July 12th Sermon

“Listen!” A command that is all too familiar to each of us, thanks to our parents. It’s a command that is used to call us to attention because something very important is about to take place. We even find it in the Gospels, from time to time.

We have just heard the “Parable of the Sower’, it’s one of the most often told of all our Lord’s parable, and on top of that, for most of us can resonate with this parable because we have spent years sowing seeds in fields both great and small.We know this parable so well, and so we must be careful to not become complacent. There is still much to learn from this parable. Perhaps that’s why Jesus exhorts all of us with ears to ‘listen.’ So may the Holy Spirit help us heart it in a new light.

As was mentioned a second ago, the image of sowing, growing, and harvesting resonates with each of us, and the story is simple enough. A sower went out to sow some seeds. But in the process, ‘some seeds fell on the path.’ The birds came and quickly gobbled up those seeds. Then there were seeds that feel on rocky ground. They sprouted, sure enough, but withered away in the prairie heat because there was no depth of soil. Some of the seeds feel amongst thorns, which chocked the life out of their sprouts. So far, the attempt to plant a crop is 0 points for the sower, 3 points for adverse growing conditions.

But then, not all is lost, because some of the seeds fell on good soil, and they , though little, produced a bumper crop.So the seed that is sown is the Word of God-an essential part of growing the Kingdom of God on earth. And the soil is the human heart.

The obvious question here is: what kind of soil are we? If you are like me, you would probably say, sometimes good soil, sometimes not so good. But where do we go with that? If there is one thing I’ve learned about gardening, it is that rocky ground can’t turn itself into good soil. Viewed like that, the parable sort of leaves us stuck, doesn’t it?

But listen again! If there is one thing about Jesus’ parables-there’s always something else we can learn. Now, my husband has a theory that many of our Lord’s parables are like little jokes. I bet you have your favourite jokes eh? The way to “get” any joke is to look for what’s surprising in the story, what you wouldn’t ever expect. Therefore,

the surprise in this parable isn’t that the birds gobbled up the seeds; that’s what birds do. The surprise is that the sower sowed his seeds on the pathway in the first place. What a careless farmer, we probably say, throwing his seeds all over the place-in the

weeds, in rock piles, in the middle of the road! What a waste of money! It’s soolaughable. It’s got to be a joke!The farmer must be crazy!!! Yes, yes his is! He’s as crazy as the

Church sowing the seeds of the Gospel. We may not literally toss God’s Word into thorn bushes, but we’ve certainly preached the Good News in some pretty strange places, never asking first how fertile the soil is. In reality, we can’t decided ahead of time whether the Gospel seed we plant is going to grow or not, that’s not our job! Our job is just to proclaim the Word in season and out of season. And if there’s anything crazier than sowing seeds in a rock pile, it would be the Church spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ anywhere and everywhere.

But listen again! If anyone in the parable is crazy, it’s God! Isn’t it He who commands us to go anywhere and everywhere with the Good News in the first place? The Lord himself is the inspiration behind our madness.

“Go”, He says, “Make disciples of all nations.” “GO just GO! Anywhere and everywhere.” The command is unconditional-my beloved child (that means you, and you, and you!) go and share the Gospel.

But let’s be honest. The results aren’t always that impressive. A lot of people won’t listen. There’s plenty of rocky soil, rock piles, thorn bushes, and pavement out there-places where the Gospel hasn’t grown-right in our backyards. Not everybody who hears the

Gospel is going to receive it. Which one of us hasn’t prayed, with hope, that some person we care about will turn to Christ? And sometimes it just seems like nobody wants to hear the Gospel. So we get discouraged. We lose heart, and stop spreading the Word. Why bother anyway if nobody is listening? BUT…it is at this point that we need to take a look at the end of the parable.

The wasteful farmer ends up with a phenomenal harvest-thirty, sixty, a hundredfold! His farming methods, as crazy as they were, were not in vain.We discover that this parable is not simply a story about diligence, instead it is about the heart of the Christian faith:

this is about what you and I do in response to God’s great love and grace for us, and it is about who we are becoming.

And in the end, this parable really is a story about us-about God and us and our hard and stony hearts; and about those miraculous times when, against all odds, the seed of God’s Word takes root, and something beautiful grows. The power of the Holy Spirit can’t be stopped.

One of the best known pieces of medieval stained glass in Canterbury Cathedral, England, is an illustration of the parable of the sower. It dates from around the end of the 12th century, and shows the scene in which birds earth the seed. One of the interesting things about the sower is the question of its original location. It seems to have belonged to a sequence of images that did more than illustrate Bible passages: they presented a deeply scriptural meditation on the Holy Communion.

The references that the image of the sower teases out of the Sacrament point to an encounter with Scripture that challenges us to look again at our experience. The familiar images of bread and wine signify something more than earth’s-fruitfulness. They substantiate the preaching of John the Baptist that calls us to repentance and a reshaping of our priorities. They communicate the death of Christ on the Cross as the seed of new life in redemption and resurrection. Holy Communion is a foretaste of the new creation, in which earth and heaven meet, where saints and sinners eat together. They speak of an astonishing yield-a harvest beyond our imaginings.

Ultimately, the parable of the sower is about our hearts. Within each of us is the seedbed that can bear the fruit of the Kingdom of God. God’s Word has power to accomplish what it says. The Spirit is actually giving hearers to hear, to turn the hearts of some, strengthen others, and bring forth fruit in still others. God’s will is done when all the hindrances to the seed’s thriving and bearing fruit are removed and we are good soil for God’s Word.

BUT OUR LORD MAKES CLEAR THAT NEITHER THE SOWERS NOR THE HEARERS ARE IN CONTROL OF THE OUTCOME. IT IS THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT BRINGS FORTH THE FRUIT!

So what does the parable of the sower call us to do? Share the Good News about Christ! And trust God. We are the soil. We are also the sower. Our prayer, then, is for God to open our ears to understand, to receive the seed of God’s Word into our hearts and minds, and to put that Word into action in our everyday life. In this way, we are made sowers and the Kingdom of God comes to our world. We may not be the most efficient farmers, but by the Grace of God, the harvest will be great. Each day, through his Holy Word and Sacraments, our Lord comes to us and calls us to put his teaching into action.The Sower is here-speaking,feeding, giving Himself fully to us-“You who have ears to hear, pay attention!” Indeed, look again, and be amazed. Amen