The Sower...

Tonight’s gospel is the well known parable of the sower (Luke 8:4-15). You will all have heard sermons about it many times before. Tonight I would like to promise something new but I’m not sure that is the purpose of this parable at all. With some of the stories of Jesus they are open to different interpretations, they will have different meanings for people at different stages of their life or experiences, and Jesus deliberately left them open-ended for us to think about.

But with this parable he spoke very clearly, and then even included for us a translation of the parable. We were supposed to remember it ! There was to be no doubt about its meaning. And that meaning partly concerns our preaching of the gospel, our sharing of the good news of Jesus with others, but it is also concerned with our listening to God’s word.

One of the greatest gifts that God has given us in life is the gift of listening. Listening is the key to success and perhaps even survival in most relationships. How often recently have we heard criticism of the government who we’re told are ‘not listening’… Research recently showed that the loneliest people in society are not the elderly living on their own, or any other obvious group we could think of, but actually teenagers – people who find it hard to express themselves in a way that they, rightly or wrongly, believe people are listening to them.

Listening is essential in relationships, and it is essential in our relationship with Jesus. And this evening rather than particularly concentrate on this parable I wanted to think more generally about how parables speak to us, and how we listen to them. And they do this in 3 ways.

First they speak to us in pictures. Jesus presents to people well known pictures, using well known images. He uses agriculture, he uses sheep, he uses money, all of which were things which were important to the people he was speaking to.

Secondly the parable is also a mirror. The pictures Jesus used, and the images they gave to people enabled people to see themselves almost as if in a mirror, and the fact is that many of those who listened to Jesus didn’t like to see themselves as they really were. Those who were indifferent or proud would shrug it off. For some the parables of Jesus hit home so hard that they were angry and turned against Jesus, and even tried to kill Him.

And the third aspect of a parable is that it acts as a window through which we see God and His grace.

But as we listen to parables or read them using these ideas of a picture, a mirror and a window, we can actually widen these to our lives in general. A parable is a story with meaning, just like our lives contain a story which has helped to shape us. That is our picture. The experiences and feelings that we have had, the places we have visited, the places we are, are all part of our picture, and we must look at that picture to see how we see ourselves, the people around us and God, and how those people and how God see us.

And that is our mirror, the mirror that allows us to be open and honest with ourselves and with God to see where we really are, and as we look at our mirror, as we realise where we are in our lives, we will inevitably realise that we need the love and grace of God.

And as we look to Jesus on the cross, and Jesus risen from the dead, we see the picture that leads us to realise that God has presented the window of opportunity to each one of us to get closer to him... Jesus broke down the barriers that seemed to separate us from God.

In the parable of the sower we see the 4 pictures of those who listen to God – those who are hard hearted and not really interested, those who don’t allow themselves enough time to build a relationship, or commit themselves to that relationship fully, those who try but who feel overwhelmed because they haven’t built their foundations properly, and those who listen and who are prepared to keep listening and keep growing.

The parable spoke very clearly to those who heard the explanation of Jesus – some liked it and some didn’t, those who were prepared to listen to it learnt from it. And the incredible thing about the parables spoken 2000 years ago is that they still speak to us today if we are prepared to listen to them. The parables are about real life.

There is an example of this in the Gospels with a woman who was like all four seeds that Jesus spoke about in the parable of the sower. In the gospel of John (Ch.4), Jesus encountered a woman at the well in Samaria. She changed as he spoke to her. Her heart was hard at first, and John explained the reason for her hardness - the woman was surprised that a Jewish man would talk with her in public… She had no understanding of her need or what Jesus had to offer her.

Her hard heart had become softer as Jesus offered her living water, and she immediately replied, "Sir give me this water so that I won't have to keep coming back to this well. This was an emotional response that had no depth to it. Jesus knew this, so He immediately began to dig deeper into her heart: "Go and call your husband!" he said, and these words touched the most sensitive part of her life, for she had been living a dubious life.

And as she wrongly thought she was being judged, she began to argue about religion. The weeds of prejudice and worldliness began to grow but Jesus refused to get into an argument over whether Jerusalem or Samaria was the place to worship.

Her greatest need was to worship God in Spirit and in truth. At that point, the good seed that had been planted in her heart years ago began to grow. She said, "I know that Messiah is coming . . . when that One comes, He will declare all things to us" (John 4:25) Jesus then revealed who He was, she believed, and immediately she began to bear fruit. She told her friends and many within her community believed in Jesus because they saw that her life was different.

The parables speak to us today in pictures, a mirror and a window – each one represents a lesson and an opportunity, just as each of our life’s experiences offer us a picture if we look at it, a mirror if we are prepared to look at ourselves and a window through which we see and receive the grace, mercy and love of God.

The gospel of Jesus had small, insignificant beginnings, like a seed; a religious leader put to death on a cross. His eleven dejected and frightened followers, huddled in a room fearful of the authorities. But six weeks later 3,000 people were added to the disciples. For nearly two thousand years the church has spread throughout the world by people growing and bearing fruit in the power of God's Spirit. There is still more to come. There is further growth, with many more people destined to turn to Jesus. AMEN