7-14-96	Parable of the Seed

Genesis 25:19-34; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

"Many years ago a young minister in New England agreed to preach at the chapel of a logging camp in northern Maine. It was winter and the weather was dreadful as he made his way on horseback through a blizzard. He arrived at the remote chapel only to discover that not a single logger had come to the service. The chapel was empty and cold, and he had to build his own fire. After going to such trouble to get there, he decided that he would conduct the service anyway, just for the glory of God. So he sang and prayed and read scripture and preached his sermon to an empty chapel.

Many years later, when he had become a well-known preacher in New England, he was startled by a stranger who came to him after a service and said, 'I want to thank you because I was converted to the Christian faith through your preaching in a logging camp in northern Maine many years ago.' The preacher said, 'That's impossible.' But then the preacher recalled, 'Yes, I did preach in an empty chapel at a logging camp one winter Sunday, but I was the only one there.' 'I was there, too,' the stranger admitted. 'I had been drinking heavily and was hiding out in the basement to get out of the cold. I heard every word of your service--and that changed my life.'"

That preacher had a lot of faith, preaching to an empty chapel. He could hardly have expected any return for his efforts. But God works in strange ways. In today's Gospel, Jesus tells a story about a sower who sowed his seed on different kinds of ground. In those days

a sower would broadcast the seeds, that is, the sower would simply throw the seed out in a sweep of the arm, letting it go where it would; the ploughing always came after the wheat was sowed, not before as it is done today.

The sower in the Gospel knew that some of his wheat would fall on good ground; some on rocky soil, some among thorns, some on a footpath. But he had great faith that it would all bear fruit. In reality, it should have borne only some seven-and-a-half or, for a good harvest, tenfold. But Jesus says this sower's harvest was sixty, eighty, and hundredfold...A remarkable harvest for any planting.

Jesus was in a gridlock position in his ministry when he told this parable. It seemed his ministry was not going anywhere. He had certainly not won many converts, and he had been thrown out of the synagogue by the religious leaders. But Jesus wanted the apostles to see that the situation was not hopeless.

God is an optimistic God. Jesus really expects his mission here on earth to bring a harvest of sixty, eighty and hundredfold. Jesus is not pessimistic about his efforts. Nor should we be about our efforts, for we are working for Jesus.

The sower is optimistic about his efforts bearing fruit. But what will bring a big harvest depends on how good the soil is that receives the seed. How open are we to receiving the word of God? Do we look for God behind the ordinary circumstance of our daily life?

"It's like a wife's complaint that her husband has "selective hearing." He can quickly hear her call that dinner is on the table, but he may not hear her plea for help with some of the housework. A mother will hear her baby's cry in the night, while the father may

sleep through it all. Someone keenly interested in classical music may hear the strains of a symphony in the background of a film. Another person doesn't hear the music at all, much less recognize the tune. For example, how many of us recognized the Third Symphony of

Camille Saint-Saens in the movie Babe, that wonderful film about a pig who thinks he's a sheepdog?

Mother Teresa had to be listening to God. She was a nun in a religious order; she felt called to leave that order and start her own order, an order that would work directly with the poor. The Sisters of Charity are the religious society founded by Mother Teresa to work

among the poor. They now have 330 houses in 49 countries. And if you count their auxiliary helpers, many more. But originally this worldwide movement began with one person, Teresa herself, teaching children in Calcutta in the open air, using the ground for a blackboard.

Someone quickly gave her a room then a house, and then others joined her. The result has been a hundredfold. We see the power of the seed in the life of such a nun.

And since we're talking about nuns, Sr. Mary Ellen Moore tells of one nun from her congregation who went to work in China in 1946. It was just then that the communistic government of China was clamping down on all foreigners, especially religious. Several priests as well as leaders of her religious congregation were picked up by the police, tried for treason against the government, and sentenced to prison.

This nun was young and had not even made her final vows. Her bishop called her in and said that, under the circumstances, he could not encourage her in her desire to make her final vows. He encouraged her to lead as Christian a life as she could; he gave her permission

to renew her vows one year at a time.

He encouraged her to meet with the few other nuns in her community whenever she could. She did meet with her religious sisters, and they consoled themselves greatly over the years, affirming that charity and love were the most important thing. Gradually the communistic regime in China relaxed its grip.

The 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s passed by. By 1990 contact with the "West" was more and more permitted. A Chinese priest was given permission to travel to Europe. With him, this nuns sent a letter to her superior general, a woman she had never met, asking if she could formally make final vows as a member of her religious congregation.

"In 1991, a tremendous celebration took place in a motherhouse in Paris. Now still seventy-five years young, after forty-nine years of religious life, this sister was finally able to publicly pronounce her perpetual vows as a member of her religious family. She was welcomed by sisters from twenty-six countries who were renewed in their own

commitment by her incredible story of fidelity and persistence."

It takes hope to hang in there and believe that God will work out His will even under such opposition as what the Chinese government put up.

Parents sometimes wonder how much influence their words about living one's faith will have on their children. What with the modern temptations today, a parent may think it's impossible to raise a child according to the teachings of Christ and the Church. Parents have to be convinced of the power of the seed.

"A mother of four little ones finally got them to bed one evening and returned wearily to the den only to see an encyclopedia open on the floor with a page torn out of it. She went and got the scotch tape and stooped to repair the damage, and the act seemed to epitomize

the whole of her life--forever picking up after children, and she wondered to herself, "Am I wasting my existence in pointless drudgery?" At the moment it seemed so. She pieced the torn fragments together and noticed they were the picture of a child's face. When she glued them back together, she happened to turn the pages over, and there was a one page map of the whole world. And it dawned on her that as she was putting together correctly the countenance of a little child, she was also affecting the shape of the whole world."

At the end of this parable Jesus supposedly gives a point by point interpretation of this parable. Such a point by point interpretation is called an allegory. But many biblical scholars tell us that Jesus probably did not give this allegory. It was probably put in by later Christian scholars working on the text.

The allegory is so familiar to us that we are almost depressed when we hear the parable of the sower, thinking that there can only be one interpretation. And so we talk about what is the rocky soil in our life, and what the footpath, what the thorns, and who are the birds who eat up the seed on the footpath.

But we have permission to approach the parable as it relates to our own times. We don't have to stick with the allegory. "Perhaps God is the sower and we are the soil. Boy Scouts study soil and water conservation. They are taught techniques of enriching the soil by

crop rotation and saving the topsoil by terracing in hillsides. Scouts learn that by planting certain crops in the off-season the farmer can return to the soil what is taken from it during the growing season. This is not such a bad model for our spiritual growth. Can we, through prayer, study, and service, become the kind of soil in which the seeds of the gospel can find a fertile home? Then can we produce the return our Lord wishes for us? These may be the most important questions raised by this parable."

We may wonder "Why bother to sow seeds in the face of failure and likely failure? Because we are such poor judges of soil. Not very long ago questions like these were being asked: Why does God continue to sow seeds of peace in places like East and West Germany? Why does God continue to sow seeds of justice in South Africa? Why does God bother to sow seeds of hope in the United States where they spend two out of every five dollars to make weapons whose primary purpose is to destroy God's world and God's people?"

The answer? Because God has more faith in us that we do in God. God knows that the harvest will be sixty, eighty, and hundredfold. Our job is to prepare our soil to receive His word and know that God's word does not return to Him fruitless.

Amen.