In the age of cell phones and downloads, of Dr. Dre and Dr. Phil, of CIA, FBI, OMG and LOL are school children too sophisticated to enjoy the story of Johnny Appleseed? He was born John Chapman and for almost fifty years he went around planting apple trees, hence the nickname. His husbandry took him to Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, and apparently he did some work in Illinois. He died in 1845 and is buried in Fort Wayne, Indiana. No one is quite sure what motivated this strange career path. He was revered in his lifetime and remembered to this day for the simple act of going around and planting trees. There is a song we used to sing in Boy Scouts that supposedly goes back to Johnny Appleseed. “Oh, the Lord’s been good to me and so I thank the Lord for giving me the things I need the sun and the rain and the apple seed. Yes, the Lord’s been good to me.” Think about planting trees. As any gardener can tell you, planting anything is an act of faith. You put the seed in the ground, fertilize it and water it, and then you wait. There is nothing else you can do but wait. And, if conditions are right, no bugs or fungus, in a few months you’ll have a ripe, juicy tomato. Planting trees is similar only you have to stretch out the timeline. Instead of a few months, you have to think in terms of years before you can bite into that apple. Often those who plant a tree never get to enjoy it. Tree planters, like Johnny Appleseed, tell us that they do what they do in gratitude for those who went before them and planted trees that they enjoyed. They pay it forward. According to an ancient proverb, “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
Johnny Appleseed seems relevant for this Sunday because of the parable of the sower. “A sower went out to sow” Jesus begins. We too quickly jump to the end of the parable, to the explanation about the birds and the rocks and the thorns. We think about those things in our life which inhibit the word of God from taking root in our life. Those pesky birds of worry and anxiety. The rocks of resentment and grudges. The thorns of greed and selfishness. These certainly are things we need to eliminate from our lives. Anything that keeps us from letting the word of God’s love and mercy flourish in our hearts should be rooted out and tossed away. So fretting over the quality of our soil is not a useless activity. But I keep going back to the beginning of the parable. A sower went out to sow. In the original telling of the parable the emphasis did not seem so much to be on the problems, on the difficulties in living the Word but on the initial act of spreading the Word. If we center on being sowers, how would we need to change? Placing the focus on the problems and difficulties in letting the word of God grow and develop is not limited to our individual lives. We see a similar temptation to bemoan the state of the faith in the wider church. You hear all sorts of concerns about the fate of Catholicism. Maybe that is why Pope Francis has stuck a big sign to the front door of his Vatican apartment that reads: “No whining zone. Complaining is forbidden”. The sign says that “offenders are subject to a syndrome of victimhood that reduces their sense of humor and capacity to solve problems. To become your best self, you must focus on your own potential and not on your limits. So stop complaining and act to change your life for the better.”
A sower went out to sow. Jesus asks us to spread all around the good news that we have received. We are to be Johnny Appleseeds of grace. Yes, we are dried up and rock-filled and weed choked – but we still are charged with sowing the seed, with spreading the word, with bringing good news. How do we do that? There isn’t any predetermined method. We each spread the seed in our own way, according to the providence of our everyday lives. Take parents for example. The primary way they are charged to bring good news into our world is to sow the seed of love and values in their children. Then they wait. How that will bear fruit only time will tell. Or take your co-workers or fellow students or parishioners. You sow with them patience, understanding, cooperation. Then you wait. Whether they respond in kind is out of your hands. Your job is to be the one bringing the seed of grace into the situation. Or your neighbors. Sow with them peace, kindness, generosity. Then you wait. The seed of grace germinates in another person in God’s time, not ours.
Sowing the presence of God into our world was never more important. Even the most casual watching of the news can be discouraging. In our country and around the world there are wars and rumors of war. There is racism, class conflict, refugees, poverty, violence, and seemingly intractable political divisions. Not promising soil. But a sower went out to sow. That is our job as Christians. I was fascinated by a news item on Father’s Day. In Scottsburg, Indiana, right on I-65 just north of Louisville, a woman was in line at the drive-thru window at McDonald’s. She noticed a dad in the van behind her with four kids in the car. She told the McDonald’s cashier, “I’m going to pay for the father in the car behind me and I want you to tell him happy Father’s Day.” When the van pulled up and the man heard of the woman’s good deed, he paid for the car behind him… and each car kept the process going. Between 8:30pm to midnight, when McDonald’s closed, every car paid for the ones behind it. All total, 167 drivers “paid it forward” at the Scottsburg McDonald’s the evening of Father’s day 2017. One person sowed a seed. It took root and bore fruit, thirty, sixty and 167 fold. Johnny Appleseed planted trees not for his own benefit but for others. Parents, co-workers, neighbors plant seeds to make their world a better place. Today every one of us will have the opportunity to sow a seed of God’s grace by how we live and what we do. A sower went out to sow.
