sunday 12 July, 2020

Reflection:

Is God a Good Sower?

Genesis 25:19-34      
Psalm 119:105-112        
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Romans 8:1-11

The parable of the sower is found in all three Synoptic Gospels. Mark wrote his first and it’s likely that Matthew and Luke had access to this when they wrote their own versions of the story.
The way we hear these parables in today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, tells us how receptive we really are to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus uses this first parable to set us up for the seven parables that will follow.

They will be all about the Kingdom of God.
This one is about the character of God, and how God reveals that character to those who recognise it.
It’s a perfect example of a story that reads us, because it shows how parables reflect back to us our ability to understand them. Throughout this 13th chapter of Matthew, Jesus keeps saying,
“those who have ears, let them hear; anyone with ears, listen!”

In other words, these stories will find the ones who can understand them.

As you listen to the story, it will “read” you, and identify which kind of recipient you are by the way you hear it.

The depth of our understanding depends on our willingness to be changed by what we hear. Yes, you can take the story at face value: seeds get sown, and where they land determines how well they will grow.

Or, you can try to assign meaning to the parts of the parable, treating it strictly as an allegory. The Sower is God, the Word is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the soil is our hearts. Using this interpretation, and the explanation Jesus gives of this story, we might think the point is to do everything we can to become good soil.

However,  there’s a problem with this approach: we can’t change the kind of soil we are – only God can do that.

The bigger problem with this kind of interpretation is that it makes the story be about us, about the soil. But the story is not about you (be good dirt); the story is for you. This parable, like all scripture, is really about God and God’s extravagant generosity. 
God is the Sower, scattering seed liberally, even wastefully, everywhere. It’s what
God does and keeps on doing. God keeps throwing seeds, regardless of where the seed might land. God is love, and love is generous, lavish, abundant, eager to share what is good. God will not withhold the Word from anyone. God will not deny anyone access to the Good News.

This parable tells of a sower who is ridiculously generous with the amount of seed he scatters, throwing it not only on the good soil but on soil that even non-farmers can recognise wasn’t a good bet: on thorny soil, rocks and even a beaten path.

God doesn’t use a GPS-driven tractor to plot out perfectly spaced rows, carefully inserting each seed at the exact depth of carefully prepared soil for optimum germination. God scatters the Good News of the Kingdom liberally, even in places where it’s not likely to grow or bear fruit.God sows everywhere.

Wherever it’s sown, the Good News cannot be contained. God doesn’t discriminate between good soil and bad soil.
God throws the seed of the Kingdom everywhere! It goes out into all the world, to transform any who will accept it.
You see, seed can only become fruitful when it stops being a seed. 
Seed must die to become a plant. It breaks open, just as God has broken into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. As it grows, it becomes something that is not a seed anymore – it becomes a plant - and that bears more seed!The parables read us – where the seed lands, how we understand the Word and absorb it into our lives, how well our ears are tuned to listen to it, determine the extent to which it can change us, transforming us into fruitful plants that bear abundantly. 

As we listen to the parables of Jesus over the next few weeks, how will they read us? How will our ears hear them?
How will we be changed, as we find ourselves drawn into God’s story, as God invites us to become part of it?
How willing are we to be transformed by that story, becoming something we’ve not been before?
Each week, preachers cast the gospel as broadly as possible, with no guarantee where it will land.

Preachers know that people listen to the word for all kinds of reasons.·      

• Maybe as a newcomer, checking out a new church - a place to call their spiritual home    
  
• Maybe they’re experiencing a crisis in their life
  
• Maybe you come out of habit, or to see friends you hope will also be there. This is their social network     
  
• And maybe they come because they’re hungry for God’s Word; eager to bring their praise and gifts to worship the Lord in the spirit of holiness 
  

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​But every preacher knows that no matter how carefully crafted the sermon may be, no matter how much prayer and study have been poured into sharing the Word of the Lord, the chances of something taking root doesn’t depend on the sower. Yet that’s what we’ve all been called to do.

To sow the seed and to bear the heartache and frustration when it falls on rocky, weed-infested ground.
And, chances are that you’ve been there!
​
Each of you have probably experienced the hard truths of this parable on some level

• Every parent whose words of loving concern have fallen on a teenager’s deaf ears knows about hard-packed ground
  
• Everyone who has operated a business with integrity, only to see clients go to where prices are cheaper, understands shallow roots
  
• Every person who has been overwhelmed with worry or caught in the trap of loving money has experienced the chokehold of thorny weeds. This parable reminds us that we are not alone in these struggles.
  

The parable also reminds us where to keep our focus.

As a church, we invest time, energy, and hope in trying to coax growth among people.

We shouldn’t despair when the seeds we sow do not take root.

​The sower doesn’t do that.

He accepts the reality that a good chunk of seed will fall on bad soil.
Yet the sower keeps sowing.

Jesus wants us to keep spreading the word. Jesus calls us to something even more in this parable.   

He calls us to hope.

Jesus challenges us to believe in God’s abundance.

This story could have ended with a normal harvest from good soil.

But this story is filled with the promise of lavish abundance, even in the face of rejection and the hard realities of living in this world.God doesn’t hold back, because he has enough seed and grace and love.

God wants our hearts to be good soil, but nevertheless he hurls huge amounts of seed even on dry, thorny, or beaten soil.

You get the feeling this God would probably scatter seed-love-mercy-grace on a parking lot!

Why, because there’s enough to go around and wants he everyone to hear the good news!
The story isn’t about what the dirt is like.

The story’s about God, and the way God breaks into our lives in the person of Jesus Christ, to change us, and offers us his extravagant love.

The story’s about God’s abundant generosity, and God’s desire to draw us into the kind of transformation that bears abundantly more than a “normal” crop could possibly bear.

Hear God’s love for you and be broken like the shell of a seed, to become something new, as part of God’s story.

Let the Word of God grow in you and produce an abundance in you!

Let these parables read you and change you.

All who have ears, listen! 

Prayer:
Let us go into the world to be people of generosity, who, with great abandon, throw and sow seeds of goodwill, kindness and peace wherever we travel.
May the seeds we sow grow and multiply to become flourishing fields of generous communities who bring hope, peace and joy to the world.
Let us dwell in the abundant love of God, the generous grace of Christ and the rich purpose of the Holy Spirit.   
Amen.

Pastor Rick