Today's homily... "3 cheers for Farmer Bill"Today's homily starts with a great fizzing commotion. We are on the farm and the reason for the buzz is that we are having visitors. No-one ever comes to visit us at Sheephills… ever… but here we are and the folk are on their way.I go with my Dad who is showing this couple around the farm. Part of the guided tour is a trip to the top paddock. It must have been early in the year, for I can distinctly remember him bending down and showing this couple the soil. He explained that this was good quality soil and it was his best paddock But then he says something quite sobering.Something like “Yes it's a great paddock all right and I always get a good return from it, but sometimes it really does feel as though you are trying to scratch a living out of a bit of dirt”.I think about that phrase often when I read this parable of the farmer. It’s lovely when the soil returns heaps and you make a living out of it, but like my dad, the farmer in the parable knew the gamble and vocation that is farming.
You have to admire the farmer in the parable. He goes out year after year to sow the seed. And I applaud him not just for his diligence, but because he knows full well before he even sets out. that some of the crop will fail. Some gets eaten by the birds, some swallowed by weeds, some falls on rocky ground, but this doesn’t stop him. Undeterred, time after time, year after year, he still goes out and sows. And there must have been times like my Dad, when in the driving rain, or the freezing cold, or the blithering heat, you think.. What on earth am I doing here?Now the parable has something to say about the times when we get it right and that's good and dandy and the harvest comes in followed by the cash. Sometimes heaps and sometimes not quite so much.But I reckon the message for us in these debilitating times is the courage and the diligence and the perseverance of the farmer.
That we are called to simply be faithful. Nothing more… nothing less. And it won’t be easy and we do wonder what’s it all about and we question the future, but the parable is quite clear. That we march on with the good news and then let God take over.
There’s also a subtle message about our attitude to those who seem to have lapsed in their faith. Notice please that the rocky ground is always offered the seed. The seed might wither and perish, but it is always offered. For the lapsed and those who are just inquiring in tiny baby steps the door is always open. There must always be a way back, for that is how God loves us and calls us to welcome others.A couple of other things to ponder.Given the amount of what I call “agricultural parables and stories” I wonder whether Jesus didn’t have a couple of farmers as friends. Is it not likely that farmer Bill came into Joey's carpenter shop to order a yoke for his oxen? Or Shepherd Hezekiah came in and ordered a shepherds staff? Perhaps the Master was thinking of a particular farmer when he told the parable. Perhaps he had watched the same farmer over a number of years just go faithfully about his work in an unassuming, faithful way. Perhaps, and this would be my hope for you, that you know or have known someone who is just like that. Someone who by their very example both inspires and challenges you. Last thing. What I didn’t tell you in the story about our visitors, is that my dad had a couple of other paddocks that weren’t quite as flash and didn’t give nearly as generously.
Deep down in our hearts in that secret place, I am sure that there are patches that are good and rich and generous and we play to our strengths in order to nudge just one person a little closer towards the Kingdom. But there are also places deep within us, that, if we are honest, that are rocky and disappointing. There are times when we can be hard of heart and unresponsive to His generous love. My Dad didn’t show our visors the paddock that occasionally had scotch thistles pop up and the dam went dry. We can be good at hiding that which is embarrassing, but that can never stop the good farmer coming to us and offering us a way forward to transform our dearth, into rich truck loads of golden grain to share with the world.