For a while now I have wanted to give tribute to Ross
Olivier on this blog. Each time I begin I’m lost for words to describe what his
ministry and guidance meant. With only two weeks left to ordination I’m running
out of time so I’ve decided to simply say that Ross made a deep impression on me
as a minister, he taught me how to care, how to give my best and how to not be
afraid to aim high.
For now the best I can do to honour him is to share one of
his sermons with you, which gives some idea of the wonderful; teacher, helper, preacher,
minister he was. Still when I read it I can hear his voice and see him rubbing
his beard for effect as he preached.
He is sorely missed.
T H E C R A
Z Y FA R M E R
Matthew 13:1-9
“When a great crowd gathered, and people from town after town came to
Him, He said in a parable, “A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some
seeds fell on the path, were trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up.
Some seeds fell on the rock and as it grew up, it withered for lack of
moisture. Some seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew and choked it. And
some fell into good soil where it grew, and it produced a hundredfold. As He
said this, He called out ‘Let anyone withears listen.’”
It’s wonderful listening to the sounds of worship and
music this morning: the sounds of the congregation engaged, the sound of the
music, of the bells, of the choir, of the children and the babies. They are all
the sounds of worship.
Speaking about all these different sounds reminds me
of the two elderly ladies sitting on a porch one evening, listening to the
sounds around them. One was listening to the sounds of a ladies’ choir
practicing in the church across the road in the town hall. She was completely
enjoying the sounds of that ladies’ choir.
The other one was more tuned into nature, and she was
listening to the sounds of the little crickets making their sound in the grass.
The first lady, the one listening to the ladies’ choir, said “Don’t they make
just the most beautiful sound?” And the one listening to the crickets said “You
are so right. And do you know they do it by rubbing their legs together?”
It matters what you are listening for.
As we turn to our passage of scripture, I’ve
sometimes listened to being preached - I’ve heard it preached on many occasions
– and often as I’ve listened I’ve come away feeling dreadfully inadequate and
sometimes very depressed. Sometimes I’m not sure whether the preacher and I are
reading the same Bible.
More often than not, this passage is presented
something like this: the preacher says “Well, there are four types of human
soil. There is soil that is like a trampled path. It is hard, hard-hearted,
unyielding; it’s a closed surface; it’s hard-crusted; it’s unreceptive and the
word of God cannot penetrate such soil. The seed just lies on top and the birds
come and devour it. Some of you are just like that soil. You are impenetrable; you
are hard.” And then the preacher says “And then you get soil that’s like a
rock. Its shallow soil, and hard underneath. It’s stony; it’s people with stony
hearts; it’s people who have no depth. The seed lies on the hard rock and the
wind and the rain come and they wash it off. Some of you are like that. You are
as tough as a rock, and you’ve got no spiritual moisture.” The preacher goes on
and says “Some soil is overgrown with weeds. It’s like a jungle out there. It’s
a mess. It’s full of poisonous growth; it’s wild; it’s destructive. And some of
you are like that. Your lives are platted and thorny and full of poisonous
growth.”
Are you beginning to feel down yet? “And then, the
preacher says, “and then there’s good soil. It’s ready, and it’s about to be prepared,
and it’s been ploughed. Some of you, some of you are like that. You are ready,
and you are receptive; you have potential for good growth. You are the good
people. You are God’s people. All the others, the path, and the rock and the
weeds, well... you are on your way to Hell.” You know the kind of sermon I
mean?
Well, what’s the problem? Here’s the problem. It’s
got the focus all wrong. You see, the focus of Jesus’ teaching – and in this
parable specifically – is that it’s not about the soils, it’s about the sower.
It’s about the farmer, not about us. It’s about God, and it points the way to
the magnificent grace and generosity of this crazy, crazy farmer who walks
about with his bag of precious seed, sowing it wildly, with gay abandon.
He’s a different kind of sower. Farmers are normally
much more deliberate than that. Do you know any farmer who would sow seed
except where the ground has been very, very carefully prepared, made fertile?
Farmers don’t walk around with bags of seed and sow it everywhere. They don’t
waste a drop of it. But the farmer in our text, he’s not like that. He just
sows to the wind. He sows to every corner. He sows and he throws seed on
hardened parts and rocky outcrops, and amongst the weeds with its undergrowth,
and here’s the portrait – it’s a portrait of God; it’s the portrait of Jesus
liberally and joyfully and generously sowing the precious seed of saving grace
everywhere… and it’s a magnificent portrait. It’s a picture of wonder and mercy
and graciousness and tenderness, and it knows no restrictive bounds. It doesn’t
wait until it finds perfect soil before distributing the costly grace. It
simply lets it go, and throws it out, and scatters, and here’s the miracle –
somewhere, somehow, in the mystery and awesomeness of God’s grace, it takes
root and begins to grow, even on hardened paths, even on rocky surfaces, even
amongst the weed-filled patches.
In the midst of the most unlikely and improbable
places, new life is formed and new growth begins to take place, and it’s
absolutely beautiful. It’s the miracle of God’s love for us, and its good news.
It’s really good news. For you see, the truth of us is that not one of us, not
one of us, is a life that is perfectly tilled or perfectly prepared. None of us
is perfect soil. Each of us is a mixture of all those soils. Every one of us
has parts of our lives that are like that path.
