Sermon for Trinity 5, 12 July 2020

First Reading: Isaiah 55.10-13

Gospel: Matthew 13 1-9, 18-23

Today we have a reading from Isaiah of astonishing beauty, that to my ears is as beautiful as any written by Wordsworth or Shakespeare.

But Isaiah is so much more than literature. This is Man in dialogue with God and more than that at a time of great difficulty and disorientation. It’s the time of exile from Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon, when in successive waves the governing class and commercial elite had been removed from Judah for not paying tribute money to Nebuchadnezzar. It’s a message of hope.

And then we have one of the great parables. 

If there was a voting contest for the best known or most famous of Jesus’s parables, which would you choose?

I wonder which parable others would choose.

And the most given answer to the question: “Name one of Jesus’ parables?”

The Prodigal son? The Good Samaritan? Or today’s parable of the Sower and the Seed.

And of the four surfaces on which the seed landed, the hard bitten path, the rocky soil, the thorns (the material for Jesus‘s crown), or the good soil. Which category best fits us? Perhaps all of them – there’s a little of each surface in all of us.

Both Isaiah and the parable call us to be strong in our faith, Isaiah in a time of national difficulty – to put aside barriers that cut us off from God, to allow the Holy Spirit, or should I say the “Holy Seed” blossom and multiply.

This morning I’d like to briefly feast on what it is that makes Jesus such a masterful story teller – and second then ask us to look deep into our hearts as we chew over how fertile is our faith –what is the impact we have on those around us – because loving God, if we cannot love our neighbours, is not even half of what we are called to do.

Reflecting the wonderful words of Isaiah, we look to live in such manner that the word that flows from the mouth of God shall not return empty  but it shall accomplish God’s purposes.

First the impact of Jesus‘s parables.

The Sower and the seed is one of Jesus’ best known parables. But probably not as well-known as the other two. Perhaps this is because it doesn’t have their pathos, tales of suffering followed by recovery and joy. 

The Good Samaritan (a story of radical love from a member of the perceived enemy) or the Prodigal son (unconditional love from a parent to a child, a story that has destroyed the word “undeserving”, because if we really hear the message of the Son of God, if that message falls on good soil, then whether someone is deserving or not, is irrelevant).

The Sower and the seed requires explanation – as Jesus explains the four types of soil represents four different human responses.

Thinking about the three parables as media propositions, It would probably be easier to sell rights to films based on the other two parables -  Richard Curtis perhaps to direct and produce the first two – whereas the Seed and the Sower might be better dissected on a radio programme or podcast – perhaps Tim Harford – the Undercover Economist in “More or less.”.

How fertile are our hearts?

The Sower and the Seed is the story of growth. – really healthy growth provided the conditions are right.

It is also an example of what economists call the “multiplier effect” – a given change in an input has a much bigger change in output. One seed is multiplied in varying degrees. 

Perhaps we should consider whether work has been done on what Jesus can teach us about economics.

Have there been any books published on Jesus the Economist?

Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly - there is one by Charles Gave published in 2007 – a French free market economist –with the title “Jesus the Unknown Economist.” 

I have not read it, so cannot comment critically but Gave, whose organisation is headquartered in Hong Kong writes this:

“In light of my experience, and upon re-reading the Gospels, I was struck by how Christ, in a few simple sentences, was able to tear down all economic fallacies and show that the best way is always that of freedom.”

The Seed and the Sower is a story of impact, how growth can be prodigious, given the right conditions. 

Impact reporting is an increasingly used, particularly by Not for Profits, to report on the Social Impact of their activities.

One such charity that reports in this way is Family Action (formerly the Family Welfare Association). As an aside, It works closely with residents of Grenfell Tower. They have a national programme -the National School Breakfast Programme. It is estimated half a million children arrive at school feeling hungry. By providing good breakfast, learning ability increases dramatically with all the positive benefits that follow on from this. Multiple benefits from one action.

The economic impact of a new factory or new business on a community can have an enormous beneficial impact, a Dyson, Google or Nissan. 

The reverse is also the case. If a pandemic comes along and parches these businesses, “Good Samaritan” support is needed to give the chance of the seeds recovering to multiply in the future.

I do not expect members of the Treasury would describe the COVID Economic Support in this manner but I suggest Isaiah’s word are analogous to the impact the Government’s objectives for their economic support programmes:

“As the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.”

Perhaps what is needed at this time is to try to look at current events with the words of the prophets and Jesus at the forefront of our minds  - because that is how our hearts might most productively lead us the live the lives that God wishes –

to purge all the things which get in the way of personal communion with God, the briars and the thorns and the brambles, so that our lives shall become a garden of cypresses and myrtle bushes, that we may bearers fruit and yield many fold.

Summary

In both the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal son, the impact of one person on others is so unexpected and powerfully good. How much more then, how much more powerful is the impact of Jesus’s parables –evidenced by the fact that we are still talking about them 2000 years later.

The parables are living examples of the impact of a seed multiplying infinite times

The words of the Psalmist come to mind:

“How weighty to me,(to us)  are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

I (we) try to count them – they are more than the sand.” (Psalm 139:17,18).

This week and always may we be called to be good soil that enables the seeds sown by Jesus to multiply.

So when we leave today let us do so encouraged by those words from Isaiah:

“Let us go out in joy and be led back in peace.”

Fr Peter Wolton

12 July 2020