Jesus’ ministry has been gathering momentum.
The kingdom of God has indeed come near!
This rabbi’s teaching is different, dramatic, life-affirming,
and he carries an authority other rabbis do not have!
He has healed the blind and the deaf, the paralysed, the dying,
an unclean woman haemorrhaging blood,
and those with severe mental illness believed to be demon-possessed!
The crowds gather wherever he goes.
So much so, he must escape into his friend’s boat in order to teach them!
But among those other rabbis, there is disquiet and jealousy!
Who is this upstart! His teaching is far too liberal!
Why is he bothering with women and children?
He’s unclean – mixing with all those outcast untouchables!
And he heals on the Sabbath! How can he possibly be a real prophet!
Watch out! I wouldn’t go near him if I were you!
And all that Jesus does is twisted and distorted!
Slowly, slowly, those who had at first eagerly followed him
begin to drift away. Even it seems,
his own family had began to doubt him.
Love my neighbour? Yes! Love my enemy? I’m not sure about that!
Forgive as you would be forgiven. Do not judge. Really?
And his ministry begins to lose momentum.
As his followers fall by the wayside,
Jesus begins teaching in parables. And in Matthew’s gospel he begins
with this story of the sower and the seed.
Here using the metaphor of soil,
Jesus suggests various groups of people drawn to follow his Way.
The seed is God’s word, the gospel.
The sower, literally in the Greek ‘a fellow’,
the sower is anyone who proclaims the gospel of the kingdom!
The words of life Jesus speaks! We are the different types of soil.
First the packed soil of the path, trodden down by many feet.
Those hardened in life by a multitude of harsh experiences.
Cynical in outlook, this soil clings to what it already knows.
The seed of new life is offered, received even,
but nothing can penetrate its tough surface.
And all the potential for growing into wholeness of being
is swept away with barely a second glance.
There’s always some earth in the crevice of the rock –
just enough for growth to begin!
But deep roots? Baked in the scorching sun!
Just not enough traction to hold interest for long.
Especially when there is so much else going on,
so much else to draw our interest and attention.
Some of it so loud, tough for anything else to get through.
Those thorns and thistles so strong and powerful growing up around us….
And then, amidst all the chances of life, there is indeed good soil.
Soil full of texture, moisture, air – and wriggling worms!
Just the ingredients the sown seed needs to flourish!
What a harvest! Thirty, sixty, a hundred fold!
The seed is sown. And some is lost. But, not all of it. Far from it!
Take courage! Do not give up!
And the message for us, sitting here in church this morning,
every preacher’s goal: Let us each indeed aspire
to be that soil which produces fruit a hundredfold!
Let us receive this encouragement to personal spiritual growth.
Run with it! And, and, there is more to this parable! A lot more!
In the creation of the Hebrew Bible
the priests and the scribes would gather together, pray together,
debate with each other, argue fiercely
to discern God’s new revelation for this day,
this generation, redacting, that is editing the biblical text
according to the new wisdom they receive from God
through this struggling together with the received word of God.
They wove their new understanding into the ancient text,
without – which might seem surprising to us,
without removing much that was there before.
Once we understand this it’s not hard to detect the seams!
An exercise the scribes of the Early Church continued to do
with the texts that circulated around
the different Christian communities springing up across the Roman world!
Thus there are also in the New Testament,
lawyers of meaning to be discerned where the text has been added to
amended by succeeding generations of Christian leaders led by the Spirit.
A process that is described later this chapter of Matthew’s gospel –
possibly identifying the primary author of this gospel:
chapter 13 verse 52.
And Jesus said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe
who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven
is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure
what is new and what is old.’
In other words, every Christian Torah scholar,
anyone among the scribes or indeed the Pharisees,
who has become a disciple of the Kingdom,
a follower and scribe of the teachings of Jesus,
such a scholar brings forward from the treasures of his household,
his profession, wisdom both old and new.
Wisdom from both Hebrew Bible and Christian Testament.
Received revelation renewed for the present generation!
The fulfilment of ancient prophecy in Matthew’s birth narrative!
The renewing of the Mosaic Law in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount!
A pattern for spiritual growth and understanding for us too,
for the Church today as we interpret Scripture for our generation.
A call to dig deep in prayer and meditation on Scripture;
dig deep in the texts of contemporary scholars,
for new understanding of Scripture – Paula Gooder of St Paul’s Cathedral –
from whom I have taken this next insight!
When we look deeper, there are some strange things
going on here in our gospel reading!
The parable is told to the crowds,
its explanation only to Jesus’ disciples.
Reading between the lines, perhaps we can sense
some of Jesus’ frustration – frustration that they too,
as well as the crowds, are slow to comprehend
what the kingdom of God is about.
-480All that it means to follow him,
that radical transformation of our hearts.
We often associate Matthew with stories of hell, fire and brimstone,
for the wicked of course – but also,
for those perhaps not so wicked in our eyes!
Those who didn’t manage to turn up in the correct dress attire
for the banquet!
That burring abyss uniquely present in Matthew’s gospel!
Only one other mention of such terrors in the gospels, found in Luke!
But here in the Parable of the Sower, and the one that follows it –
our gospel for next week, the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares,
we find none of such horrors!
In fact the story speaks a message rather the reverse!
Please note, here in the story of the Sower,
there is no condemnation of unfruitful soil:
the trodden down path, crumbs of soil among the rocks,
overcrowded soil full already of thorns and thistles!
They are, such things are, the realities of life.
The fruitfulness of seed sown in these places may be stifled, but …
And it’s a big BUT, the yield from seed planted in the good soil
is, by any standard, a hundred, sixty or thirty fold even, is astonishing.
Even the least productive good soil, yields an extraordinary harvest!
Think about it – even though most of us are not farmers!
In the normal way of agricultural life,
even with the chemicals we should not be adding to our soil!
is there any crop where the lowest yield is thirtyfold?!
In first century Palestine the average yield would be fivefold.
If you were lucky with good soil, good seed, and enough moisture,
you might get fifteenfold.
So what do these details which may so easily pass us by,
what do they tell us?
We need to dig deep for spiritual truth,
it is complex and does not sit on the surface.
We will miss much if we read the text in a literalistic way.
When we grasp this, we may see
that the economy of the Kingdom of God
is one of enormous generosity!
Generosity which will ‘cover’ the needs of all,
enough for all to have plenty!
Plenty for even those whose circumstances fall in hard places.
The generosity of God key to understanding the Scriptures.
And in all our doing, generosity towards one another
is the vital key to joy!
Generosity of heart and mind and action! Amen.