Pentecost 8July 10th, 2005Genesis 25.19-34, Ps 119.105-112, Romans 8.1-11, Matt 13.1-9, 18-23.
Plants are amazing.
If you go to the high country in Victoria and New South Wales, where there is snow for part of the year, usually, you will find plants that can survive being beneath snow for that time. When it melts, they are still there, still alive. They are specialised, suited to their environment, adapted. And in rocky places, wherever a crack forms, you’ll find plants clinging to the rock, using up every available piece of soil lodged in those cracks and hollows. Their roots force their way further into cracks in the rocks to cling on, and they trap more soil in the cracks as it’s washed in by rain. In dry, arid areas, perhaps even deserts, you will find plants that are suited to that type of climate and soil conditions. Just look at the more inhospitable parts of our country that support life, particularly evidenced by the wildflowers that bloom after a good wet season, when the outback becomes blanketed in colour. Even under the sea, and in lakes and rivers and billabongs, plants grow and flourish. They are adapted for life under water, and their variety is mind boggling. And even the amazing number of different types of grasses available for different soils and water availability and climate, and the different types of wheat and other crops. When you see all of this, you realise that there is a lot more to sowing seeds than just casting them about in a random fashion. There has to be more thought to it than that. I mean, God created all of the plants on this world, wherever they occur, to survive in their particular environment, to take root and to seed themselves, carrying on the process of growing more. God wasn’t haphazard about it. Neither are we, usually. So we can see that the sower in the story is not doing a very good job, chucking seeds about in the vague hope that they will grow. What is kind of strange, in this parable, is that it’s the soil that’s getting the blame for it!
The soil conditions in the paragraph are the people to whom the mission of Jesus Christ is being directed. The idea is for us all to be like the good soil. Yet the fact is that it’s not very often we’ll have people who are like the good soil to reach out to with the Gospel, receptive and ready for the seed to be planted. So rather than being general and casting around the gospel on the off chance it may take root somewhere, amongst the weeds and rocks and paths, we need to be more strategic and specific, just as a farmer is when choosing which type of crop, and indeed which sub-species of crop will best suit the conditions and the soil. I mean, there are many different varieties of wheat, for example, and the trick is to pick the right one for your situation.
Part of being strategic is learning as much as we can about the mission field. Who are the people we want to reach? What do we know about them, their desires, fears, hopes, needs? Where can we scratch their itch? How can we find out? And how can we teach ourselves to do it?
Perhaps we can start with the fact that good and bad soil can be a subjective concept. Perhaps good and bad soil is a value judgement based on the suitability of our particular mode of delivering the message, whatever that may be. Its not that the message is wrong – I mean, the Gospel of Our Lord, Jesus Christ is not wrong – it’s more about the way we tell it. And even then, when you do try to tell in a way that suits its target audience, it’s a tricky path to walk, because it’s easy when trying to be relevant, trying to fit in, to lose track of the story all together. In trying to relate to people we can sometimes try too hard and lose our Christian identity. We need to be true to ourselves and our faith, as well as trying to speak an understandable language.
An example of this is the theology taught in some independent churches that says if you live the right way God will reward you. In many ways, it is a perfect message for its target audience, primarily middle to upper middle class people. It is success driven, it promises rewards that are often material and financial – and that can then become the proof that you are a good Christian. It hits a nerve with many people, particularly in the middle to upper income bracket, with a good amount of disposable income. Yet they seem to forget that Jesus didn’t talk about gathering wealth, and indeed discouraged it. They seem to forget that success and failure in this world are human concepts, not divine. In human terms, Jesus mission was a total failure. He was executed as a blasphemer and a criminal, an enemy of the religion and the state. He was helpless, it seems. He wasn’t the Messiah who would make Israel a great and mighty nation, ruler of the world. Yet we know that in God’s terms, in terms of the salvation of the whole world, it was a success, an overwhelming success. The hope lives on, He lives on, the Spirit lives on, within us. So it is important to be more open and objective about our judgements of the mission field, to look more at ways we can communicate, the language we use and the way we worship, so as to facilitate the seed planting to that particular patch of mission field. And in ways that do justice to our faith. Just as a farmer will use soil maps and testing to determine the nature of the soil and determine how to do the planting, and prepare the ground differently accordingly, we also must look, listen and learn, and do the research to work out how best to plant the seeds. Then get on with the planting. Perhaps then the crop we sow will yield a hundredfold, although I think most of us would settle for thirty fold, or even ten fold. But that doesn’t mean we should aim low. Do the seed planting, and let God grow the crop.
I couldn’t let this Sunday go by without mentioning the London bombings. I’m not going to talk about it too much. Instead, I think a time of prayer in solidarity with those affected by terrorism anywhere in the world is more appropriate, and also prayers for those who would kill and maim in the name of their belief. After this short prayer, we will have a time of silent reflection, for us to offer our own prayers for peace in the world, and an end to terrorism wherever it occurs.
A prayer following the bomb attacks in Central London
In this time of darkness we pray for strength and ask that God may: Bind up the broken-hearted, restore the injured and raise up all who have fallen; Support all who are giving their skills to bring relief to those who suffer; And bring in his kingdom with justice and mercy for all: We ask that the nations of the earth may seek after the ways that make for peace; And that in the power of the cross we may trust in the light of God's goodness to triumph over all evil. All this we pray in the name of Jesus Christ who shares our humanity and pain. Amen
