Sermons

Eighth Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 13 July at 8am and 10am

Maureen Williams
Readings: Matthew 13: 1-9 18-23

Parable of the Sower

Today, in the gospel reading we heard the parable of the sower, which is also recorded in Mark and Luke. In our readings from Matthew over the last few weeks, we have heard that Jesus has been moving around the towns and villages, teaching in the synagogue, in a house, and now by the lakeside. People are interested. Numbers are growing and he's having to teach the crowd on the shore from a boat. The shore gently shelves down to the water's edge and there is plenty of space for the crowd to gather round to hear.

It is from the boat that Jesus teaches the first of seven parables in Matthew about the kingdom. Verse 5 tells us that he is using parables to tell the people many things and he starts with something they know about - sowing seed. Perhaps there was a farmer close by and Jesus could point to what he was doing. He uses an ordinary, everyday experience to tell a story with a spiritual meaning that he wants them to hear and understand.

What impact is this story going to have on those who are listening? Jesus' teaching has thrilled them. They have seen powerful miracles and enthusiastic support; they are excited about the future. But alongside that, there is mounting opposition and disenchantment as well. Jesus has warned them, 'Anyone who is not really for me is against me; anyone who does not help me gather is really scattering'. Matthew 12:30. So why do people turn away and turn their back on God.

It has been suggested that this parable answers the question, 'Why doesn't everybody become a Christian?' It would be true to say that people today can often seem indifferent to the Christian message and unheeding in the call to faith which is so important to us in our lives? If you were the governor of a prison and you offered everyone in it a pardon, you would expect every single prisoner to accept the offer, eagerly. So why is it that people turn Him down?

Perhaps part of the answer lies with the Church. People say that while they have a lot of time for Jesus and the principles of love, tolerance and forgiveness that he taught, they are put off by a Church which seems so bent on destruction, so riven with religious discord, intolerance and a turmoil of belief.

We should listen to their difficulties - and realise that one of our strengths at St Edmund's, in our tiny place in the Anglican Church, is the affirmation in our church policy statement, that 'we seek to be a welcoming Christian community', welcoming to people of differing views. As Ted writes in the July magazine about himself and his own example, we seek to 'include' and 'encourage'. Diversity has always been seen as a strength in the Anglican Church: it has always been an inclusive Church with room for difference. It would be sad if this were lost.

What can we learn from the parable?
Let's look at the three elements of the story: the sower, the soil and the seed. We hear that only 25% of the seed ends up growing successfully. 75% fails. So what is the problem?

Is there a problem with the seed? The version in Luke's gospel tells us that 'The seed is the word of God'. Our job, as the sower, is to sow it plentifully. The bible tells us that if we sow sparingly, we shall reap sparingly….and the reverse. But seed has amazing potential. An acorn can grow into an oak tree and while I was preparing this sermon, I read about a seed found in a pyramid in Egypt estimated to be 3000 years old. Just for the fun of it, they planted it to see if it would grow and, apparently, it did! Seeds have amazing potential for growth.

The seed of God's word is being sown now by the teachers in the children's groups who went out earlier. It is sown in our house groups and study groups, in home communions in the parish with people who cannot get to church, in sermons here and in thousands of other places, and in our day to day lives this week as we seek to live out our faith. Seeds are small; seeds grow slowly; seeds are vulnerable. The results are up to God in his time and in his way. We are to scatter the seed. God has promised that his word will not return to him empty. Isaiah 55:11. The problem does not lie with the seed.

Is the problem with the sower? In the parable the sower sows the seed widely, everywhere and anywhere whatever the circumstances. He sows it plentifully and he sows it patiently. Farmers do not plant one day and expect a result the next. We, as the sowers, have to do our job and leave the rest to God.

So that leaves us with the soil. Jesus uses four kinds of soil to speak directly about the reasons why some people do not listen to the good news of the kingdom and the seed does not grow in their lives.

He suggests that some may not be able to receive the seed God wants to plant in their lives because their lifestyle is not prepared for planting. Their hearts may have become too hard: they may be too set in their own code of living, their own rules and regulations, their own ideas about how things should be done. It is hard for people like that to see that they need to change.

Then there's the rocky ground, the thin layer of soil where the seed cannot grow deep. There is no root system, so it dries up and withers away - a lot of enthusiasm to begin with, but, Jesus says, v21, 'it does not sink deep and they do not last long.' Alka-Seltzer Christians: a lot of fizz at first, but circumstances and problems get in the way, their first enthusiasm wanes and they soon fizzle out!

There is the soil full of thistles, the thorn bushes which grow up around it and choke any seed that is trying to grow. People's best intentions of living God's way can quickly evaporate under the pressures of life, the pressure to conform, the pressure to be just too busy to listen to Jesus.

Then there is also the good soil where the seed grows into a healthy plant and produces fruit. We thank God for that.

So, which soil are we? Can any of the dangers Jesus speaks about apply to me… or to you? Are there warnings of anything in our own lifestyles or attitudes in this story that will prevent our faith from growing? What teaching is there for us? This is something for each of us to consider prayerfully for ourselves.

The story of the sower is about LISTENING. V9 'Listen then, if you have ears,' says Jesus. Today, hearing God and his word is becoming more and more difficult. So how are we to listen? In The Message, a contemporary paraphrase of the bible, Peterson says it with imagination: 'In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.' James 1:20

To this we can say….Amen. ….so be it Lord.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay