CHURCH ANNIVERSARY - The Sower

MARK 4: 1-20


The parable of the sower - I guess that at least one or two of you are wondering if I have had a bit of a senior moment. After all, this is a parable that is often visited at Harvest Thanksgiving but Church Anniversary - well it just does not see to belong.

But believe you me whilst I have my fair share of doddery moments, I was in no way experiencing one of them when I decided that I would preach on this parable for tonight’s service. So why are we looking at this parable? The reason is quite simple - it speaks directly into the ministry of the church for today.

It helps to appreciate the realities of Palestinian agriculture. The common practice was for small family farmers to eke out a basic living from marginal plots whilst wealthy landowners kept the best land for themselves. The peasant farmers would throw their seed earnestly hoping for the best. After all the stakes were high. They would need sufficient return to feed their families, pay the rent and invest in sufficient seed in order to repeat the cycle again the following year. If the yield was insufficient and they fell into debt the farmer would face the prospect of borrowing from the wealthy landowners against the security of their land. If the cycle of failure continued and debts could not be repaid, they would face the prospect of losing their land to the lenders and of having to work to pay off the debt.

This system was fundamentally unjust. It deprived the peasant farmer of real choices in life. For truly such people were in chains. And yet Jesus in this parable gives a picture of a better tomorrow. His parable envisages a bumper harvest way beyond the expectations of his hearers, a bumper harvest that could make all the difference, the bumper harvest that would break the cycle of poverty and struggle. Beyond reasonable expectations, it looked to a future of liberation.

Sometimes, we downplay this aspect of the Gospel. We speak as if our aspirations can be measured in the size of congregations. This is absolute piffle. Much better to small and faithful than be seduced by a cult of numbers in pews or the trimmings of success. We need once more to touch base with the inspirational words of James Russell Lowell who proclaimed;

“They are slaves who fear to be in the right with two or three.”

And a part of our calling is the work of liberation which lifts people up from being nobodies to the value that God would bestow on all. This means that the church must be a community that confronts the prejudice that excludes in all its forms. This means that the church must be a place that embodies in word and deed radical inclusion for every single one of God’s children. After all has not Jesus spoken of coming that all may have life with abundance. Of course this speaks into the role of the church as a prophetic voice.

I wonder if anyone read today’s Sunday Times which proclaimed that the richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple over the past decade. When I read that, I wanted to puke. For I see plenty of the struggles of people even within my own town whose lives feel as bare and who are a limited in choices as the sower of whom Jesus told. I have no time for an easy accommodation with the powers that be if they cannot see the corruption in extreme wealth and life denying poverty side by side. Our faith is a faith that takes material seriously, a faith that is sorely misrepresented if we see bums on seats as more important than the denial of a good life for those at the bottom of the pile. Oh I know that the church matters but may we never forget that the church is not an end in itself but a signpost that points to God’s Kingdom of justice, peace and joy for all.


Back to the parable and we find the differing outcome of the seeds that are sown. Sowing on poor soil, it is no surprise that much of the soil would land in the places where it would fail to bring a yield. This is a simple fact of life. And I think that today in our efforts to make the Gospel real in peoples’ lives, there is here an echo. Much of what we do bears no obvious fruit. And yet, surely our greatest calling is to faithfulness rather than to success. Now I have no problem with planning or prioritisation - these are obvious realities in the ongoing life and work of the people of God. But they must never blind us to the reality that what we are about in the mission to which God calls us, is the incredible reality that God’s grace is for all. There is no nook or cranny that is beyond God’s love, no place of darkness that cannot be illuminated by the light of God, not one of our Hells that cannot be transformed by grace.

Of course, in many an exposition of this parable we have found ourselves contemplating the difficulties of sowing God’s seed. We are encouraged to think of the factors that seem to be obstacles to God’s work. Lack of roots, troubles and persecutions, the lures of this world, all these things come to mind. Such things represent challenges and remind us that God’s mission requires patience and a capacity to resist the temptation of shortcuts. And as those of us on the Pioneer Disciple Course will be finding, mission in God’s world involves a need for understanding of what is happening in that world.

But yet, it can be more personal. Use your imagination for a moment and picture the sower as being not us but God. Picture ourselves as the seed that is thrown, landing on various soil. You may imagine yourself in the varying cataegories of where the soil has landed. And if you are like me, that will not be easy because I know that at different times I am each of those seeds. For generally we are all a mixed picture. More and more I think that we fail to conclusively fit into neat boxes such as saint or sinner. At different moments, we can be both of these things and a whole lot more beside. So here this parable serves to challenge us about addressing our points of weakness so that we might grow in fruitfulness to God living lives and being in community in such a way as to make a difference and to bring about the signs of the Kingdom of God.

Fremington Methodist Church, today you celebrate another year as a community of God’s people in this village. You can look back with gratitude at past blessings. You can also look ahead to a continuing part within God’s ongoing mission. May this parable encourage you to move forwards with God, seeking to be the seeds that produce a yield.

But don’t expect it to be easy. Don’t expect great applause for this Gospel is full of challenge and controversy. Jesus, himself, was met with hostility for in so many ways it is a challenge to the orthodoxy of not just his but any age. Yet here is a challenge to both love and sow wastefully for if we hold back no seed is sown. And if no seed is sown there can be no yield.

So go forwards dreaming dreams and seeing visions of what can be. For we are called to simply allow ourselves to be a part of God’s unlimited possibilities. Holding nothing back, who knows what might be?


FREMINGTON METHODIST CHURCH SUNDAY APRIL 27TH 2008