I. Introduction
What if God was earth?
If God is earth, then God is older than bones and yet constantly evolving. Then we would be as inextricably linked with the earth as we are with God and with each other. Then we really would bear the image of God because we come from the earth and are made of earthstuff.
If God is earth, then God is neither wholly transcendent nor wholly immanent, but instead just beyond ourselves, connecting us ever closer with each other. Then perhaps we would recognize that there’s no distinction between life and death or inorganic and organic—if God is earth, everything is alive.
But if God is earth, then who are we?
II. Exploring the Parable of the Sower
Our gospel text this afternoon is likely a familiar one. I haven’t done any kind of scientific studies on this, but I’m sure that if we were to do a Family Feud style kind of thing, we asked 100 people to name one of Jesus’ parables, top five answers are on the board, the Parable of the Sower would probably be up on that board. It’s a parable that appears in all three of the Synoptic Gospels—Mark, Matthew, and Luke—and, while there are some subtle differences between them (pro tip, check out Jewish scholar and activist Jessica Price’s website, betterparables.com for a great, in-depth study on this parable, which she calls Four Fates for Four Seeds), for the sake of today’s message, we’re going to look at the broad strokes here:
A sower goes out to sow some seeds.
Some seed falls on the path, and birds come and eat it.
Some seed falls in rocky soil, and it withers and dies for lack of roots.
Some seed falls among thorny plants, which choked them out.
Some seed falls in good soil, and it bears a fruitful harvest.
The lectionary today then skips over this lengthy section where Jesus talks about why he speaks in parables and jumps right to, in what is certainly a rarity, if not wholly exceptional for Jesus: a crystal clear, straight from the horse’s mouth, honest-to-goodness interpretation of the parable!
The seed is the word of God.
Some hear it and don’t understand it, the evil one will snatch them up.
This is the seed sown on the path.
Some hear it and receive it joyfully, but last for only a little while.
This is the seed sown on the rocky soil.
Some hear it but are choked out by wealth and worries of this life.
This is the seed sown among the thorny plants.
Some hear it, understand it, and produce and bear fruit.
This is the seed sown in the good soil.
I don’t know about you, but this is a parable that’s so familiar that I just kind of go on autopilot whenever I come across it. Oh yeah, the parable of the sower. We all know what that one’s about. There’s nothing left there for us to dig.
But if God is earth, then that would mean that even something that is seemingly static, dead, and inorganic is actually constantly changing, teeming with life.
If God is earth, that would mean that even these steady, still rocks and stones are singing out in full forte, as the molecules and atoms and quarks that make them up whirr and spin and vibrate in a beautiful polyphonic philharmonic symphony.
If God is earth, then even though we may think that her word is dead, it is still fully alive.
Because if God is earth, there’s always another layer to the story.
In my experience, the message of this parable has always been “make sure you are planted in good soil”. I remember hearing that same message preached at a conference youth event up in Liverpool back when I was in high school. Be a good seed and make sure you’re planted in good soil.
But when you really think about it, how messed up is that?
In this country, the greatest predictor of your health, wealth, and social standing is the zip code you’re born into. There are things about us that we absolutely cannot change. We cannot change the zip codes we are born into.
And no matter how many adaptions they evolve—like hard exterior shells that will survive the digestive tracts of animals or thin papery wings to be carried on the wind—a seed cannot control, on its own, where it is sown.
Is it the seed’s fault that it fell on the path?
Is it the seed’s fault that it fell on the rocky soil?
Is it the seed’s fault that it fell among thorny plants?
Is it to the seed’s credit that it fell on good soil?
And, if we dig a little bit deeper to uncover the motivation of this interpretation, the story behind the story, as it were, I wonder what we might find.
Yes, absolutely, building a strong network of support full of resources that you can depend on in your particular context is absolutely important.
But I wonder if telling a bunch of hormonal teenagers with pre-frontal cortexes not yet fully formed to “make sure you’re planted in good soil” veils a more sinister, manipulative message of “oh yeah, the evils of secularism are the path, the thorny plants, and the path, and we’re the good soil, and you want to make sure you never leave or stray away from us”.
But if God is earth, we wouldn’t seek to isolate ourselves in overly extracted monoculture crops designed for maximum yield and efficiency.
If God is earth, we would more fully understand our dependence on our neighbors beyond ourselves, because all of humanity bears God’s image and all of humanity comes from the earth.
III. Shifting Perspectives: We are the Sowers
So, maybe we’re not the seed and the lesson today is not “make sure you’re planted in good soil”, then where can we see ourselves in this parable? What is another lesson we can take away from this story?
But if God is the earth, then what if we are the sowers?
Well for one, that might mean that God is not the sower who is a little careless with the sowing of seed all willy-nilly. But we all know that we’re going to make some mistakes, letting seed fall where we maybe don’t want it.
If God is the earth, then we know that all three of the other soils can be redeemed.
After all, don’t the birds of the air deserve to have something to eat?
Don’t the rocks in the soil help control the flow of water?
Don’t the thorns act as a kind of natural barrier that can shield the crops?
And if we are the sower, isn’t it incumbent on us to prepare the soil to receive the seeds?
Isn’t it on us to till the soil?
Isn’t it on us to monitor its pH?
Isn’t it on us to incorporate rich, nutrient-dense compost into it?
Isn’t it on us to make sure that we cycle through the field as the seasons go by, letting portions of it lie fallow for a time to make sure that we don’t strip the soil dry of its resources?
Isn’t it on us to plan out our fields so that they are filled with a diversity of crops that help each other grow?
If God is earth, then of course we are the sowers, instructed by God to care for the earth. Instructed by God to steward the earth because this earth is all we have. Because if God is earth, then we wouldn’t entertain billionaires’ dreams of colonizing other planets because this earth and all that it contains would be enough. Because this earth and all that it contains is enough. We know that there is more than enough to go around for all of us—all 8 billion of us—as we share our lives together.
And if God is earth and God is our maker in whom we live, then perhaps we should stop saying we live on the earth and start saying we live in the earth. That we don’t exist outside of this delicate, carefully balanced ecosystem.
If God is earth and nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord, then nothing can separate us from the earth:
not death or life,
not angels or rulers,
not present things or future things,
not powers or height or depth,
or any other thing that is created.
IV. Caring for the Earth as Caring for God
And yet, I fear that for too long, too few of us have created and perpetuated systems that over-extract and exploit the earth and those who live in it.
Look at how we have treated the earth.
We draw lines on the earth and call them borders, often without any regard for the people who are living there. Then, send others to war to go and die for those borders, civilian casualties be damned. We create hell on earth, creating refugees in the process that we then arrest, detain, and torture for daring to cross those borders.
Our entire energy sector relies on extracting deep, buried resources from the earth, even if it means destroying mountains, poisoning water, and ending human lives. And lest we think the green, electric revolution is going to fix all that, I would encourage you to take a look at where the cobalt that powers the batteries in everything from our computers to our EVs comes from.
We practice agriculture in such a way that maximizes efficiency over sustainability, swapping small, localized farms for industrial plantations. Plant only one crop that will give you the most cash. Fill up all the land with the same seed. And when the earth has given all that it can and is dried out, pump the fields with fertilizer that will runoff into and contaminate the watershed. And when the dirt has turned to dust and the rains and fires come, there will be floods and wildfires.
We pave over the earth with asphalt so that we can have places to drive and park our cars in a never-ending attempt to feign independence, even if that means, again disrupting the ways that rich, fertile earth gave the rain somewhere to go.
If God is earth, look at how we have treated God.
And if we can be ok with treating God that way, of course we’re going to be ok with treating our fellow humans and all the rest of creation that way.
If God is earth, then of course the voices of the siblings whom we have exploited, oppressed, and killed or allowed to die are going to be crying out from the very ground all around us.
V. Taking Action and Living Responsibly
And so, if God is earth, how does that impact what holiness and righteousness lived out look like? What would it look like to defend the faith?
We have the power to shape the earth and mold it to our will. And while its arguable whether or not we can shape God and mold God to our will, our actions certainly have the power to shape how our neighbors perceive God. All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change.
Here's the thing. God will be what God will be. The earth will be what the earth will be. Over its four and some odd billion years of existence, it has looked like many things and taken many forms. It has been bombarded by asteroids. It has had magma for oceans. Continents have collided and separated more times than we know. And eventually, some organic, carbon-based molecules started to react with the environment around them and what we know as life emerged and has persisted ever since. If God is the earth, then we cannot kill the earth.
But just as we certainly can and have used the earth to destroy, we certainly can and have used God to do the same.
And so, if God is earth, then holiness and righteous living would look like living responsibly with respect to creation around us. Then loving God could only look like loving our neighbor, who is made from the same earthstuff as we are. It would mean awaking to the nightmare around us and taking steps to care for those who are suffering—after all, as Laura reminds us in Butler’s Parable of the Sower, “Taking care of others can be a good cure for nightmares”.
Because, while we might not have any say in where we are planted, we do have the power to band together in solidarity with those around us. To build robust networks of mutual accountability and mutual aid. We can work together to prepare and till the soil and water the crops and feed each other with the bounty we are given.
If God is earth, then there’s more to being a sower than just sowing some seeds.
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