Nice not to have to preach - Jesus does it for us today.
Sometimes he tells a story and leaves - he leaves it to us and us to it. Not today. In our reading today Jesus gives a parable and then goes on to explain it verse by verse, blow by blow. So in a sense we don't need a sermon and in sense we're not going to have one. Another thing that's good is that we don't have to come up with an interpretation of the text. There's no room for debate or argument or scholarship or creative imagination, Jesus does it all for us in the second part of the reading.
But there's a couple of things we could highlight or emphasise. The first is this business of the seed. What is the seed that is planted - well, not planted but scattered. The seed is the "word". Verse 18 in Greek introduces this idea to us and says the seed is "the word of the Kingdom". That's very Matthew.
Matthew is a Jew writing for Jews and he tries to avoid saying "God" as Jews then found that too high and holy for everyday use, so Matthew often talks about "the Kingdom" or "the Kingdom of Heaven" where other gospel writers will say "God" or "the Kingdom of God".
In fact this parable occurs in all three synoptic gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke and there are the usual slight differences between them. When Jesus explains the parable in Luke's gospel he calls the seed "the word of God", Mark's account has simply "the word". So the seed in Mark (who probably wrote first) is "the word", in Matthew is "the word of the Kingdom" and in Luke is "the word of God"
We have some difference but a core overlap - they all agree that the seed is the word. Which word? There's lots of them - more in English than in any other language! Well "word" means "message" which also sort of means "communication" which also sort of implies "relationship". Not a single "word" but a living, loving, truthful and growing relationship between the believer and God. It's a relationship, a communication, that God initiates and to which we respond and then contribute.
We've already seen how all three synoptic gospels - that's Mark, Matthew and Luke - have this parable and Jesus' explanation of it but the fourth gospel, John's gospel, doesn't. At the beginning of John's gospel we are introduced to Jesus in a radical way, and introduced to a radical idea. John begins his gospel by saying
"In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. [. . . ] The word became flesh and lived among us".
Jesus is the word, the word is the seed. Jesus Christ himself, and the good news of the gospel, is the word of God, but the word also means an on-going relationship with God, where he is speaking to you and you to him (although it may be that you or him or both of you are not actually using words in your communications!).The Bible says: "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God".
In modern English: "People aren't just kept alive by food, but by a sustaining stream of words from God's own mouth".
Food is temporary survival; a living relationship with God is eternal life, survive or thrive? So the seed is God's word and that word is sent to earth, scattered widely.
Will it find a home in your heart?
Will it germinate, sprout, grow and be fruitful?
Are we good soil for the seed?
Will we tend what God has sown?
Finally, a brief look at the four soil conditions.
First, the seed that fell on the hard, compacted earth of the path. 19When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The hard-hearted, the trampled-on, the ill-used and much abused. Know anyone like that? Perhaps deep down you know that you're like that. Perhaps part of you are.
Then there's the rocky, stony soil: 20The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. Shallow, lacking depth, not well watered or tended - can be helped but needs attention in the form of a good stone-picking session. That was common in England not so long ago and was back-breaking work, or maybe it's a serious outcrop of rock that needs to be dynamited! Either way, it's that's hard work. Easier to be lazy and stay shallow.
Third, there's the weedy, wild and overgrown field. 22The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.
In one of our songs today we sang about "spirits oppressed by pleasure wealth and care". This plant grows and even seems to reach some sort of maturity but is not fruitful. That's to say it is not of benefit to anyone apart from itself. It survives but does not thrive and no-one will be fed by this plant.
St. Paul writes of people who are saved but only just (1 Cor. 3) - not covered in glory and not a blessing to others but in by the skin of their teeth.
Maybe that's this plant and maybe that's like a lot of people on Grove Green: "spirits oppressed by pleasure wealth and care". We could easily plot these four seeds on a graph: how high they grow and how long they last. Which one is most like you? Maybe each of us is a field, with all four of these soil conditions more or less present in varying proportions. Perhaps criss-crossed by paths - busy paths that compact and harden you, perhaps with a particular stony patch or outcrop of rocks where nothing will grow, perhaps with a weedy wild area where there is much competition for our love and time and energy and money. Hopefully our field has some good fertile earth, too.