Did you see what happens in this story? Not only is it a parable with a clear call to action, calling for repentance that we might bear faithful fruit, but Jesus acknowledges the manure and its role in life.
This is the week of weird google searches as I prepare for a sermon, but I searched this week for “How does manure become fertilizer?” I was instructed online that manure of your favorite chickens, goats, pigs, or cows can be collected and added to a compost pile where it is mixed with other organic compounds and water. There it becomes a rich fertilizer. You can’t just dump a pile of manure right on a plant or a seed and expect it to grow. That will, what gardeners call, “burn your plants”. Manure must go through a process, but then it becomes useful for growing. Yall didn’t come to church today thinking we’d be talking about manure, did you? Well here we are!
We too need that process of turning back to Abundant love, God’s love for us, and our beloved nature as God’s children. We need this holy work of turning from sin which creates manure-y systems of injustice. Repentance is this work. Repentance is the compost pile of our lives, as we attempt to reconcile the manure that’s all around us.
Sermon preached by Pastor Alex Zuber on 3/24/2019 at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lexington, VA.
