Three cheers for the Farmer.
I was trying to explain to our very patient confirmation candidates the significance of the different colours that we use in church.
Purple is our getting-ready colour. We use it to show that we are preparing for something special. So we wear purple for the 6 weeks of Lent when we are getting ready for Easter and the 4 weeks of Advent when we are getting ready for Christmass.
White is party time. We wear white for feast days; Christmass, Easter, Saint's Days, Trinity Sunday, and Christ the King.
Red is for the flames of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it is for the blood that was spilt when we ask for the martyrs' prayers, it is for the royalty of a King riding on a donkey on Palm Sunday and for the Master’s blood shed on Good Friday.
Black is seldom worn but may be worn for Ash Wednesday, All Souls Day and for the odd very tragic and appalling funeral, where there only seems to be darkness.
‘Green’ I cheekily enthused ‘Green, is when none of those other things are happening. We wear green for most of the Church’s year to remind us that all the time we are supposed to be growing into the sort of people God wants us to be.’
Which is a very nice dance step into the parable of the sower in today's gospel. And in this parable, we might be one of three things.
First, we are the seeds. Our vocation is to grow and flourish. And yes, sometimes we are stifled, sometimes the weather seems inclement and gale-force winds threaten to destabilise us and uproot us all together.
Some of us have been around for a long time and some of us have only just begun to sprout and grow. There are times when we shoot up and we think it’s easy. A lot of the time not much seems to happen, but actually, just by being around, just by hanging in there, just by letting the sun and the rain do its thing, then we are actually achieving quite a bit. Not many of us finish up as tall as corn stalks or as colourful as sun flowers, but when we do happen to encounter such a person, it's inspiring and humbling.
Something else about seeds.
When they first start off they might not look like much but we must always try to see the potential in them. This isn’t the finished product, it was never intended to be the finished product. It is only the start and we are asked to have a lot of faith, that the tiny little gnarly something will grow into something quite magnificent.
Our planting, our burying if you like, occurs when we are submerged into the waters of baptism. That’s when it all begins and starts and imperceptibly, over a long period of time… well you know how it goes.
We are all a bit like the soil in the parable. Sometimes we are a bit thin on the surface and blown away. Sometimes we are drenched by cares and worries and we feel like we are drowning. Sometimes we are tempted to think that the soil down the road has it so much better than us. It’s well irrigated, it’s on a gentle slope and catches the right amount of sunlight… but the reality is something quite different and an honest conversation with the person we think is a spiritual giant, will often reveal that they have had their own struggles, their own spectacular failures, their own craziness. In fact, those people are often magnanimous because they have integrated their hurts into their very selves. They have not shunned their wounds away as something to be ashamed of.
But it’s the farmer that I am drawn to most in this parable. It is the farmer that has my admiration, the farmer who I want to stand and applaud wildly for.
The farmer never gives up. Each day, day after day and every year…as the seasons roll by, off he goes, still having a go. And all the time, he knows that sometimes, in fact quite often, he knows that there will be a failure. Do the maths brothers and sisters. There is only 1 paddock out of four that brings an abundant harvest. It’s not very good odds. And notice too that even though paddock x which has never really done much, still gets the good seed. The farmer never gives up just because there has been crop failure in the past. In fact, the farmer will never give up on paddock x, that has thistles and rocks. Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps… this will be the year, this will be the season, perhaps this time …
And from our perspective, as we are all farmers,
loving people and growing relationships and feeding and nurturing is often tiring and it is always so very risky.
And sometimes, in fact most of the time, it takes a long time for the seed to become visible, it seems to take eons before tentatively emerging and can be seen, grow and enjoyed. Often we do not get to see the growth, the reward of our persistence. Sometimes it is the one who comes after us who will delight in what we started decades earlier. And that’s OK. That’s the way it should be. It keeps us humble. It was never about us. It was always about Him. THE farmer who tends us and loves us still, even if we are shrivelled and choked and forgetful and scared.