On Monday last week I spent time in a friends garden that is full of blooming flowers, plants and bushes. It isn’t a big garden but it is somewhere where I find a lot of peace and enjoy looking at the plants, flowers and bushes. The sights, colours, the floral displays are really outstanding, there was so much to see and to take in. It is also true to say that most of what is in this garden all came from individual seeds.
Seeds often so small that when you drop them into the ground these disappear – yet if cared for not allowed to dry out – not over watered – heated right, they will germinate and grow. Then when fully grown into glorious flower there are seeds for the next year, But on the way to full growth there are plenty of opportunities for disaster, stunted grow, disease and damage, not all seeds or plants fulfil their full potential,
The parable of the sower contains the realism of life. The kingdom of heaven can come into a person’s life through something as relatively tiny as a seed: a very small kindly action,
A brief word of encouragement,
An insight shared leading to a moment of seeing things differently.
I have already suggested dangers that seeds face in growing. We might also keep in mind that seeds grow in their own time and space.
Those of us who have children or grandchildren and encouraged them to plant seeds, know that they are soon digging them up to see how they are growing. Only time brings things to maturity. Similarly, the parables suggest, we cannot hurry the growth of the kingdom; after a seed has been sown people need time and, given that all that may go wrong, they need tender care and support. Development in faith, in a loving God, our neighbour and we it takes time
This realism helps us to see the importance of patient support and pastoral care of people. Jesus began his ministry announcing that the kingdom of God was at hand.
The kingdom was present in Jesus and was his gift to his followers then and to us in our time. But we only know too well in our own time that the kingdom is not yet complete – reasons all too obvious, rocky ground, weeds, seductive temptations, and difficulties have been present in plenty.
We have seen and still see divisions in the church of Christ, through our selfish actions, misunderstandings, holding to certain dogmas and events in our church life sidetrack us from growing as the church of Christ. Thankfully within the Church of England after 20 years we now have Women Bishops “Alleluia!” But there still remain obstacles within the church that need to be tackled.
If that were not enough the world around us is marred by situations like the awful tragedy that happen on Thursday when the plane carrying almost 300 people, aircrew, men, women, children and infants was shot down as it flew over Eastern Ukraine. None of those people had anything to do with the conflict. Some were going on holiday; some we know were scientist who was off to a conference to further the treatment of A.I.D’s. All innocent people.
As I was watching the coverage of B.B.C news, a major military assault was being made by Israel on the Palestinians. We never seem to learn.
Wars and injustice, petty nationalism, corruption, selfishness. It makes me realise that as followers of Jesus our progress has been slow over two thousand years towards giving expression to the kingdom of God on earth in all the range of our human life and affairs. Just as we need to be patient to watch our seeds grow, perhaps we need a longer perspective; Who can tell how long it might take for enough seeds to be shown and for there to be enough growth of love in human affairs? However long it takes we can affirm that Jesus is the gift of God for the world, given into the ordinary affairs of life day by day. We have to as Jesus said “Let our lights shine before people” each and everyday. To give them a glimpse of “Thy Kingdom Come”.
Jesus’ prayer is that God’s kingdom will come on earth. The challenge to us is that we must not retreat inside our walls, but respond to his gift of himself with two commitments.
The first commitment is to Jesus, to let the seed of his love grow in us as we seek to follow him more nearly and love him more dearly. ‘Dearly’ in that context does not mean only with affection, it means bearing the cost of following him, accepting that we may have to face our own rocky ground, our own weedy temptations, the crushing tread of opposition: our own Good Fridays. The trial of growth are not only what other experience, they are part of our experience too.
The second commitment is to the world. It is the history of our own time that we shall be workers for the kingdom. If there are times of escape into the church they are given only so that we shall be renewed for our work in the world.
As we leave Church after we are feed by his word and taken our communion our closing sentence of the Communion Service says, “ Go in peace to love and Serve the Lord.”
We shall know we are doing the work of the kingdom when we see kingdom things happening: a person being healed; a child being fed who might have gone hungry had we not worked for or given to Christian Aid; a law being changed in response to our work with a pressure group to defend a person’s rights; a person being housed; an act of neighbourliness that gives joy where there might have been none; a campaign so that a persons living in a distant country will be treated with justice; a person being claimed by the Gospel. Our giving to charities that support and help those families in and around Ilkeston that need food banks to help them survive.
It is through a thousand ordinary activities and acts and words of love in the world - seeds – that the kingdom will come. When Christians fail to express their commitment to Jesus in commitment in the world, we become as weeds to the work others are trying to do. So the kingdom is a process of transformation that required of us time and it will not be easy. We receive the kingdom from Jesus both as gift and a work. It is a new human society to which Jesus is committed and the explanation of the parable in verses 36-43 includes words of judgement that shows that this gift matters a great deal to him,
Finally, the kingdom of God – thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven (as we say week by week) – is what Jesus wants for us and for the world.
So let us continue to let the seeds of our faith grow with his love and also realize that we to become the sower of the seeds of the kingdom to the world in which we are called to serve
Amen..
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