.

When you open the Bible for the first time, you may find you don’t know where to begin. The Bible is a library of sixty-six books each written with a specific purpose in mind. The dates of the authorship of these books ranges from hundreds of years before Christ was born to roughly sixty years after his resurrection.

This library is filled with various kinds of literature: wisdom, poetry, law, history, parables, letters, and apocryphal.

Where do we begin? Perhaps at the front of the Bible with Genesis. It’s an amazing book, filled with God’s activities. We move into Exodus with stories of the escape from Egypt, and the sojourn in the wilderness. It reads like a good novel. Then we come to Leviticus. This is the instruction book for building the tabernacle and designing the worship implements. And that’s when we slow down, set the book down, promising to return. Some day.

The Psalms might be a good place to begin. These poems that are found at the exact center of the Bible mark every emotion humanity can feel. Anger, even at God. Moroseness, disappointment, depression, hopelessness. Consider the Psalms filled with joy and hope. The ones that give God the glory for creating humanity, and creating everything we see and don’t see.

I’ve met people who spent time in prison with a Bible, reading the Proverbs. This is wisdom literature that resonates today.

If the Old Testament doesn’t entice you, perhaps the New Testament will. The gospels are a great place to begin, reading about Jesus’ actions and teachings. We move into Acts, where we read about the Holy Spirit’s actions.

Then the letters. Some were written by Paul, some were authored by others. They are also filled with wisdom. Paul, especially, tells us how to live in a world that doesn’t agree with your faith tradition.

Finally, the Revelation of John. It’s cryptic. If read literally, you risk having bad dreams for days.

Then there’s the question of translation. There are too many to choose from. Which one is the best? Again, we all have our favorites. Many of us two or three different translations we refer to.

Have I lost you, yet? Am I speaking to some of the questions you have?

For those who are enjoying the rich soil of Bible Study, I’m thrilled for you. For those of you who feel rootless, there’s hope. You are not alone.

In the early 20th Century, Bible reading was common in the home. Prayers were said before every meal and at bedtime. It was a way of life. By the time I arrived on the planet, Bible reading in the home had disappeared, although prayers at dinner and bedtime were still important.

I tried reading to my son when he was little. I had a Children’s Bible storybook and got through about half of it. Then life intervened and somehow we never got back to it. I attended Sunday school all my life and learned something. But it was later in life when I picked up my Bible and read it cover to cover. Even Leviticus and Revelation!

Sound familiar?

Our Youth and Children’s Director, Hailey Pacheco, is working with our youth, helping them to understand the Bible and learn how to read it. They have come a long way.

So I wonder about our adults? Do you need help? Are you wishing you had someone or something to point you in a direction?

Do you wonder what the Bible says about violence, or sex, or marriage? What does it say about living in a chaotic world? How did Jesus speak truth to power?

You know, I’m not sure if we’re the soil or seed. What I do know, is that Jesus was trying to teach the crowds how to listen in a new way. Through parables, he taught them to the world through their everyday lives; to see and feel God working in them.

And I can’t keep thinking about the birds who ate the seed. You see, I have a beautiful accidental vine growing in my front garden. A seed was probably dropped there by a bird. And it’s growing. I only wish the bird had aimed a bit more to the left! The vine is trying to take over one of my bushes!

I don’t think the Sower is frivolous with the seed. He’s a lavish and generous sower giving one and all a chance to listen and hear. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don’t. I trust I’ll meet my creator someday with more questions than answers. But, everyday I give thanks that God gives me another day to work out my faith and my salvation.

Rootless? No, I don’t think any of us are that. Day be day, we exist to hear God’s voice, sometimes with great gladness and full hearing, other days with a nearly deaf ear.