What a glorious group of readings we have heard this morning! They are overflowing with joy, bursting out and showering us with words full of promise and abundance and love. They feel like balm to the soul, filling us with knowledge of God’s overwhelming generosity – an answer to prayer to sustain us through difficult times.
Two weeks ago I preached about hope, and my struggle to remain hopeful as I read world news, and repeatedly encountered division, and hatred between people and groups that seemed to be bursting into violence and pain on a large and a small scale across nations and communities. Today, the truth of that is not removed, but we are reminded of God’s wonderful promises.
“For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” the prophet Isaiah promises his people in a glorious description of God’s blessing.
“The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, and they shout and sing together for joy,” writes the Psalmist.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Paul declares to the Romans. There is no condemnation! a stunning joyful claim.
And Jesus tells the crowd, “A sower went out to sow,” and the seeds he flung all over the place in joyful abandon “brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Running through these words there is a repeated profound connection between joy, and abundant, limitless generosity that is poured upon all, without discrimination. Isaiah, the Psalmist and Jesus all speak of the abundance of Creation, almost to the point of excess. We hear of God pouring down rain and snow from heaven without measure, watering everything on earth in the full confidence that what needs to grow will grow. The Psalmist writes of overflowing pastures, years crowned with bounty, rivers full of water, and wagon tracks that “overflow with richness.” There is no holding back, there are no exclusions, no limit to this abundance that is gifted to and in all Creation.
I am put in mind of the gentle, quiet, bit-by-bit experience of working in the grounds of Holy Cross with the Little Seeds group. I sometimes worry that we don’t have enough people, or time to really tend this small part of the garden, and yet, every time we turn up to do just a wee bit more, I am astonished by the abundance of what is growing.
Of course the weeds grow abundantly! But also, already, we have potato plants that are flourishing, the potatoes hidden from sight but soon to be harvested – ‘white gold’ my Mum called them as we glimpsed them in the soil. We have flowers pollinated generously by bees and other insects, that are now the beginnings of beans, peas, strawberries and courgettes; and a stunning flower bed, that already has flowering sunflowers, and is a rainbow of coloured flowers, most of which I can’t name, but they look and smell amazing!
The Gospel reading from Matthew is perhaps the most wonderful description of God’s abundant generosity. The parable is probably familiar to most of you. A sower goes out to sow. As they sow, some seeds fall on the path, and the birds come and eat them up. Other seeds fall on rocky ground, where they spring up quickly, but wither when the sun burns their shallow roots. Other seeds fall among thorns, and are choked. Still other seeds fall on good soil, and bring forth abundant grain.
The focus in many readings of this parable is upon the seeds’ ultimate end. For me, I think this is partly a result of having performed in the musical Godspell when I was at school, and I just loved the part where weeds with thorns (acted with great flourish by some of us), grew up wickedly and choked the ill-fated seedlings. I also enjoyed the growth of the plants that fell on good soil, growing and blossoming! – but they just weren’t as much fun as us weeds! But actually, this parable is not the parable of different terrains. It is the parable of the sower.
It’s good to remember to whom Jesus was speaking. His listeners, in 1st century Palestine, were predominantly farmers. They knew all about preparing soil, how to take care of seeds, and planting to ensure the greatest yield, depending on particular weather conditions, and terrain. If we try to imagine this group of people, and their response to this telling by Jesus, they would most likely have been bemused, scandalised perhaps by the actions of this wasteful sower. Because this sower goes out to sow, and, as they do, the seeds fall everywhere! Absolutely everywhere.
Imagine us all walking out from Holy Cross in every direction, through our grounds and the gate into the roadworks, up East Barnton Avenue to the park, into the Tesco carpark, and all of us throwing seed with abandon as we go. No selection of places where seed should fall, and where it shouldn’t. Some of us might hesitate to do so, might be tempted to pocket the seed for when we reach the best soil. And people would think we were mad.
But here’s another thing I noticed in this parable. The sower sows like this, and is content to do so. This is how it is with this sower. Their way, their life’s work, is to keep sowing, everywhere. This sower has confidence that there is enough seed, it will not run out. This sower knows that there is always enough seed.
Of course, this is a parable, and the seeds being spoken about are not plant seeds that potentially could run out. They are God: God’s love, God’s Good News, God’s peace, God’s justice. They are seeds of the Kingdom of God. God does not hold back; does not wait until the conditions are just right. God gives plenty, always. And God will never run out.
What about us? Are we part of this generous sowing of God’s love, without judgement, or expectation for what will flourish? Are we held back by a very human concern that there may not be enough? Or that we must be good stewards who do not waste a drop of what God gifts to us? There may be wisdom in asking that, but reading this parable this week, I wonder whether we are inclined to limit God’s mercy, and God’s love?
Walking along a road in Silverknowes last week with my Canadian sister-in-law, she stopped suddenly, exclaiming, ‘Look! A poppy! Just clinging on at the edge of that pavement!’ The poppy was small, and fragile, and so beautiful, dancing in the breeze. And then we noticed more as we continued – all of them grown from seed that had somehow become lodged at the edge of the road, sown we might say by God’s very generous hand. Because that’s who God is. The seeds are tossed everywhere, with a daring delight. Seeds that may grow and flourish and blossom, even in the most unlikely of places.
We are called to be sowers of the Kingdom of God in all the corners of our lives. But thinking about the Church in the world, are we known for our scandalous generosity? Are we sowers who scatter the seed of God’s love everywhere we go, in all we do, without judgement?
Just imagine if seeds of love, mercy, justice, humility, peace, and truth were scattered abundantly by every person who is part of the body of Christ so that all corners of the world burst into colourful, riotous, joyous life. The Kingdom of God would absolutely flourish! So let’s go out from here today, and strive to be those sowers, sowing seeds of love, of joy, of hope, of peace, of the Kingdom of God. Amen.