“St. Johnny Appleseed” Sunday, April 3, 2011 The Rev. Dr. W. Frederick Wooden

Fountain Street Church 24 Fountain St., NE Grand Rapids, MI 49503 www.fountainstreet.org

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To the reader: This sermon was only part of a service of worship with many components working together, all of which were designed to be experienced in a community context. In our "free pulpit" tradition, its concepts are intended not as truths to receive, but as spurs to your own thought and faith.

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“St. Johnny Appleseed” Readings Reading from Mark 4 Behold, there went out a sower to sow: And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds of the air came and devoured it up. And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell among thorns, the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And other fell on good ground, did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, some a hundred. He said unto them, He that has ears to hear, let him hear.

“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.” - Albert Camus

“Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.” - Jose Marti “It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.” - John Steinbeck “Even after all this time, The sun never says to the earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with A love like that. It lights the whole sky. - Hafiz of Persia

***** Sermon Terry Jones is at it again, the evangelical who threatened to burn a Qur’an, and this time did. He is a classic bully. But the Afghan authorities are as well. Each baited the other and created a perfect storm of hate. Locally, here in Grand Rapids a new café is not even open yet, but its planned mural which includes Che Guevara is getting 3

hate mail. That Ronald Reagan is also in the mural is not mentioned. Inviting targets for dudgeon, very tempting indeed. But not today. Sunday is for hope, and so I say once again “May these words of my mother and the meditations of my heart be found true in thy sight, thou who art my rock and my redeemer.” This year I am reclaiming Jesus as a religious liberal, whose words and deeds challenged established orthodoxies (which means he freed minds), gave guidance and support to the perplexed (which means he grew souls) and told people to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and other good things (which means he changed the world). You see this in his parables, which seem like fables or allegories, but they have paradoxical results. We have heard him say that God exalts the sinner over the righteous, celebrates dishonorable sons and ignores good ones, and this week that God is a lousy farmer. We are so used to these stories we don’t see the incongruities now, aspects that people 2000 years ago saw and which made the parables provocative then. In this case, the parable of the sower is now just an allegory of the gospel, and how only a few will really ‘get it.’ But step back and notice something even a poor Jewish peasant in Roman Palestine would have seen right away: real farmers prepare land. They plow and weed and remove the rocks. But this sower just goes blithely about throwing seed anywhere. Ancient peasants did not waste seed. It was too expensive, so they made every effort to get the best yield. Nor do they plant without harvesting. The sower does not bother to water or weed, or in any way tend what has been planted. Something else that would have annoyed ancient peasants. To the farmers who first heard it, the story made no sense. If the sower was a farmer, that is. But what if the sower was not a true farmer? For ten years I lived in Central Massachusetts, starting with the last great recession in 1981. The biggest town in our area was Leominster, which was locally famous for two things. One was Foster Grant sunglasses, but by 1986 the company had picked up and moved on. That left only one great claim, the birthplace of Johnny Appleseed. You know the legend, and some of it is true. He did exist, and traveled Ohio and Indiana planting apple trees along the way. He did live very frugally, almost in penury. He did not wear a pot on his head though, and did not simply scatter seed willy-nilly. But he did plant apple trees, and all over the place, and not for himself but for others. This story offers another meaning of the parable and also the mission of the liberal church. I say that because if liberal religion is about freeing the mind, growing the soul, and changing the world, the question remains: How should that happen? Start with what it is not, and that means the usual interpretation of the parable. The Christian church sees itself as a farmer whose mission is to ‘gather in the sheaves.’ And it has planted lots of “farms” where souls are weeded and watered and fenced in to make ready for the great harvest to come. 4

But the sower is not trying to grow grain for the harvest but trees that will provide fruit for those nearby. It is as much about this world as a next. The liberal church in all its forms exists to plant not harvest. Our faith is that truth, love and justice can grow anywhere. But it has to be planted there. Our mission is to see that those seeds get planted. Like Johnny Appleseed and the biblical sower, we do not fence our seedlings in because they are intended to grow and produce fruit and even seed new trees. Some will thrive and others will not. That’s a fact, not a moral judgment. The mission of the liberal church is to better this world by planting seeds all over the place, not just in safe little plots with fences and furrows. From time to time we celebrate new members in worship. The words we use say that everyone here is a disciple, meaning we are ever learning. We also say that everyone is an apostle, a messenger with wisdom others need and deserve. We also then say something really strange. Everyone is the messiah. That’s right, everyone can save the world. None of us can do it alone, of course, and I submit Jesus did not think that even of himself. He proclaimed that the ‘kingdom of God’ was in our midst, within everyone. What could better spread that message than you, out there in the world proclaiming it with your words and deeds? Liberal churches planters, sowers, and the people in them the seeds. By living lives of truth, doing deeds of love, and saying words of justice out there in the midst of others, you plant further seeds that in time will bear their own fruit. I truly believe that everyone wants to be free, and strong, and good. I truly believe everyone can be freer, stronger and better than they are. I truly believe that we find the courage and the faith to do that by seeing it done around us, by seeing others take the chance for truth, risk themselves in love, standing up for justice. By making disciples of a liberal faith here, we send apostles of the liberal faith everywhere, and over time they grow and seed truth and love and justice around them. This is our mission, our gospel – that the messiah is here, because the messiah is all of us. And our job is to share this message with our lives. Sounds outlandish, I know. Heck, even heaven is not as outlandish as this idea when you think about it. But who ever joined a religion without an outlandish promise? So, like the man said, ‘go forth and make disciples of nations.’ Go tell it on any mountain you can find.

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