In the 1820s, the weekly ration for a labourer was paid in kind…Weekly pay was often 4.5kg of meat, 4.5kg of flour, 1kg sugar and 100g of tea, so the repetitive campfire meal was damper, billy tea and a slab of meat.[1] ''The last national nutrition survey was in 2012,'' ''Since then, we know that the Australian diet has undergone some significant changes.'' According senior nutritionist at Nutrition Australia, Aloysa Hourigan. She reports “We are eating less potatoes than in 2000 but it's still more than 60kg each a year, often as chips. We eat more cheese, fewer carrots, but more yoghurt. We drink double the number of coffees than in 2004 while continuing to binge on pies and hamburgers. Aussie teenagers ate more than 30 million hamburgers last year and 15.2 million doughnuts…what used to be regarded as ''party foods'' - lollies, chips, soft drinks - have somehow become ''everyday foods''… (apparently our) protein and carbohydrate intakes are up but it's not because we're eating more bread. ''It's the packaged snack-food bars that have become very popular and they contain starches and sugars,''. Likewise, we are getting more grains but not in a form we might recognise. ''Longer work hours means we are eating more processed foods and frozen meals where the meats, like chicken, are often buffed up with gluten, flour and other grains that you might not associate with the food on the plate.'' It is similar with packaged soups and bottled sauces.[2] We need our daily bread, so we relate to the story Jesus gave the crowd, and telling them the parable we know as “The parable of the sower.” The question is what do we make of it? Jesus tells the story…
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred,sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Ordinary everyday tasks for sustaining life, means no grain means no bread, and no bread means going hungry for the night, we know so far with the encounters Jesus has with people. He is always intentional with what he says or does, just like when he has dinner at Matthews the tax collectors house as he sits down with sinners who run at life without thinking of God, or with the paralysed man on the mat that his 4 mates had to lower down through a hole in the room, so Jesus could heal him. Jesus starts with saying your sins are forgiven, and hen he heals him. What we see is Jesus never does anything unintentionally! The question is what do we make of this parable about the sower? There’s nothing distinctly religious about it; there’s nothing to advance our knowledge of God. The disciples of Jesus who heard it are so dumbstruck and confused, so they simply ask him “What are you talking about?” Jesus replies Vs 11-12
11 … “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.
& vs 15
15 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’
Jesus tells them these homespun stories of everyday life conceal the truth from those who will not submit their lives the Christ’s rule; and will reveal the truth to those who will submit to Christ’s rule. The parables act as a sound alarm for us to start seeing what God is doing, as they put the spot light on the truth of who Jesus is. What we find is that we either grow in grace with or reject the truth of who Jesus is. So let us now come back to the parable itself…
The sower, the seeds and the soil. There was a farmer who went out to sow his seed, Jesus told the crowds. This farmer wanted a crop to grow, but he was met with 3 kinds of disasters: a path, then rocky ground, then thorn infested soil. The soil profiles that present: hardness, shallowness, and self-indulgence
Jesus likens to our heart responses to how well we will respond to him; like how serious are we about taking up our cross and following Jesus? The 3 soils drop in on the heat, as much as they drop in on the thorny responses of our hearts. The three disasters that met this crop were that the seed on the path never got a chance to grow as the birds simply ate it up. The rocky ground never gave the seed a chance, being too shallow the sun finished them off as soon as they sprouted. The thorn infested soil started out so well, and yet the trouble there was as much as the crop grew so too did the crop choking thorns, the outcome was all the same. The crop did not grow, and there was nothing to show for it. So when pressed to explain Jesus tells them plainly vs 18-22
18-19 “Study this story of the farmer planting seed. When anyone hears news of the kingdom and doesn’t take it in, it just remains on the surface, and so the Evil One comes along and plucks it right out of that person’s heart. This is the seed the farmer scatters on the road. 20-21 “The seed cast in the gravel—this is the person who hears and instantly responds with enthusiasm. But there is no soil of character, and so when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it. 22 “The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it. (The Message)
As Jesus sees it the parable of the sower faces people with their unbelief, their social conformity, their preoccupying riches, pleasure, and cares. These 3 ways of disaster where the heat of life reveals who we are, show us there are times when we go after the heat in our lives, at how I throw my heart at the world with my cravings. We face sorrows that come upon us and make life hard, feeling the weight of the world is on our shoulders, we are sinned against, just as we observe the suffering and shortcomings of others. We know that the evil one is a liar and a murderer, where behind every lie there is an arch liar; behind every oppression and violence in this life there is a murderer. The situations of life are always significant, as we know the thorns are reflections of how we react, what we want or believe in our heart. We know how easily we can develop false views of God, grumble forgetting God’s good gifts to us, we can blind ourselves to the truth of who we really are, seeking by instinct to exalt ourselves, Satan, Suffering, stuff, the hard heart, the shallow heart, the strangled heart, the three ways of disaster. As Jesus sees it how will you have a candid conversation with God, as this is where Jesus enters every aspect of that on our behalf. Look at the good soil vs 8
8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Grace enters in, so that no one but God can see, explain, or change the human heart, as His grace is my sole hope. When we have a life lived trusting Jesus we have joy and can give thanks, just like a crop that yields 100, 60, 30 times what was sown. As Jesus now narrows in on this super abundant harvest. For farmers who in the arid desert part of the world that Palestine sits on to hear of a crop producing tenfold was good, twentyfold exceptional, so one hundredfold that was almost unthinkable. We get the point. This isn’t that some Christians will bear some fruit and some a lot; instead for Jesus “all Christians will bear fruit, some a lot, some a lot more, and some a whole lot more.”[3] The difference is those who hear and respond to Jesus is the difference between those who hear his words are not hard, shallow or self-indulgent or are like those who produce good fruit like the good hearer who is immediately welcomes the word, deeply trusts the promises of Jesus and exclusively welcomes Jesus so that other concerns do not strangle it
this isn’t just about hearing. This is about bearing fruit, being doers of the word bearing the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control (Galatians 5:22, 23). This is a harvest of a life that is humble, prayerful and looking to live in a way that grows more and more like Jesus. The question is are we large hearted and generous in the way we look at people that we give mercy because we are given mercy? As Jesus sees it 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
David Hassan @ Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church 25/2/18
[1] http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2014/06/australias-cuisine-culture-a-history-of-food
[2] Tim Elliott “Bite-size view of a nation”, MARCH 20, 2012. http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/cuisine/bitesize-view-of-a-nation-20120316-1vbna.html
[3] Quote from O’Donnell, Douglas Sean. Matthew. Preaching the Word Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2013 p370