Sermon 16th July 2023 – 7th Sunday after Pentecost
Text: Matthew 13:1-9,18-23 – keep sowing
On one of my recent walks I went past a house that was
obviously abandoned. Apart from the letter box overflowing with junk and
personal mail the overgrown grass was a dead giveaway. But what surprised me
was when I looked at the roof of the house it had grass growing in the gutter. I
thought to myself – how on earth did it get there? We have trouble growing
grass on our nature strip at home even with sowing grass seed and watering it. And
it reminded me of today’s parable – the parable of the sower.
The seed is so abundant that the sower doesn’t care where it
goes. What that sower trusts is that God
will provide the response in the hearts of the people where the Word is being
sowed – even if it’s thrown into the gutter. God’s generous abundance keeps
overflowing in us so that we are invited to share it with others.
And what about those others? Jesus further elaborates on his own parable by
describing each of the different soils where the seeds land. We probably all know people that we could
categorise into each of these soil.
But let’s begin by looking at our own faith journey? Perhaps
you shift between one soil and another from one day to the next. We’d like to believe that we are the good
soil, but if we are honest, we probably aren’t – at least not all the time. Imaging
how Paul must have felt at times – the good I want to do I do not do – the evil
I do not want to do I keep on doing. What sort of soil is that to sow seed in? Even
the disciples at the Ascension we are told some doubted. Thomas doubted. Peter
denied knowing Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus. All the disciples fled when Jesus
was arrested. What sort of soil is that to sow seed in?
We too, at times, can vary in the type of soil that the
Gospel finds. As human beings, we are complex creations of thoughts, feelings,
and the tendency to act on them impulsively. When we experience discomfort, we want it to
go away and may act impulsively in order to find comfort or release from pain
and anxiety rather than rely on our faith. In the news and on social media, we
are seeing so much to challenge our faith, deaths from violence, relationship
struggles, job loss, bankruptcies, interest rate rises, cost of living. We can
become like the seed thrown on the soil who hears the word, but the cares of
the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing..
This was Esau’s problem today from which he lost his rights
of the first born. He comes in from the
field, starving because he had been working hard. Jacob knows this and takes advantage of it. He knows that all that Esau can think about is
food – his stomach – his physical pleasure. So, Jacob tells him that he can have food if
he gives him his birthright. Our natural human impulses can lead us into
distraction - choked with the thorns of the world and we yield nothing. And
sadly these distractions can focus us away from our mission of spreading the
seed elsewhere as, like Esau, we only have concerns for our own physical
wellbeing.
Churches can easily fall into that thinking as we begin to
focus on our own survival rather than mission to others – we call that
maintenance ministry. It still intrigues me, how did that grass grow in the
gutters. Who put lawn seed in the gutter to have grass grow there? I guess
there are many possibilities. The wind could have blown grass seeds from the
ground into the gutter. Birds could have picked up the grass seed and dropped
it into the gutter. Birds could have picked up the grass seed while building
their nests and rain washed the seed out of the bird’s nest and into the
gutter. What this tells me is that the sower didn’t worry about where the seed
went because there was a possibility that it would be blown away to places he
couldn’t get to.
So as Christians we are also sowers because wherever we go we
take with us a seed of God that can be placed wherever we are even if we don’t
intend it. No one intended to place a grass seed in the gutter but it still got
there.
But it shows the essential need for us to keep sowing even
when our own faith comes under attack and causes distraction. God sends us out
as sowers as Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians: I planted the seed, Apollos
watered it, but God has been making it grow. The one who plants and the one who
waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own
labour. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s
building. We are both the sowers and the soil. When seeds fall in our soil we
produce more fruit and seed to scatter. The seeds that have been sown in us
continue to produce fruit and further seeds.
So when we go out today and tomorrow, we are called to sow
abundantly, frivolously, wastefully. There are many ways we can spread God’s
seed; By loving one another as Jesus loves us – and by this everyone will know
that you’re my disciples. By loving our enemies and praying for those who
persecute us and then being prepared to give the reason for the hope that we
have. Like the parable of the sower we don’t need to care if the seed goes to
places where WE think it might not grow. God is the one who makes it grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment