 The Seed Of Change 

 Series

Contributed by Chris Appleby on Oct 5, 2001

Scripture: Luke 8:1-15

Denomination: Anglican

Summary: God brings change to our world slowly, one person at a time, but with dynamic
results.

I guess the parable of the sower is a familiar one to most of us. It’s one of those stories that
have been told and retold countless times. So the danger is that when we hear it again we can
think we already understand everything that there is to learn from it. Yet God’s word is living and
active, sharper than any 2-edged sword. So we should expect that each time we look at
something like this passage we’ll discover new insights, that we’ll be challenged anew by the
simple message of the parable. Well, what I’d like to do today is to concentrate, not so much on
the story itself as on the three things that make up the story. That is, the seed, the soil and the
sower.

The Seed

First of all the seed.

If you were a follower of Jesus and you observed the things that were going on at this point in
time, you’d have no trouble imagining the Kingdom of God taking over the world. People were
flocking to Jesus, people were being healed, evil spirits were being driven out of people’s lives.
The power of the kingdom was obvious to all who were there. It would have been easy to think
that the Kingdom of God would simply overwhelm all who opposed it. Yet as Jesus tells this
parable he raises something puzzling for us. If this is meant to tell about the growth of God’s
Kingdom, there’s something wrong. First of all, the means of the growth of the Kingdom seems
a bit weak. A tiny seed? And it’s all a bit hit and miss. Some of it grows and some dies! Yet this
is God’s plan to bring in his kingdom. There’s a mystery here.

You’d think if the Lord of the universe wanted to bring his rule to bear on the world he’d be
employing an army of angels. He’d be calling down lightning on his enemies. He’d be silencing
those who oppose him by supernatural means. But that’s not what’s implied in this parable that,
he says, reveals to his disciples the secrets of the kingdom of God..

No, the kingdom is going to come about by a slow and secret process, that won’t be
immediately apparent. There’ll be a time of planting, a time of growth in secret, and only at the
end of time will the harvest be fully reaped.

So how is this growth to occur? What is the seed that will be planted? What is the secret
ingredient that will lead to the kingdom of God taking root in this world? The answer is simple.
"The seed is the word of God. (v11)" The seed is the gospel that will be proclaimed from
Jerusalem to Samaria and to the furthest ends of the world. The preaching of the gospel will
germinate into a kingdom of God’s people that will expand and flourish as people hear and
respond to the call of God.
Now we can’t underestimate the importance of that statement. There are so many other means
that people would prefer to use to bring in God’s kingdom. In fact there are many Christians in
our world today who are embarrassed to use God’s word to spread the Kingdom. Instead they
put other things in its place. There are some who put ritual and liturgy, the sacraments, perhaps
at the forefront. Who when faced with a crisis, offer comfort and concern at a human level,
perhaps grief counselling but wouldn’t think of bringing God’s word into the situation. There are
some who replace the word of God with social action, or political involvement. Who rightly see
the need for Christians to be involved with those who are downtrodden and abused by those in
power. But the danger is that they forget the message of the cross in their work for justice. They
forget that the kingdom of God will come into being only as people’s hearts are changed by the
working of his Spirit in their lives. That even a totally just society wouldn’t represent God’s
Kingdom unless those in that society had given themselves wholeheartedly to God’s rule in their
lives.

Now these are all excellent expressions of the love of God and the healing that the gospel can
bring, but if they’re offered in the absence of the proclaiming of God’s word, then they’re empty
vessels. Jesus knew that his healing of people by itself was insufficient. That’s why at the start
of Mark’s gospel, when Peter tells him there’s a crowd waiting for him, presumably so he can
continue his healing ministry, he says, "No, we need to go to the other villages so I can preach
the Kingdom of God there as well." And then he adds, "That is why I have come." He had come
to preach a word which wouldn’t solve the problems of the world. It wouldn’t put an end to
terrorism, to injustice, to poverty or starvation. It was a word about personal repentance,
personal forgiveness, personal faith, and personal discipleship. It was a word that wouldn’t
change the masses. It would just change individuals. It sounds like a very inefficient strategy
doesn’t it? But as we’ll see in a moment it carries within it the seed of revolution as individuals
respond in obedience and continue to spread the word of God to others. That’s why when the
crowd tried to take him and make him their King he walked away from them. It wasn’t that
radical change wasn’t needed in the political and social systems of the world. As we’ll see when
we come to the parable of the Good Samaritan, later in the year, the word of God calls for social
and political action of the most radical kind. But the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ,
must come first. First people’s hearts need to be changed. And that’s why the seed that we
plant must be the word of the gospel.

Now before we go on to think about the soil and the sower, it might be timely to think about the
events of the past week. We’ve seen this week the way events in one small part of the world
can have an enormous effect on people everywhere. As we watched the horror in New York,
followed by the local events around the collapse of Ansett and saw the way people’s lives have
been devastated, economies undermined by decisions made by a few, the sorts of words that
have been used have been horror, despair, sorrow, mourning, helplessness. Then as time wore
on words like justice, punishment, retaliation, recompense began to be used. And I wonder what
you thought when George Bush stood up and said they would fight terrorism until it’s eradicated,
no matter how long it took. I must admit, my thought was that they were embarking on another
unwinnable war. But that thought just leads to more despair doesn’t it?

So what does the gospel say to this situation? What does this parable say? It says that the only
hope for our world is if the word of God takes root in the hearts and minds of people so that they
stop desiring power and control and vengeance. And that that will only happen in small steps as
individuals are changed, as the power of the cross takes over in the lives of individuals so that
individuals begin to love and serve the living God.

The Soil

Well, then, what about the soil. I think it’s vital, in this world of experts, of trained practitioners, of
sales techniques, that we understand the back to front nature of this parable. You see, if a
modern day guru were telling this story they’d talk about one type of soil and four different ways
of sowing. But not so here. There is only one sower, yet the seed has 4 different ends. This is
not about technique. This is not about one of the sowers who researched his market better than
the rest so that what he sowed bore better fruit.

In fact the method of sowing is quite unskilled. The seed is just scattered willy-nilly without any
control over where it lands. The sower doesn’t have to look for the right soil, he just scatters the
seed. That’s because what matters isn’t the skill of the sower, but that the seed is actually
scattered and that the soil is fertile. Now we’ll come back to that when we think about the sower,
but for now lets think about the soil.

As Jesus tells this story it becomes clear that there appears to be, at first glance at least, a
terrible waste of effort involved in sharing the gospel with people. I imagine, as he spoke, Jesus
looking up and seeing the huge crowd that had flocked to hear him. These apparent converts
would mostly fall away in the end. Why? Well, for the sorts of reasons that he explains here.
There are some who hear but then the devil almost straight away comes and takes away the
word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. I guess there were some in
the crowd who had made up their mind about Jesus long ago, and weren’t about to take his
words too seriously.

We too will encounter those sorts of people. People who’ll reject the word of the gospel out of
hand without even thinking about it. Some will refuse to consider the possibility of changing their
lifestyle because that would be too hard. Some will object self-righteously that they have no
reason to repent, they’re just as good as the next person. Others will simply ignore the gospel
because they have their own form of spirituality that they’re perfectly happy with, thank you very
much. Others again will think they’re too sophisticated to believe any of that religious mumbo-
jumbo.

But notice where Jesus points as the source of this hardness of heart: "The devil comes and
takes away the word from their hearts." Jesus is convinced that the work of preaching the
gospel will be opposed by a personal force of evil that he identifies as the devil. If that’s so then
we’d better be praying for God’s help as we share the gospel with people hadn’t we?

But then there are others who receive the gospel with joy to start with. Of these there are 2
types. Some hear and respond, but they don’t take it much further. They fail to dig any deeper.
Their response is largely superficial. The adrenalin rush of the initial conversion experience
soon wears off and isn’t replaced with anything else. Perhaps they were misled about the
realities of following Christ. Perhaps they were led to believe that life would be rosy once they
were in God’s kingdom, and now they’re beginning to experience the reality of discipleship, of
being a follower of the suffering servant. And so they lose their enthusiasm for following Jesus
and decide to throw it all in.
And the reason for all this is that they have no roots. They haven’t delved into the depths of
God’s word to develop a root structure that will sustain them in the difficulties of life.

The other type of short lived growth is where there’s an initial growth in discipleship, but their
commitment to Jesus still isn’t 100%. And as time goes on the percentage drops even further.
Their mind gets distracted by other things: the cares and riches and pleasures of life. These can
be all sorts of good things. It might be our sporting interests. It might be our social service
activities. It might be our kids. It might be our work.

Church leaders have been reporting a growing phenomenon over the past 10 or 20 years,
where people’s attendance at church has become more and more erratic. It’s now unusual for
people to be committed to being at Church every week. They have so many calls on their time
that regular church attendance begins to slip. Kids have their sport to go to. Work pressures
mean they have to work on Sundays, or else Sundays are the only day they have to relax, and
how can you relax if you have to get up to go to church? Now you may be one of those people.
Well if you are, watch out. Because the cares and riches and pleasures of life are very subtle in
the way they undermine our faith. And they’re lethal. They’ll choke us so the fruit of the gospel
never matures. (14)

But the message isn’t all as depressing as that. There is some soil upon which the seed falls,
and when the seed falls in this soil it grows and grows until it produces a hundredfold. Again,
this has nothing to do with the sower. It’s just that this soil is fertile. When the seed falls on this
ground the initial growth is followed by ongoing development. These people receive God’s word
and hold it fast in an honest and good heart.

At this point the image diverges a little, because at this point God’s word acts not just as the
seed, but as the food as well. It’s as these people hold fast to God’s word that they grow. And
what’s the result of that growth? They bear fruit with patient endurance. They persevere in their
service of God and in the process begin to bear fruit. Notice too, the bountiful nature of the
harvest. They produce a hundredfold.

Now at this point we’ve come full circle. Do you see how that is? As the word takes root in the
believer’s heart, they begin to bear fruit. And how do they bear fruit? By sowing the seed
themselves. So let’s think for a moment about the sower.

The Sower

What do we discover about the sower in this parable? Not a lot really, do we. "A sower went out
to sow his seed; and as he sowed ..." That’s all we’re told. So what can we learn that might help
us sow the seed. Well, the first thing we see is that

The sower isn’t the critical factor.

The critical factors are the seed: it must be the word of God if it’s to bear fruit for God; and the
soil: it has to be receptive to the seed. But the sower simply scatters the seed.

Now I hope that that’s an encouragement to you. What it says to me, you see, is that I don’t
have to be a gifted evangelist in order to take the gospel to people. All I have to do is make sure
I’m able to express the gospel clearly and make sure I know God’s word enough to tell other
people about it. I don’t need to know some special techniques. I don’t need to know the answers
to all the hard questions. In fact I went to a lecture this week by a theologian from London who
was arguing that the days when people were interested in the logical arguments for and against
Christianity have just about gone. What people are worried about now is not the quality of my
reasoning, but the quality of my life. I gain credibility through my lifestyle, credibility that gives
me openings for sharing the gospel with people. Look around you. What you see here is a
compelling argument for the validity of the gospel isn’t it? Here is a place where you can find
genuine love and community. That sort of thing can’t be faked can it? That means that every
one of us is able to scatter the seed of God’s word, simply by pointing people to the life of those
who have received that word and are living by it. But secondly

There is no right or wrong way to sow.

Most of us come out of a time and culture where we relied on programs to bring us success in
evangelism. Billy Graham Crusades, Evangelism Explosion, the 4 Spiritual Laws, Alpha, you
name it. Churches would develop their programs and the members would be expected to join in
and bring their friends and we’d hope that something would come of it. And we still do it. And in
a sense there’s nothing wrong with that sort of thing if we do it carefully and wisely. But let me
suggest that in this new age in which we live, we need to give one another the freedom, the
licence to think outside the square. To come up with new and innovative ways of sowing the
seed. We need to recognise that a technique that works for me may not work for you. You may
be far better not working with a technique at all. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to sow the
seed. If you’re going to bear fruit a hundredfold, you need to be sowing seed. But it may be that
the way you do it may be unique for you. I was at a seminar given by Alan Roxburgh a few
weeks ago, entitled ’Leading the Church after Christendom". He told a story of visiting a small
group who were working on ways that they could serve God in their own way. There was a
woman in the group who always provided coffee and cookies for their group. When the time
came that they asked her if she knew where God was leading her, she said she really couldn’t
see what she could do for God. She didn’t have any great skills. She was happy to bring
afternoon tea for the group but that was about it. Well they suggested she continue to pray
about it. The next time they met they asked her again and this time she said, "Well, you know I
have been worried about all the kids who gather in the streets after school before their parents
get home and I thought maybe I could do something about it. In fact there’s a basement in my
tenement that’s not being used and I wondered about providing cookies and drinks for the kids
down there in the afternoons." Well, they encouraged her to check out the possibilities and it
turned out that she was able to use the basement and her after school drop in centre was
started. Well, Dr Roxburgh returned to the area a couple of years later and while he was there,
his host said, "Before you leave you’ve got to go and see Annie’s Drop-in Centre." Well, he went
down to the basement and there were a handful of kids sitting round eating cookies and playing
pool. Then they said come through here. There was a passageway that led to the basement of
the adjoining tenement. In there he discovered another group of kids working on computers with
older students tutoring them. Then they went through to the next basement and found an area
divided into cubicles with music coming from them. The students from the local conservatorium
had volunteered to give music lessons to these working class kids. All this had happened
because Annie had the idea of serving cookies and drinks to these kids after school.

Now what I want to say to all of us today is this. We don’t need to be specially gifted to spread
the seed of the gospel here at St Theodore’s. We don’t need to use a particular technique. All
we need is a desire to bear fruit and a willingness to try scattering the seed. I suggested last
week and I’m doing it again now, that we each ask God to show us how he would like us to do
our bit in sharing the gospel with those who haven’t yet heard it. You might already have an
idea, or even the seed of an idea that’s just waiting to burst into flower. Or you might need to
pray about it and talk to others about how you might do it. But really it’s up to each one of us to
do what we can to bear fruit for God isn’t it?

I’m going to hand out a piece of paper in a moment which has on it some ideas that other
people have come up with to stimulate your imagination. Please don’t let these ideas limit your
imagination though. Ask yourself is there an activity that I’d like to get involved in? Are there
interests and skills that I have that I could use as a platform for sharing the gospel with others. If
you come up with an idea or three, write it down and share it with others and lets see what God
can do among us.