“The Sower”

Rev. Cathie Lambert

Readings - Psalm 36: 5-9, Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

I wonder how many times we have heard this parable throughout our collective lives. I am sure it would certainly be in the hundreds, if not thousands. The Parable of the Sower has a seemingly simple message about how we respond to the Good News of the sower. It makes for good illustrations for children’s talks and unusually has an inbuilt explanation following the parable.

I wonder how you know this parable. You may know it as “The Parable of the Sower” or “The Parable of the Seed” or “The Parable of the Four Soils”. There are so many ways of looking at this parable. We can look at the seed as the good news of the gospel. We can look at the different types of soils as the hearts of those who hear the good news and their response to it. Or we could look at the sower.

This morning I want to concentrate on the Sower. In today’s world this farmer would be considered a fool. To sow his seed “willy nilly” without much care seems such a waste. Especially these days when there are farming methods and machinery that are very specific about where the seeds are sown.

The seeds are scattered and they land where they will. Some will land in good soil and take root and produce a bumper crop, but others will land on the path, amongst the rocks or be choked by weeds. This farmer’s method of sowing could be seen as absurd and foolish.

Perhaps the parable should be rebranded “The Parable of the Careless Sower”. This seems like a fitting title as good seed in Jesus’ time would have been difficult to come by. If you were a farmer fortunate enough to acquire some good seed you would certainly be careful where you sowed it in order to get the best return. You certainly would not be throwing it here and there allowing some to fall on the path or rocky ground.

The sower in this story is portrayed as being careless. He does not scatter his seed in a discriminate fashion, but instead is extravagant and wasteful. If we are to see the sower as God or Jesus this image tells us much about the generous nature of God’s love.  In a society where we are used to being careful with the resources we have; not spending too much money, making sure we have looked after our own security before giving to others and being concerned about our own future, it is foreign to consider being careless, maybe even foolish in our own giving.

The Parable of the Careless Sower teaches us that we too must be extravagant sowers of God’s love. We must not discriminate where we feel the seeds of God’s love are best sown. We must be wasteful in our loving and extravagant in our giving. In many ways, what this parable teaches us goes against many contemporary mission programs of the church that encourage us to first seek out the fertile soil.

At the risk of sounding extremely cynical, I often wonder if the church has got the wrong idea about the harvest. What is it we are hoping to see grow from the sowing of these seeds? If we sow our seeds desperately, out of a fear of limited funds, aging people, dwindling numbers or a dying church, our sowing has strings attached. It will not be the extravagant seed sowing we see in this story today. It will be careful, calculated and all consuming.

But this extravagant, wasteful sowing still holds onto the hope of the harvest despite the apparent absurdity of the task.  As we see where the seed falls in the story, it is a miracle that there is a harvest at all. A harvest that was two-fold would have been cause for a celebration in Jesus’ time. But we are told that some were 100 fold, others 60 fold and others 30 fold; all miraculous harvests. The numbers are lost on many of us, but would not have been to the farming people of Jesus’ era 

This is not just any harvest, it is a miraculous harvest. It is beyond what anyone would have expected. We must sow with the same hope, knowing that despite set-backs and failures, God’s kingdom comes and surprises us. The mystery of God works despite how well we sow the seed. Sometimes we feel that we need to employ new methods of ministry to gain maximum yield. We can buy the latest books, go and hear the latest guru speak or engage the latest formula for success, but when our sowing becomes too calculated we lose the spontaneity and the mystery of how God works.

I don’t know how many of you have seen the movie “Chicken Run”. It was released in the year 2000. It is a movie about a load of battery hens who are getting a little old for laying eggs and decide that they don’t want to become chicken pies. They decide to plan their escape from the pen. Most of the chickens feel that the idea is foolish, ridiculous and impossible. The fences are way too high and the security systems in place make it impossible to get past. Their only hope lies in Rocky the rooster who was fired from a circus cannon over the fence. Perhaps he can teach them all to fly. This is their one and only hope, until they realise he actually doesn’t know how to fly. But one chicken, Ginger, points out to the rest, “the biggest fences are inside your heads”.

And here lies our problem. This seemingly impossible task – of saving the church, increasing our numbers, converting the masses – needs some grand plan. But perhaps the biggest fences are in our head. Perhaps it is not as complicated as we make it. As Thomas Merton says in his Seeds of Contemplation,

“Every moment and every event of every person’s life on earth plants something in her or his soul.  For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men and women.  Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.”

The seeds are many. They are in every moment, every event, every person. All of life is filled with the sacred mystery of God. In freedom, spontaneity and love these seeds fall and find good soil from time to time. We have witnessed this in our own lives – otherwise we wouldn’t be here this morning. From time to time we see it in the lives of others.

To finish I would like to share with you a reflection that is often referred to as the “Prayer of Oscar Romero”. It was in fact written by Kenneth Untener and delivered by Cardinal John Francis Dearden in 1979.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

Let us be careless sowers of God’s extravagant and mysterious love.