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| The Sower, Vincent Van Gogh 1888 |
Do you find it difficult to remember
the point of a sermon you’ve just heard?
I do – as a child my father used to
test me over Sunday lunch and I often failed. It is as if what goes in one ear
comes straight out the other. But a vivid, familiar and appropriate image makes
all the difference in making words stick. And Jesus in his parables shows
himself to be a master of using images to make his point.
Today’s reading from Matthew 13:1-9,18-23, what we now call the Parable of the Sower, is a great example of this.
Let us enter the scene in our
imagination, and reflect on the point that Jesus is making.
So many people wanted to listen to
Jesus that he used a boat as a pulpit to address the crowd on the beach.
The beach was on a lake, the Sea of Galilee.
I’ve never been there, but I see it in my mind’s eye as rather like Lough Derg:
it’s about 40% larger in area, and wider but not so long. I imagine the people
crowded on the beach at Dromineer, and Jesus sitting in a lake boat talking to
them.
Did Jesus see a man sowing in a
nearby field? Perhaps this is what prompted the parable, and everyone could
literally see what he was talking about.
The sower broadcasts the seed by
hand, just as our ancestors did 200 years ago before seed-drills were perfected.
The seed is in a bag or a basket, and he walks steadily up and down the field,
taking a handful of seed and throwing it out as evenly as he can. Even at a
distance it would be quite clear to everyone what he is doing, because they have
seen it hundreds of times before, and many will have done it themselves.
Imagine a big field divided like
allotments into strips farmed by different families, with paths between them,
beaten down hard by the passage of many feet. The crowd can see the birds
following the sower swooping down to gobble up the seed that inevitably falls
on the path, for all the sowers skill.
Everyone would understand that
different parts of the field are of different quality. Some parts are rocky.
Don’t imagine small pebbles - imagine sheets of rock just under the surface,
with just a few inches of soil on top. Think of the Burren or the Aran Islands.
The soil above the rock warms early, and the seeds germinate quickly, but
without a depth of soil the young seedlings soon run out of nutrients and water
and shrivel up in the sun.
Some parts of the field are infested
with perennial weeds - imagine scutch grass and creeping thistle, which quickly
outgrows the delicate crop, choking it.
But other parts of the field are good
land, with a deep, clean soil. Here the crop has nutrients and water enough,
and little competition. It will flourish and produce a harvest of thirty, or
sixty, or a hundred times the seed sown on it.
‘Let anyone with ears
listen!’ Jesus
finishes.
When the
crowd has left, the disciples are uncertain what he meant – as so often we are too.
So Jesus interprets the parable for
them himself - perhaps to reassure them that they do indeed understand what he
is getting at.
The seed sown on the path is the word
of God’s kingdom spoken, but not understood. This is the good news that God’s
kingdom has come near, which Jesus offers everyone. But the good news is
snatched away, before it ever has the chance to sprout in people’s hearts.
The seed sown on rocky ground is the good
news received with joy, but by people with shallow roots - without character.
Their initial enthusiasm cannot withstand trouble or persecution, and they fall
away.
The seed sown among thorns is the good
news heard by people who are so trapped by worldly cares and the lure of wealth
that they cannot act upon it.
But the seed sown on good soil is the
good news heard by those who understand it, and do act upon it. Only such
people will yield a harvest of good.
The point of Jesus’ sermon for us
today is just the same as it was on that lake shore 2000 years ago.
If we are to be the good people God
wants us to be, we must cultivate our characters so that we become like good
soil which will yield a rich harvest of good.
Each one of us must develop the
character traits of attention, of persistence, and of concentration.
·
Attention,
so that we do not miss God’s call when it comes.
·
Persistence,
so that we can withstand opposition and the mocking of others when we answer
God’s call.
·
Concentration,
so that the cares of the world and the pursuit of wealth do not distract us
from acting on God’s call.
I think hese same character traits
are also the ones we need to overcome the Covid-19 virus. Attention, to hear
and understand public health advice. Persistence, to follow it when we see
others ignoring it. And Concentration, to avoid being distracted by the calls
of those with ulterior motives to prematurely reopen our society.
None of this is easy, of course. We
cannot do it without help. So let us thank God for the vivid image Jesus has
given us in the Parable of the Sower to show us the dangers we face. And let us
remember, as St Paul tells us in today’s epistle reading from Romans 8: 1-11, that
we have received the Holy Spirit to work within us to help us avoid the dangers:
‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the
dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your
mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you’.
Through that Spirit, by God’s grace, we
will be like good soil which yields a rich harvest of good.
Let us finish in prayer with a
Collect of the Word.
Bountiful God,
we thank you for planting in us the seed of
your word:
by your Holy Spirit,
help us to receive it with joy,
and to live according to it,
that we may grow in faith and hope and love:
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of
the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen
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