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2. I like runner beans. So I bought a packet of seed so
that I could grow some. When I got home, I read what it said on the packet.
3. READ PACKET
Phew! This sounds like a lot
of work. So the first year I just left them on the workbench. And guess what,
there were no beans for me that year. The next year I decided to get serious
and planted the seeds.
I watered it freely as it
said on the packet and waited. Three days later it looked like this!
Show example. Only the weeds
have grown!
Well, I persisted, and slowly
the plants grew. April became May and June and now I had to plant them out in
the garden. Well, I hadn’t dug over the ground in the autumn and put in any
manure, it didn’t seem important. That year we went on holiday and it was hot
and the sun shone all day. When we came home the beans
had all died for lack of water.
I had to buy some more seed.
That autumn, I dug the
vegetable patch. I made a trench full of smelly compost, filled in and left it
until the spring, when I planted the seedlings and watered them. I made sure
they had lots of water every day. Soon there were lots and lots of weeds
growing as well as the beans. They looked nice, marigolds, blue Borage,
dandelions and so on. They were really colourful so I let them flower along
with the beans. But the beans grew all sad looking and skinny, the leaves
looked bad and when the greenfly arrived…. Well, that autumn, we got some beans
but not much.
I read the instructions
again. The next year I did the lot. In the autumn I dug in manure, after
planting in the spring, I watered every day, I pulled up weeds until they gave
up growing. I killed every slug and snail that got within a yard of them! And
the beans, we picked them and ate sliced and boiled. We sliced them and boiled
them, we gave them away. As long as we kept picking them, they produced more
fruit. In the end I let some mature on the plants and dry out as seed for next
year.
Now that wasn’t what you
invited me to speak about. But my guess is that none of you are farmers, which
is the audience Jesus was addressing.
Some of you will grow flowers
and plants in the garden.
So let’s read what Jesus
actually said.
4. READ Matthew 13:1-23
The point of my tale of
gardening is that Jesus set his teaching in a context his audience understood.
But clearly, first time round, the parable did not make sense to the
disciples. And that is an important
issue in regards to God’s word. It does not necessarily make sense to a reader.
Remarkably many who have picked it up and read it have been transformed by it.
That is because the Holy Spirit makes sense of it. And in the case of this
parable Jesus provides us with a commentary.
5. The seed is the word of God. That is explicit in Luke
8. This parable appears in all three of
the synoptic gospels – Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8. They are very similar but
each gospel has variations that reflect the purpose of the gospel. Matthew is
writing a manual for life, so it is part of a collection of 7 parables on the nature
of the kingdom of heaven.
6. The bean seed is the Word of God. So this evening, I
am going to give you all a bean seed. With it is a verse of scripture. The
challenge of this parable is what you do with the bean seed and what you do
with God’s word.
7. Give out Bean Seeds.
This parable is quite open
ended. It is not clear that Jesus is speaking to the crowds or his followers or
his disciples. Probably all three. So we must not
narrow it done to what happens when we preach the gospel. Or even to when we
talk about Jesus to our friends. It applies to us. How we respond to the Word
of God.
We believe the Bible is God’s
word.
8. The question is what sort of soil are we? What sort
of response do we have to God’s word? There is a real case for checking each
day that your reading in the morning has made a difference in the day. It will
be a bit depressing sometimes, because you may have forgotten it, or been too
busy to think about it. But if we believe God has spoken, is it not vital for
our spiritual life to respond to his word?
The beans of the workbench is
a bit like
never opening the Bible or never listening to its stories or teaching. Well you
are here and listening, so
9. Jesus starts very positively because he is the Sower and he is not going to
leave the seed on the workbench. He is going to broadcast it. Now there’s a
word that has changed its meaning, partly because of this parable. The BBC
broadcasts news not seeds. Jesus broadcasts himself, the word. The question is who is listening?
Some seed falls on the path.
Some of the beans will stay
in your pocket, handbag or even be left on the seat before you leave.
Did you do that this morning?
If you were here did you listen to God’s word and then leave it on the chair
and walk away? Now I don’t mean did you
spend all day thinking of nothing else, but does God’s word actually impinge on
your life at all? Do you walk the word? Do you live what God says? Or is your private life and your business life untouched by the
work of the Holy Spirit? Does God’s word ever get under your skin?
10. Then there is the rocks.
Sometimes the soil is not
properly prepared. In the autumn we haven’t put in the compost and digging and in
the summer the watering they need. In the middle east rocks had to be removed
just as in the hill farming. Dry-stone walling is what you do with the rocks
you pick up from the field. Some hill country is just a patchwork of small
fields because there is so much stone to remove. In rocky ground the plants die
for lack of water and nutrition. Just as your indoor plants
need constant attention.
Once a week watering might
keep you alive but to develop you need a constant stream of loving care and attention from the
Holy Spirit of God . And that is precisely what he wants to give you, if you
respond to him. Now let as get this straight. Jesus is the gardener not us. We
are the soil. He deals with the stones and feeds the soil. But, unlike soil, you have an active part to
play in allowing God to work. Are you
hanging on to stones that God wants to remove? Stones like security in your
home, pension fund, health plan, and I wonder what else we prefer to have or
rather are persuaded to have instead of being good soil for the master’s word?
11. But then I let the weeds crowd out the bean plants.
It is very easy to find other attractive things, good in themselves that crowd
out finding what God has said and what he is doing. 12. This
appeared on my Facebook last week.
We live in a materialistic society with an
obsession with happiness. We fill our lives accumulating wealth, enjoying all
sorts of leisure activities and we set aside an hour or two on a Sunday and a
few minutes each day
with Jesus and reckon we are healthy. We are watching TV instead
of going to the prayer meeting. Playing Minecraft instead of
meditating on God’s word. Enjoying
ourselves while others are lonely and hungry and sick and we do not visit or
phone or spend the time being Jesus imitators.
13. But going back to beans: It started with digging in
the last autumn, planting now Ok I am a little late but the plants will catch
up, watering in the summer and around July and on to September, you can expect
a rich harvest, even enough to share with others and to plant another year. In
fact last year I planted 32 beans, eat beans throughout July to September and
frozen beans through to January AND I have 100 beans waiting for me to plant this year. (I know I
only need 32!)
14. This is important. Growing takes time. I plant in
March/April but have nothing to eat until July. God is not a short-term
investor in you. He loves you and wants to create in you a beautiful reflection
of his character. And he will work on you for years. Too often we are sucked into thinking in
quick-return mentality. It has wreaked our school system which has a 13 year
programme. So the children who entered Reception in 2003 will leave school this
summer. How many different schemes have happened while they developed? Churches have been too quick to expect
results. The evidence of committed community engagement and evangelism
sometimes will take 7 years to show growth.
15. The final key to this parable is the question of
fruit. What fruit? Beans grow beans,
wheat seeds produce wheat grains. I once planted a peach stone and a tree grew
so my mum and I nurtured it. 5 years later it produced its first fruit. An
apple! We were very disappointed.
Clearly the peach had not germinated, an apple seed had in the very place we
planted the peach! So what fruit is
Jesus looking for? The seed is the word of God. So the fruit are
more words of God. That is the key. God is working in your life to produce
words. His objective is that your life says what the Bible says. Your life is intended by God to be a textbook
of how to live the Christian life. We should be able to share what God is
doing. Good soil produces an abundance of wheat when wheat is planted. Your
life should produce an abundance of examples of godliness in every aspect of
your life. 16. J.
John tweeted this week a quote from Irenaeus writing in AD 202 'The
glory of God is a human fully redeemed'. Think about it. God’s greatest
pleasure is you transformed by his Spirit into a Christ-like you.
If that were to happen, there are two things to note. One,
people will be added to the church. What wins people
for Christ is lives transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Secondly, those who reject
your Saviour will reject you. The NHS
sacked a Christian this week for offering a book about the changing power of
God, inviting a colleague to church and offering to pray for her. Get real, Christians are going to be picked
off and attacked. They always are. Persecution is part of being a Christian. But
it is both a risk worth taking and part of the growing process. But that is
another parable!
The Challenge of the bean, is what will you do with it? But more significantly,
what will you do with Jesus? You have heard his word, has it landed on good
soil, or left on the bench, or not properly prepared soil or are the weeds
taking over. God wants the best for you, he is
planting seed so that he can reap a harvest. He wants to enjoy your spiritual
growth, see Jesus re-created in you.