12 July 2025 7th Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 25.19-34   Psalm 119.105-112   Romans 8.1-11   Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23

Let anyone with ears listen.  How well do you hear.  And I am not talking about whether you have, or need, hearing aids.  But how well do you actually hear what is being said to you, or rather, how well do you hear the words as they were intended by the person speaking them.  Because I think we are all guilty, at times, of hearing what we want to hear and interpreting the words spoken to us to fit our own agendas or wishes.  And sometimes that does not matter, but other times it can cause great consternation or upset.   We only have to look at our leaders to see that sometimes what they say has been ‘massaged’ by those against them, or the media, or those with other opinions and their message fails to be understood or followed or even reported as they intended.

Is this what Jesus is talking about in this passage.  Sometimes we ignore what we hear because it does not ‘fit our agenda’ and if asked about it, we can’t even remember ever hearing it.  Sometimes we hear it, and take it on board, but we are soon distracted and the message is forgotten or lost.  Sometimes we hear it, we try to follow it, but we find it simply too hard to maintain, so we stop trying to do it.  Other times we hear it, but the message gets lost in the hustle and bustle of our daily life and it becomes just another ‘noise’ that has to fight all the other ‘noises’ around us.  And then there are those times when we hear it, we take it on board, we follow it, and we make it part of our ‘way of life’ into the future.

I wonder how often those scenarios occur for you.  If your life is anything like mine, the last one does not happen nearly as often as it should.  Life gets in the way; my agendas get in the way.  So what can we do about it.  Do we just accept that that’s ‘how it is’ and live with it?  Hopefully not.  Hopefully we can gradually allow what we hear to become part and parcel of our lives more and more.  This is Jesus’ intention in this parable.  The word of the kingdom will bring us into more fruitful lives and those lives will, hopefully, blossom and bear more and more fruit.

But maybe one of the questions we are tempted to ask is, what do you mean by Word of the Kingdom?  And how is that different from ‘Word of God’, or are they the same thing?  At the end of our readings this morning, we heard the reader say, The Word of God, or Word of the Lord.  So it would appear that the Word of God, the Word of the Lord is words.  But could it be more than that.  Could it be an experience.  After all Jesus used the term Word of God or Word of the Kingdom often and I don’t think he was meaning written words because most of those to whom he spoke were functionally illiterate.  I think the words Jesus spoke and the way he lived and acted were inseparable.  The words only had meaning in the context of the experience others had of Jesus.  Remember, what we know as the Word of God, the Bible, was first and foremost an oral experience.  When Paul and the others sent letters to the various areas, they were not ‘put up on a noticeboard for the town to read’, they were read out loud in the town square or in the church so everyone could hear it.

So if we return to the parable.  Where are you in the parable?  Are you the Sower, or maybe the seed, or maybe even the path or bird or rock or fertile soil?  Did you listen to the parable, or just hear it; and there is a difference.  Sometimes I have to admit, while I hear someone talking to me, I find that I am not really ‘listening’ to them.  I hear noise, I hear words, but I do not listen so as to really ‘hear’ them.  And that, I think, is what Jesus is talking about here.  We all hear, but we need to develop our listening skills so we hear what is being said rather than what fits my reality in the context of all that is going on around me.

Jesus does not elaborate on how the devil ‘steals the words’ from those for whom they fall on the path.  He doesn’t need to.  The message is clear, sometimes we ‘close our minds’ or ‘set our minds against’ hearing the messages given to us, by God, by others, by our loved ones.

We have all, I think. had times when, having heard we start out enthusiastically, but that enthusiasm dies quickly because we struggle to ground it in our experience.  Or times when all the other ‘things’ in our lives overwhelm us and we struggle to ‘see the wood for the trees’ and end up going round in circles achieving nothing.  And thankfully, we also have those experiences where what we have heard really does take root, we are able to translate it into our own experience and allow it to grow in our lives and in the growing, we become stronger and better disciples.

There is another interesting thing about his parable.  Notice what the farmer does with the seed.  He does not ‘dig a furrow’ and place the seed in neat rows, he ‘scatters’ the seed and he doesn’t seem to care where the seed ends up, he just throws it in every direction imaginable.  The farmer scatters it in such an extravagant way that those to whom Jesus is talking, farmers, would have considered this farmer very reckless.  But I would prefer to call him simply generous and bountiful.  He allows the seed to fall where it wills, he allows the wind the take it, he trusts that, at least some of it, will fall on ground that will support it, but there are no guarantees.  This parable shows us surprise and spiritual transformation.  The seed of divine insight and transformation is sown in our lives and neighbourhoods every moment.  God doesn’t wait till there is a ‘guarantee of success’ or ‘the weather is favourable’, God touches us every day in every way, even when we turn away from that divine guidance.  God desires us to grow, and God desires a harvest of righteousness in our personal lives.  And maybe the invitation to grow is more important than the end result.

The Word of God, or Word of the Kingdom, is not ‘static’, it is ever changing.  Every time you hear it, it will be heard differently, because you are changing, you are developing, you are growing.  And your response to what you have heard is as important as what you have heard.  Those times when what you have heard makes perfect sense are grace-filled times where what you have heard about God and from God, and what your life tells you, bears fruit that is as unique as your hearing.  But it is not about how much fruit is produced; it is the way that fruit takes hold in you.  It is not a competition about who hears the Word better, it is about what the word creates in you.  We are not really told the outcome of the farmers actions, only the hoped for outcome.  The future is wide open, not predetermined.  All the growth we perceive in ourselves and in others is a blessing.  And when growth occurs, we can give thanks and share our bounty with those around us.  God is at work in the world, in small and large, faithful and unfaithful, friend and enemy, to bring forth abundant growth.  Can you respond to the ambiguities of life with grace, insight and healing?