The Parable of the Sower: Hearts Like Dirt

I recently spoke with a young man from Chicago, who was living in Chattanooga, TN. He told me that prior to living in Chattanooga, he was allergic to dirt. Now, he spends most of life outside climbing, mountain biking, and camping; and is happier than ever.

The spiritual life is a bit like dirt. Counterintuitively, the dirtier we get, the healthier we may actually be.

The Parable of the Sower compares the heart to different kinds of soil, and the in this parable, the dirtier the dirt, the better the receptiveness the heart has to the Word of God. The soils are described as "by the wayside" (the hard-packed section along the road), "stony", "thorny", and "good soil". Good soil is well tilled, soft, and rich. After a day in the garden one comes back with deep rich soil under the fingernails and all over the clothing. The other soil types typically represent elements that separate the seed from the actual dirt.

This represents how we try to protect ourselves from a variety of elements related to the Word of God itself. The Way-side heart is unconcerned and ambivalent to either the voice of God or the concerns of humanity. Stony, hard hearts have become reactionary and hardened to the struggles and hard truths of life. The Thorny hearts are those whose greeds and personal desires have inoculated them against caring for the deeper values of life. In some bizarre inversion, we who are made from the dirt of the ground, or as others have recently described it, "star stuff", try to avoid contact with soil. We similarly attempt to protect ourselves from other people, hard truths, or the suffering in our world. In doing so, we separate ourselves from a healthy spiritual life. Just like an overly clean child may be a setup for a weak immune system, an overly defensive heart may be a set up for spiritual sickness.

Have a soft heart, be willing to get dirty in this life, and allow for the fact that you just may be wrong about life and are in need of correction from God's Word. These simple principles are evidences of a person ready to receive the Word, and grow in fruitfulness.

“Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble. Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

Pastor Phil Wyman looks back at 2015 at The Gathering

2015 joins the previous couple years as part of our crazy years of transition. We have taken an epic wilderness journey into becoming a gathering of house (and pub) churches. This year (perhaps) has been even more of a wandering than any previous year of our existence. Then again, having mapped territory no one before us had ever mapped in our work in the city of Salem, maybe it was just another crazy year, but we keep following the Shepherd who leads us on.

2015 started off with a surprise. At the end of January, I (Pastor Phil) ended up with a sudden attack of back pains, which could have been measured on the Richter Scale. By February, this turned into an extended hospital stay and the discovery that the pains had nothing to do with pulled muscles or slipped discs. Rather, a strep infection was found in my blood stream, and pockets of that infection had settled inside my spinal column, and scarier yet, inside my heart. I was effectively down and out from late January until May, and although I was home for much of that time, I was connected to antibiotic drip systems six hours a day, which looked like a medical version of the “Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch.” And, fortunately, like the Holy Hand-Grenade of Antioch it worked and wiped out the infection.

The church, and our local friends were wonderful during this time. They brought me food, lots of probiotics, and reminders of love. Boxes of nerds arrived from our geek friends, balloons from bartenders, and meals that made a hospital visit seem less of a drudgery. One of our home-groups even held a service in the hospital room one Saturday morning. I did not feel as badly, as my critical condition, and so I became a bit squirrely, and wandered the hallways playing my guitar and singing to people. This turned out to be enough of a hit, that some of the night crew cheered when I returned for a second visit, and then apologized for being excited to see me back in the hospital again.

Somewhere in this time, our now weekly home and pub groups gathered together for a grand meeting of eating and sharing and I was hooked to my Holy Hand Grenade, and they made it all happen, while I sat like a happy papa and looked on.

The Holy Hand Grenade worked just in the nick of time, and while the church had been meeting and doing its weekly activities without me, there had also been a UK Festival Outreach, which had been in the planning for 6 months. Two days before I was to fly to the UK, and meet Dennis there, I received the doctor’s clearance. So, off I flew to Wales with oral antibiotics in hand. There we built an art project at BurningNest; we worked the doors and debates at a philosophy festival; and we ministered to the 23,000 hippies, hipsters and all around seekers at Stonehenge during the Summer Solstice.

Of course, as October rolled around, we were back on the streets of Salem during our one million visitor month with live music every weekend, and hundreds of friends from around the country joining us for ministry. We bought pizza for some of the homeless youth and elders who like to hang around our stage, we interpreted dreams, we shared the love of our Lord Jesus with locals and visitors alike, and we simply created a presence of acceptance and love during a weird and wild holiday season in our unique city.

Between the time in the hospital and the frenetic pace of Festival outreach from Summer through Fall, this year has seemed like a blur, and does even now as I look back in the rearview mirror.

The hospital stay and prolonged downtime was perhaps a forced sabbatical of sorts. I was able to complete a book I had been working on for a few years, and Burning Religion is now self-published and online at Amazon.com.

Despite all this, we bought ice cream for the kids at the park on the Point in Salem during the summer, and we joined the World’s Largest Eye Contact Experiment in October.

Please keep us in your prayers. Getting back into a regular pattern of spiritual life as a body of people has not been easy, but we continue our ride into Bethlehem and appreciate every person who remembers our labors.

If you would like to help support the mission of the The Gathering, which has moved from a local expression of innovative mission, to something beyond the boundaries of our own country, you can do so at our website --> salemgathering.org. May your Christmas, your Solstiee, your Hannukah, and your New Year be blessed.

Pub Theology and the Politics of God

Last Night we met at The Old Spot once again. There were eight of us for this discussion on "The Politics of God." It was heated but friendly, and eventually redirected to consider what God wants from us personally. A good time all in all, and Mary saved us from looking like a good ol' boys club.

You can read more on the interactions at one of my personal blogs Square No More.