So, when I first started work at St. James, I met a guy named Garrett. Garrett was ...well … Garrett was a different sort of human being. First off, he was really scary looking. He was stocky, bald, gruff, and absolutely covered in tattoos. Not just some here and some there. But from the top of his head down to his feet. Chest, back, legs...even his face was covered in tattoos. If you've ever read Ray Bradbury's “Illustrated Man,” this is THAT guy.
He was homeless and squatted in a shotgun shack across the street from the church. He stayed up all night, drinking and doing this or that drug. Sometimes I'd come to work early in the morning, and he's be passed out on his front porch, not having the wherewithal the night before to get back inside. I'd go over and sort of poke him with my foot to make sure he was still alive. He always was.
He had quite the back story, too. Garrett was a gay man from Texas, growing up at a time and place when that just wasn't cool at all. And he really didn't mind much what other people thought of him. He was a fighter and took on anyone who gave him any trouble. And that was the cause of his trouble, because on night he was leaving a seedy gay bar in Amarillo, when he and his friend got jumped resulting in the death of one of the attackers at Garrett's hand. He got ten years hard time in prison for that. And that's where he got most of his tattoos. Garrett was not one to make the best of decisions.
Once he was released he drifted here and there across the country, doing the occasional odd job, but mostly moving from shelter to shelter, soup kitchen to soup kitchen. I mean, let's face it, nobody really wanted to be around this walking, talking freak show.
How he got to Knoxville, I'm still not sure. Mainly because he wasn't sure. His arrival coincided with his taking up a serious methamphetamine habit. Time was a blur at that point. But once he got there, and after he did a little more time in jail, he tried to turn his life around. And he was actually fairly successful. Oh, he had the occasional relapse, but I never saw him so messed up that he couldn't function.
Now the St. James boiler system was such that once you switched from air conditioning to heat, you couldn't just flip a switch and turn the boiler off if we had a few hot days in the late Autumn. So, occasionally we would find ourselves having to open the doors and windows on a Sunday. And that was when Garrett heard the choir singing. And that singing touched his soul. And one day, he wandered over. And he stayed with us for quite some time.
The day came when he asked to be baptized, and we gladly did that. Later, when the bishop visited, he was confirmed, and we were glad to be there for that. And then we discovered that he had a hidden talent. Long ago he had been a restaurant chef, and a pretty good one at that. And he brought that gift to the church food kitchen where we became known for amazing meals for the homeless. No Spaghetti-o's for us!
Today, Mark has Jesus telling a different version of his sower parable. We are used to the one where some seed is scattered here, more seed scattered there, still more over in that corner on the sidewalk. Some grows, some doesn't. And we get to put ourselves in the place of the sower or the seed, depending on our mood. And the point of the whole thing is that we need to actually be out there, talking about why all of this Jesus stuff is so important in our lives. Because not telling is not sowing, it's just letting the seed sit in a big churchy bags tightly tied. Good advice, that.
But I kinda like this little seed sowing parable because it looks at something different. It looks at the seed itself. “The seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” Y'all, that's actually beautiful when you think about it. We “preach the gospel,” that's all. I know that sounds hard and daunting, but really we tell our story. How we praise God in the good times, and lean into God in the hard times. And know that, whatever is happening, God loves us period. Tell our story, and the seed will grow, we know not how.
How easy is that? And, y'all, you will be amazed at what might grow.
I'm reminded of a plant that I'm growing in my bay window. Fr. Brooks had given me a cutting from their back yard of Creeping Jenny. I took care of that thing for months, tending it, clipping off the other dead stuff. Finally, it took off and began to inch up to the light and was really pretty. I was so proud of it, I gotta brag. Then one day, Brooks and Becca were down, and he wandered over to it, and said, “Why are you growing this weed?”
The stuff that had died off was the Creeping Jenny and the thing that remained was a weed, a beautiful weed that struggled all winter and finally found its purpose and began to grow. I know not how.
That was Garrett wasn't it. This weedy many who lived next door to all this Gospel seed, being thrown out every day. And something, one time, something grew in his soul. It wasn't what we were expecting. It probably wasn't something most of us would've planted. And I'm willing to bet there were some people in the parish that would have liked to pull this Garrett-weed up and throw it out.
But God was at work in him. I know not how.
And for that time he was with us, that weed was beautiful. He single-handedly reorganized the kitchen staff and made those menus soar. He raised enough money to hire a tour bus to take a group of homeless folks to Asheville to visit the Biltmore Mansion (I would have loved to see folks that day when they disembarked!). And he catered my ordination reception, which was one of the most beautiful events I'd ever attended. Seriously, a high quality gala that somehow incorporated both hand crafter petit fours and wings! He gave of his heart because God filled his heart. And unlike so many hardened, frozen Christians these days, he seemed to know instinctively, that the more love he gave, the more love would grow back.
Then one day he was gone. Just gone. Moved on. And we never heard from him again. We checked hospitals, morgues, jails. Nada. It was just time to move on.
I wish I could stand up here and tell you how God works in a person's heart. But I know not how. But I do know this. When that work happens, when that person lets it happen, weed or flower, stalwart, never moving mustard shrub or drifting tumbleweed, tattooed freak or genteel matron, what grows is beautiful. Because what grows belongs to God.