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Just below our house is a field which, throughout the 30 years we have lived here - and probably for many, many years before that - has been used as pasture for cattle and sheep.
But the price of cattle and sheep has plummeted,
and the price of wheat has soared.
And so recently the field was ploughed up, and winter wheat sown.
We watched as the clods of turf were turned, and the clumps of soil ploughed and harrowed, over and over again.
And finally the seed sown.
And now the brown field is once again turning green, as the wheat grows.
I guess that as Jesus sat in the boat close to the shore on Galilee, and told the parable of the sower to the people on the bank - I guess He could see from where He sat a farmer, scattering seed on his land on the hillside.
It is such a vivid parable.
Seed sowing is, to the farmer, a very serious business.
There's nothing casual about it.
It's done with a purpose - to grow a crop.
And the farmer, before he sows the seed, will make sure that the soil is prepared.
But inevitably some things get in the way.
1) And the first thing, Jesus says, is birds.
I have watched flocks of rooks and pigeons descending on the field below us - and that is despite the fact that modern farming machinery actually buries the seed, with seed drills.
In Jesus' time the farmer would have scattered it by hand, and inevitably some would have fallen on the path and the edges of the field, and been taken by birds.
This, explained Jesus later, is like when the word of God is snatched away by the evil one, when it has barely hit the ground, before it even germinates. As far as the preaching of the word is concerned, it's like preaching to a brick wall - the words go nowhere. This can be due, on the listeners part, to apathy - no sense of any sort of spiritual need; a sort of spiritual complacency.
It can be due to over-familiarity with the message - repeated sermons over many years have immunised the listener, who no longer hears or perceives anything fresh or relevant to them.
It can be due to preoccupation - the mind has drifted off, and is contemplating the Sunday dinner, or the awful dress sense of the lady in front.
It can be due to prejudice, or pride - an unwillingness to let God in to change us, and which makes us unteachable.
We become like dead space - our spirits are like one of those areas in the Priory which the PA system doesn't reach.
The seed that falls by the wayside is snatched away. Birds get in the way.
2) Then there are rocks.
The seed falls onto the ground and germinates. But just under the soil are rocks, which prevent the roots going down.
And come the heat of the sun, and the seedlings shrivel up and die, because they have no depth of root.
Jesus compares this with the believer who, as soon as hard times come - which inevitably, sooner or later, they will - falls away, and loses his or her faith.
Jesus' words are that that person "quickly falls away".
William Barclay translates it:
"He, or she, is at the mercy of the moment". Are we, I wonder, "at the mercy of the moment"? How deep are our roots?
We talk about a church "growing", and we usually mean growing in numbers. And that is, of course, good.
But a church needs also to grow in depth.
We each need daily, by our private devotions, and weekly through our corporate worship, and communion, and teaching, to be putting spiritual roots down and down - into God and into His word.
Finding deep down those resources which will sustain us when hard times come.
And come they will! Illness, depression and anxiety, bereavement, unemployment, financial worries, relationship break-down, old age, whatever.
And it's too late, when trouble hits us, to think "Oh! I'd better start to deepen my faith!"
Often when we are going through a bad patch we find it difficult if not impossible to pray and to read the Bible.
But if our roots are already deep, we'll come through.
So now is the time - today, not tomorrow - to be going deeper into God, and to stop thinking that we are fine as we are.
3) The third thing that gets in the way are weeds.
The seed falls onto good soil, and grows well - but so also do a whole lot of weeds, which choke it, and eventually kill it - and all the hopes for growth and fruit from the seed come to nothing.
Like, Jesus says, the person whose faith is choked by the worries of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth. Choking weeds! The clutter of life!
It is increasingly difficult in our frenetic society to find time - to make time - for God.
The day begins with a mad rush to get to work or school; and it ends with the midnight oil, or exhausted sleep in front of the tele.
Sunday has become the day for shopping, and washing the car, and football, and ballet lessons, and walking club - and all the things we or our families want to do - and are pressured to do by our peers and by society.
And even in church life we can get so busy with meetings and choir practice and church happenings that God, and growing spiritually, get squeezed out.
We are so busy doing that there is no time left for being.
And, as Jesus said, preoccupation with money and material things - the mortgage, the car, the credit card debts, Christmas presents - preoccupy our minds and our time. Until one day we realise that our faith has been squeezed out, and choked by everything else.
The weeds of life have taken over, and spiritually we are dead.
4) But, fourthly, there is hope!
Other seed falls on good ground, and bears a wonderful crop.
This, Jesus says is the person who receives the word, and hears it - not just "hears", but "listens to" it, "heeds" it, and understands it, takes it in, receives it.
You know, I think that the encouraging thing is that all soil is potentially good and fertile.
The birds, the rocks, the weeds are things that get in the way.
But they needn't!
If we want the seed of God's word to grow in us,
if we let it germinate,
if we receive it, and have receptive minds and hearts,
if we have the humility to say to God "I need You; I long to know You more", then the seed will grow.
There is no soil, no person, incapable of producing a healthy crop. I think of our friend John Robinson, as described in his book "Nobody's Child".
Rejected and given away by his mother as a baby,
he never knew who his father was,
abused and ill-treated by one foster parent after another,
locked at times in a cold, dark cellar,
increasingly involved in gang warfare, violence, drink and drugs,
in to Borstal, and later prison, then sleeping rough,
covered in tattoos and scars from knife wounds,
John was not very promising soil
- not the sort of soil you might expect seed to grow in!
Then he heard, of all things, a street preacher.
He laughed at him - but went back next day to hear more.
And the seed of faith, the seed of God's word, of the Gospel of forgiveness and new starts, took root in John's heart and soul.
It wasn't an easy journey, but in due course he went to Lee Abbey, and then headed up the bus ministry team in the rough housing estates of Manchester.
He is married to a vicar, and he now trains others in evangelism.
No soil, however unpromising it may seem, is incapable of growing the seed.
And, likewise, no soil, however respectable it thinks it is, is immune from all those things that stop the seed from growing.
As St Paul warned: "Let he or she who thinks that they stand take heed lest they fall."
We all - whether the John Robinsons of the world, or nice, respectable middle class people -
we all, without exception, must be open to God, open to receive the word, and to let it penetrate deeply into our hearts and souls.
I sometimes look back on our 31 years at the Priory, and I remember all sorts of people who have come and gone. And I think "I wonder what happened to them ... and to them… and them."
Many of course have moved away, and some have gone to other churches.
But some have not moved away, but dropped away.
Why? Why did it happen?
Birds? Rocks? Weeds?
How could it have been prevented?
Have we failed as a church?
I think this parable has something to say, not just to hearers of the word, but also to those of us who have the responsibility and privilege of preaching.
It is our responsibility to faithfully preach the word.
Not to be clever. Or trendy.
To be careful, and prayerful, and well prepared - yes!
But not clever, or trendy, or populist.
Not to try to say what we think people want to hear.
Not bland mish-mash, or melting moments!
The seed is not our word, but God's word.
And our job is to preach it faithfully.
We can't make the seed grow - that is up to the hearers and the Holy Spirit.
And from time to time, and sometimes many years later, we are thrilled and surprised to find what has happened to that seed!
So, to all of us - sowers and soil alike (and we are all a bit of both) - Jesus says:
"You who have ears to hear, hear!"
David Webster
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