Trinity One

‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.’

When I was first ordained twenty seven years ago and moved into the Curates house at St James the Great Clayton it was the first time that I had lived alone – a daunting prospect. In the light of this potentialy disastrous scenario some kind people gave me some very helpful gifts to ease the transition into single living. An aunt bought me a set of saucepans; some friends bought me an iron and ironing board. Very importantly another aunt who knew me very well bought me a cookery book. Of course in the end I adopted a very radical solution to the problem of living alone – I married my wife Isobel and all my problems disappeared.

One of the gifts that we still treasure from that first home and which still has pride of place in our home here in Stafford is a large framed  print of a picture by the famous Manchester painter L. S. Lowry. It’s a typical Lowry depiction of an Industrial North of England townscape complete with factories railways, terraced houses and the immortal matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs. I always think that in some ways Lowry’s paintings remind me of the sort of doodling that bored students would draw down the margins of their exercise books during tedious lessons at school. Lowry appears to be that simple. But when I look more closely at that Lowry picture which is ours for example you see that there is a lot more to it than at first meets the eye. The smoke blowing from the chimney. The old man bent over his stick. The three women in animated conversation. The children playing with ball and stick. The washing line blowing. The queue at the corner shop. This picture isn’t just a simple landscape. It’s a sophisticated piece of social commentary susceptible to a wide-ranging interpretation. It’s a picture about people. It’s a picture about life. All of life is there in all of its complexity of day to day relationships and events. Lowry’s pictures look very simple – but there a great deal more to them than at first meets the eye.

So it is with the parables of Jesus. At first hearing they appear so simple. We remember them all so well. The sower goes out to sow. The traveller is set upon by robbers. The wayward son returns home. Each is simple and short and the simplest one is the one we heard today. A seed is growing in the ground. What could be simpler! The farmer puts the seed in the ground, he goes to bed night after night, and rises day after day and all the time the seed grows and he doesn’t really notice it until one day it is ready for harvesting and from that small beginning there has emerged a  great and  abundant crop.

Now if you are still listening carefully you will have noticed that I have put two of today’s parable together. The seed which grows secretly after the farmer has set it. And the smallest seed which produces a great tree. Simple. But why did Jesus tell these simple stories? And what is the truth for our lives which lies within them. You can always guarantee that whenever Christian theologians and bible scholars set to work on something they can make what starts out to be very simple to appear to be very complicated. And so this seemingly simple story has been interpreted and understood in a wide variety of ways. Some say  that it’s a comment by Jesus on the fact that his work  proclaiming the Kingdom of God though begun doesn’t appear to be getting very far because people are either not listening to him or rejecting his message. If anything is happening then nobody can see it. Well I guess that many of us can sympathise with that. Why do I bother – nothing seems to be happening and nobody is listening.  Look – nothing is happening. Among the many interpretations of these parables there is a more hopeful one. And it’s that one that I want to go for!

I think that this parable is saying to us that despite the fact that nothing appears to be happening – you can’t see a result. Yet actually beneath the surface of things something is happening and there will most definitely be a result and especially is that true when we are engaged in Kingdom work with God. This seems to me to be the most encouraging interpretation of the small seed sown and growing secretly. The seed of the Kingdom may be a tiny seed - yes. Our task is to sow that seed by what we say to people or by what we do amongst them.  Once the seed is sown we have done what we have to do there’s nothing more that you can do. It may seem that nothing is happening at least on the surface of things – but hang on in there. Keep faith in God and his work and you will see that there will be a result. There will be a harvest because God is at work beneath the surface. It seems to me that that is how God works through us to grow his kingdom in the world. We need to do our work, to sow the seeds of the Kingdom, and then leave room for God to do his work!  

If you think about it there have been many great movements in the world which have grown great from very small beginnings way and beyond the expectations of the founders. The worldwide brotherhood of scouts started in a verty small way by Robert Baden Powell. The world-wide Mother’s Union started by Mary Sumner. Accidentally Sir Alexander Fleming left a jar of bacteria open to the air and from it there grew the great worldwide healing potential of penicillin. All came from a seed first sown by one person and subject to the scepticism and sometimes active discouragement of those around and yet great results were harvested.

About eight years ago I underwent a heart procedure where a minute camera was inserted into an artery in my groin and then up into the arteries around my heart to see how things were. A similar procedure followed some months later only this time a stent was inserted to open one of the arteries a little wider. The idea for that procedure came from a German heart specialist who first performed it on himself because he couldn’t persuade anyone to take him seriously that it could be done. Since then it has been performed millions of times and has saved and enhanced millions of lives. Great oaks from tiny acorns grow is the saying we all know. And especially is that true when we work with God for the growth of his kingdom.

The province of Shensi in Northern China there is a most ancient and fascinating Christian monument. It is called the Nestorian Stone and it stands outside the walls of Sian Fu the present day capital of the province. It was set up in the year 781 to record the first Christian mission to China. About 200 years later, on account of persecution, the stone seems to have been buried and the Christian community appeared to have disappeared. A thousand years later the Jesuit missionaries returned to China and revived the Christian community which again seemed to have disappeared during the cultural revolution and again the stone was lost. But today it stands again ion this historic art of China – but more importantly China has more practising Christian than it has members of the communist party and it has one of the fastest growing Christian Churches. The stone was buried it looked as if the faith was buried but not at all – God was working all the time under the surface to bring to fruition the seeds of the kingdom  first sown all those year ago.

There are all sorts of ways in which we can sow the seeds of the kingdom of God in hearts and minds of the people whom we meet and in the life of the community around us. By welcoming those who come to us in this Church. By our love and care to people in our community. By our own joy in the faith which is ours. By being open as a Church to what it is that God is calling us to do and to be. And by our own personal witness in our lives to the love of God that we have come to know. Maybe by simply sharing our own story of faith. We may think that it is but a tiny seed that we have sown, but that is our part the rest of the work is for God to do – and he surely will.

A rather sceptical journalist was watching Mother Teresa caring for the sick, the homeless and the utterly destitute on the streets of Calcutta. He asked her: ‘Do you really think that you can fix this mess?’ She answered: ‘I don’t have to be successful; I just have to be faithful’. The same goes for us. The rest is up to God.