SUNDAY 15

10-16 July

Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23 (Sermon 2: “Broadcasting”

Romans 8: 1-11

Genesis 25: 19-34

Psalm 119: 105-112 (Sermon 1: “Words or the Word”)

PREPARATION

The love, mercy and peace, of Messiah Jesus

be with you all.

And also with you.

Because of Christ, we can slip easily into worship,

without apprehension or fear.

But that should not lessen our sense of wonder

in the presence of such an awesome Love.

We are not some cosy religious club

for nice, kindly, respectable people,

but a congregation of sinners who come

to present themselves for worship.

We are in the Presence of a sublime Holiness

that veils itself lest we be struck blind and dumb

by its ineffable glory.

Here is Love, yes, but what an awesome Lover is our God!

Summer or winter, seedtime or harvest,

my life is continually in your hand,

and I never forget your law of love.

In success or failure, health or sickness,

your word is a lamp for my feet

and a light upon my path.

By day or by night, at dawn or at dusk,

please accept, loving God,

the vows my mouth freely makes;

and teach me, Holy One, your ways.

PRAYER OF APPROACH

Holy Friend,

give us the sensitivity to know how great you are,

the wisdom to understand how complete you are,

the humility to accept how hidden you are,

the faith to trust how close you are,

and the love to adore how beautiful you are.

Through Christ Jesus

through whom you lavish on us light and life.

Amen!

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE

Call to prayer:

We know for sure that we do not have to talk God into forgiving us. God knows our need before we ask, and has provided in the crucified Jesus a therapeutic love that can never be exhausted. In confession we get honest and ask the Spirit God to come in and put things right.

Let us pray.

Loving God, Sower and Reaper of love,

we admit to you that we are like stony fields,

capable of growing goodness and sharing it around,

but also we allow goodness to wither and weeds to flourish.

Your mercy has taken root in us but we do not share enough of it with others,

your justice has grown on us but we have inadequately implemented it,

your truth has showered on us but we have let it run to waste,

your love has blossomed among us but we have been slow to set fruit

Most loving God, please open the furrows of our lives to receive again the seeds of your Gospel. Rain your mercy upon us, shine your warmth and light into every dark place, and bring forth in us not the harvest we deserve but the harvest that in your glorious love you have destined for us. Through Christ Jesus our Saviour.

Amen!.

FORGIVENESS

Listen, to this Word:

“Where sin abounds love much more abounds”.

Receive from such abundance and give thanks. You, my sisters and brothers, are among the richest people in the world. You have the wealth of Christ with you always, even to the end of time.

Thanks be to God.

PRAYER FOR CHILDREN

Dear God,

please sow your seeds of love in us.

If our hearts become like stony ground,

please soften them.

If our hearts are like busy footpaths,

please save us from temptations.

If our hearts sprout with nestles and thistles,

please clean out all such weeds.

When our hearts become like good, clean soil,

please help us to harvest truth, kindness and happiness.

In the name of Jesus

who planted and grew nothing but good seed.

Amen !

PSALM 119: 105-112

Your Living Word, loving God, is a lamp for my feet,

a light on the path where I must go.

In my confirmation I have made my vows to you,

to trust Christ and try always do your will.

When I’m under pressure and feeling ragged,

give me new life, loving God, as you have promised.

Accept the songs of praise which I offer, my God,

and teach me to fulfil your loving purposes.

You hold my life in your hands continually,

and I do not forget the love you have commanded.

On a side path, evil schemers have set a trap for me

but I have not strayed outside your guidelines.

It is the way of my Lord that is my eternal heritage,

it is the very joy of my heart’s desiring.

My heart yearns to fulfil all your wishes,

to follow nothing but you for ever.

Ó B D Prewer 2001

THE YOUNG SOWER

Matt 13: 1-8, 18-23

This young Sower

tracks us down

the fallow years

and on through

the scrub and tares.

Among the thorns

of our much

neglected lease

he then sows

seed of great price.

Where we conceal

our hard stone

beneath thin soil

he now plants

his very soul.

Where paths are hard

and the crows

cruise overhead

he still dares

to try some seed.

This young sower

reaps through us

far down the years

his harvest

watered by tears.

Ó B D Prewer 1994

COLLECT

Most wonderful God, you have sown in us a seed which longs to put down deep roots and then grow towards the light. By your Spirit please tend and nurture that which you have planted, that in spite of hard seasons or the work of evil predators, we may bring forth a harvest of wonder, love and praise. Through Messiah Jesus, our Brother and Lord.

Amen!

WORDS OR THE WORD?

Psalm 119:105

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.

The Word of God is God.

Maybe we went wrong when writing was invented. Up till then the great Joy at the heart of faith (the living Word) could only be passed on from one living person to another. Story tellers were treasured people.

But then came the inventing of writing. The Word of God was shrunken until it was recorded as squiggles on a page, static and impersonal . Legalists, who rarely are the friends of God, got in on the act. Soon they abused, arrested, imprisoned, tortured and even murdered those who read a phrase differently, or dared to use a comma instead of a full stop.

WORDS ARE READILY MISUNDERSTOOD

When another person reads the words an author has written, bringing their own life’s experience to it, they will see in those squiggles typed on paper a variant of the meaning that the author was trying to express.

I am a writer. I know the difficulty and the sheer frustration! First the Word deals with me in a personal way; as precious pulsing Reality! God in my life! Then I try to express the ineffable in mere words, those inadequate squiggle codes on a sheet of paper or PC screen.

The result only bears a resemblance to the Reality, even for me when I later read my own written words.

A writer can be remarkably misunderstood. Sometimes the misunderstanding is like good news, sometimes it is bad news. I have received letters that impute to my words an understanding far more insightful and clever that I had experienced. At other times there are comments from those who have read into my words banalities of which even I am not capable.

THE DANGER OF BIBLE WORSHIP

Now that brings me back to the Bible and the text with which I started. (Some of you wondered whether I would ever get back there. O ye of little faith!)

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105

The “Bible” this Psalm writer was referring to was small. Most likely just the first five books of the Bible, or maybe merely the moral, religious, and social codes from the books of Deuteronomy and Exodus.

This believer is utterly devoted to his Scriptures. Here is a genuinely good person who loves God wholeheartedly and wants to live enthusiastically according to the revealed will of God available to him. He wants to spend his life immersed in his Scriptures. I wish that every church member had a similar devotion.

Nevertheless, there may be the strong whiff here of the beginning of what later became bibliolatry (Bible-idolatry); that is, worship of a book instead of the worship of God alone.

The German scholar Artur Weiser wrote concerning this Psalm: “one cannot fail to realise that a piety such as expressed in the psalm, according to which God’s word and law take the place of God himself and his wonderful works, are even worshipped and become the source of that comfort which as a rule is bestowed upon man by the divine saving love, carries with it the germs of a development which was bound to end in the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and Scribes.”

Biblical scholarship is a noble discipline, a life devoted to studying the Scriptures is awesome. Yet knowing the Word is to know God in Christ, and that is something even a little child can know, and is far more awesome!

BRIDGING THE FRUSTRATING GULF

I said earlier that from my own experience I know how frustrating it can be to be a writer.

The gap between those written words and what the reader sees in those words can be a great gulf... Therefore the gap between the soul of the writer and the soul of the reader might seem unbridgeable.

Now here’s a thought: Maybe it is also very frustrating to God?

There is always a gap between the Living Word and written words, a further gap between written

words an the what is formed in the mind of the reader.

The only way the gap can be bridged is in relationship with the Holy Spirit. When people, with their Bible open (not as an object of worship but as a resource for fellowship with God, and for building a loving relationship with others) sincerely seek the truth, then Person to person thing can happen. These are those wonderful moments of enlightenment! Those “ah yes!” moments when we hear what God is saying to us.

You would do well to heed my warning about bible idolatry. We do not put our faith in the words within a book, no matter how holy, but in the Living Word who lies behind and beneath and above the words of that book.

Christians are sometimes called “people of the Book.” That is because the Book points us to Christ the Living Word, and the Living word helps us understand the living truth beneath the pages of the Book. The Bible must never be the subject of our worship. Never. Yet there is no better resource for the enlightening and building up of the children of God.

AN EXAMPLE: JESUS CHRIST OR THE BOOK?

Let me try to express this in a real story. On one occasion I was visiting a colleague, when some Mormons came to the door. As always, they were well meaning, good living young men. I was sitting just around the corner from the front door listening to the conversation. My colleague handled the situation with admirable courtesy and acumen. The young men urged him to accept the gift of the Book of Mormon. He asked why? They replied that his salvation and eternal happiness could well depend on it.

Gently he moved the conversation to Christ, asking whether they believed in him, to which they gave positive affirmations. The discussion went on about Jesus, his life, his teaching, his death and resurrection...

Later my colleague asked the young men if Jesus was the true Redeemer of the world, the source of God’s saving love. “Of course,” they answered. “That is good,” he responded, “I believe that too. But earlier you said that my salvation could well depend on whether I accepted the Book of Mormon from you. You can’t have it both ways. Is it Christ Jesus that you believe in or is it your book? “

“If your book is the source of salvation then I’m afraid I am going to be damned, because I’m not going to accept your gift. But if Christ Jesus is the source of salvation, then I am certainly numbered among those being saved. Which is it you really believe in? Jesus Christ or your book?”

The young men were nonplussed. This was not in their training manual. Quickly they thanked him and politely bid him goodbye.

Not for one moment would I put the rambling Book of Mormon on the same level as the Bible. I’ve read it. It’s on my bookshelves. I find no light in it. The Mormons may treasure it, and I must respect that. However, in we can fall into the same idolatory. The Bible cannot save us. Only Christ Jesus, the embodied Living Word of God can save.

TREASURE THE BOOK. TREASURE CHRIST MORE.

I am numbered among those extra fortunate people have been blessed by the Good Book from childhood. My parents treasured it like a special friend. I read the Bible and was nurtured in it. Without it I would be badly deprived.

It has, and must have, a key place in the church. Even in a poorly conducted service of worship, even if the sermon is a tatty thing, if the Bible is read there is nourishment for the spirit. It unfolds a view of life utterly different from the secular myths and deceits of the twenty first century.

I beg you to treasure and read and study it, to be saturated in it as our forebears did. Through it the Word of God speaks to us as from no other book on earth. But when it comes to our basic faith, our trust is in the love of God in Jesus Christ. He is the Living Word and is our health and salvation.

Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

SERMON 2: BROADCASTING

Matthew 13:1-9

Have you noticed on TV that pathetic sight of children in drought affected African countries gathering up individual seeds that may have fallen on to the ground? Each seed is precious. A child sifts through the soil, seizing each solitary seed with joy.

Seeds were that precious in the days of Jesus.

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER AND THE SEEDS

Which brings me the story which Jesus told of the “The Sower and the seeds.” I will, in a few moments, look more closely at the seed and the different soils, but at the outset I want to put the spotlight on this crazy sower.

I have mentioned this once before in a sermon; but here I go again: The ludicrous thing about the parable of the sower and the seed is that this particular sower is over-generous, to the point of being profligate, in his use of the seed.

He seems to have squandered valuable seed. Using the ancient rural method of broadcasting by hand, the sower walked up and down the field, scattering seed to right and left as he went. But this sower was not very careful. Hear it again, and as you listen, think about the value of seed in that ancient rural economy:

A sower went out to sow.

As he broadcast the seed, some fell on a walking track, and birds swooped down and gobbled them up.

Some fell among the rocks, where the soil was thin. The seed quickly germinated. But their roots were shallow and the soil soon dried out and the plants withered and died.

Some of the seed fell among thistles. The thistles strongly outgrew the young plants and choked them.

But other seed fell on good soil and yielded a harvest. In some places the yield was a hundredfold, some was sixty and some thirty.”

But what a waste! What was wrong with this sower? Did someone drop him on his head when he was a child? Was he drunk, or had he been smoking hashish?

When seed is precious, what sane farmer would allow some of it to fall on a footpath? Or waste it on thin soil covering sun-baked rocks, or scatter it among thistles? Sowers were normally experts at their job. Each seed was precious. Nothing was wasted.

Who is this sower? It is a person who broadcasts the Gospel word of the Kingdom of God. It is the messenger whose word and deed perfectly reflect each other. It is the person who is prepared to be a fool for God’s sake.

The sower in the first instance is Jesus himself. Is he then crazy or profligate?

The answer is “yes.” In the world’s estimation he is either an ass or is wilfully wasteful in his use of the precious seed. He squanders it on tax gatherers and sinners, those whom the righteous snobs of this world despise and reject. Jesus is extravagant. Like father like son. Jesus is the very image of the wonderful Creator who is prodigal in his love for this world.

God is has always been prepared to risk wasting love on those whom the world judge to be hopeless cases, in the hope that a few souls in the most unfortunate circumstances might foster a seed and bring it to harvest.

THE FATE OF BROADCAST SEED

God and his Christ quite deliberately broadcast the seed; the seed being the Gospel word.

Some seed fell on a footpath

A sower went out to sow.

As he broadcast the seed, some fell on a walking track, and birds swooped down and gobbled them up.

God and his Christ are not put off by those adverse conditions where the soil has been flattened by countless feet, forming a walking path. They deliberately and generously sow some of the seed in such tough conditions where souls have been hardened by the traffic of life.

Christ knew every well that the birds would come and peck up most of the seed. The sparrows are experts. Much of the seed does not stand an earthly chance of making it to harvest. But Jesus knew there is always an heavenly chance!

Yet maybe, just maybe, a few patches of soil will receive the seed. Maybe some of the uncaring feet who walk all over that hardened soil will unknowingly kick a seed into a crevice, or press a few seeds deep into the earth, where they can germinate... Maybe a few seeds at the edges of the road will grow and produce healthy ears of corn.

Some seed fell among stones.

Some fell among the rocks, where the soil was thin. The seed quickly germinated. But their roots were shallow and the soil soon dried out and the plants withered and died.

Here we have the precious seed of God which falls in rocky terrain. Here, spread over the bedrock, are a few patches of receptive though shallow soil, In the flush of early enthusiasm, the seed will take root and sprout. But because this soil is shallow, the hot sunshine soon dries it out and the young plants wither.

There are always some shallow people around who will get all excited about religion, make an impulsive decision to be Christ’s followers, yet it comes to nothing. A few set backs happen to them or to their family, sickness or loss of employment hits them, and they turn sour and give up on faith.

You may encounter within the church some self-styled realists who will say: “Why waste good seed on such shallow people?”

To which Jesus the sower says: “ Ah, but did you notice two healthy ears still growing in that crevice over there to your left, and another three back to your right.”

Some seed fell among thistles

Some of the seed fell among thistles. The thistles strongly outgrew the young plants and choked them.

What about the seed sown among thistles? The soil may be soft and moist, but the seed does not stand a chance, does it?

Among new converts, any who attempt to keep their faith without changing other aspects of their lives, are doomed to failure. Those who still have their eye focussed on the stock market report, the latest fashion, and all the deceitful glamour of the world, will soon lose the struggle for spiritual growth in the cause of Christ Jesus. Those who ignore prayer and the sustaining support of Christian fellowship are most at risk. The weeds around them will choke the good seed of Christ.

So why then does the Divine Sower persist in sowing seed among the thistles? The reason defies worldly common sense, but is eminently sensible to God. There may be only a scattered few seeds that will outgrow the thistles, yet they mature in the faith and produce substantial heads of grain.

Christ and his God persist because as long as there is a chance that a half dozen of seeds may grow and mature, it is a big win. For the sake of a few, Christ Jesus will risk wasting his love on plants living in the inhospitable thistle territory. There is an outbreak of joy in heaven over one sinner who repents and finds abundant life. The numerical return may seem unsustainable to an accountant, but in God’s eyes, the risk is always worth it.

God’s accountancy and ours are poles apart. Praise God it is so, or most of us would not be here this day.

Some seed fell on good soil

But other seed fell on good soil and yielded a harvest. In some places the yield was a hundredfold, some was sixty and some thirty.”

The good soil in the parable has excellent results. Some of the best soils produce a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty. That is great.

However, I give one warning: Let no one who produces a hundred fold look down on those who yield sixty fold, and never permit those who harvest sixty fold to denigrate those who only manage thirty fold.

Even in the good soil; conditions vary, opportunities are not the same.

Some parts of the paddock may receive less rain, or may be deficient in trace elements. Parts of the wheat field may be closer to bushland and more subject to attacks of corellas or even to raids by scavenging ants. Never let us begin classifying of judging one another.

There is no room from spiritually snobbery in the church of Jesus Christ. We celebrate with the thirty fold harvest as much as we rejoice with the hundred fold. For that matter, we equally celebrate with those whose Gospel yield comes in at a modest threefold. And we should go wild with joy when the footpath or the rocky and weedy places produce an occasional positive result.

OUR GOD IS COMMITTED TO A BROADCAST POLICY

“This is God’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.”

The God of Jesus is determined to maintain a free broadcast policy, spreading the seed of the Gospel among the thistles, on the footpaths, or among the rocks. No adverse conditions are so extreme that he will throw up his hand and says: “Not here. This soil is hopeless.” Jesus will do anything- go the second mile, turn the other cheek, forgive seventy times seven, suffer abuse and betrayal- rather than turn back from his policy of broadcasting the seed of the Gospel in favourable conditions or in inhospitable ones.

No cost is too much for this Man from Nazareth and his God. Even if the soil has to be watered and fed with his own body and blood, he willingly will do so. The Divine commitment it absolute.

For his mercies ever endure, ever faithful ever sure.

THANKSGIVING

It is wonderful, loving God, the way your Holy Scriptures, shaped in a distant age and in another land, open our eyes and ears, mind and soul, to encounter the Word of Life, here in this great southern continent of Australia.

Let thanksgiving and praise rise to you this day and always.

It is wonderful, loving God that the Word within the words still touches our eyes and enables us to recognise the beauty of your handiwork from the Blue Mountai

ns to the Bungle Bungle, from Kakadu to the Derwent River.

Let thanksgiving and praise rise to you this day and always.

It is wonderful, loving God, that your Book still confronts our distorted and degraded relationships and lifts our minds to perceive the beauty which you intended us to embrace and enjoy, through childhood and youth, the middle years and old age.

Let thanksgiving and praise rise to you this day and always.

It is wonderful, loving God, that the Bible still challenges us to hear themes of judgment and mercy within the shame and glory of our towns and cities, from Fremantle to Wollongong, to Darwin to Launceston.

Let thanksgiving and praise rise to you this day and always.

It is wonderful, loving God, that your Living Word meets us in many places of prayer; at cathedrals, and chapels, meeting halls and house churches, study groups and Sunday Schools, youth fellowships and conventions.

Let thanksgiving and praise rise to you this day and always.

It is most wonderful beyond all words that you chose to embody your Living Word in one human being named Jesus, who came to seek and save all that is twisted, diseased and lost. For Jesus of Nazareth with his warm hearted humanity, his crucified divinity, and his sublime resurrection over evil and death.

Let thanksgiving and praise rise to you this day and always.

Amen!

Yes, loving God, Amen!

PRAYERS FOR OTHERS

It is written: If you do not love your brother whom you can see, you cannot claim to love God who is unseen. Let us pray for our sisters and brothers, the world over.

Today like every day there are people who are desperately hungry for a slice of bread or a handful of rice, and there are churches and agencies trying to bring them nourishment.