"Are we there yet?" - Weekly Reflection 19th July 2026

 There is an old and wise parable that you may have heard. It goes like this:

One day an old Cherokee man sits down with his grandson to teach him about life.

“A fight is going on inside of me,” he says to the boy. “It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – he is full of rage, jealousy, arrogance, greed, sorrow, regret, lies, laziness, and self-pity.”

He continues, “The other is good – he is filled with love, joy, peace, generosity, truth, empathy, courage, humility, and faith. This same fight is going on inside the hearts of everyone, including you.”

The grandson thinks about this for a few minutes, and then asks his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replies, “The one you feed.”

This well-known story helps us to get close to the Gospel reading set for today in the Revised Common Lectionary, Matthew 13:24-30 & 36-43 (Proper 11)

Our preacher at St Oswald’s this morning invited us to reflect on the reading, often referenced as, The Parable of the Weeds, by positing a question, ‘Why doesn’t God do something.’

It might be possible to read this parable and deduce a simple binary of good people and bad (evil) people. The good people “will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (v 43) while the evil people will “be thrown into the fire,” (v 42)

This simple binary has been furthered developed into a summary message of the Gospel, the Good News.  All of us have sinned and fall short of God’s glory and subject to God’s wrath but in Jesus’s death and resurrection we have a possibility of an ‘escape’ by acknowledging Jesus and following him. With the ultimate aim of going to heaven when we die and live with God for ever while the evil people burn for ever in the torments of hell.

My question for those who proclaim this ‘Gospel,’ is what then is the good news, the Gospel that Jesus came proclaiming and sent the disciples out to proclaim – before Jesus’ death on the cross?’

As this is a short reflection I am not going to get into all the weeds of that discussion, but I invite you to ponder on this.

And this parable is well worth the effort of going beyond such a simple binary reading as it seeks to present Jesus’ teaching about evil, and what God is doing or has done about it.

Encapsulated in this parable is the course of human history and the story that the corpus of Scripture outlines by way of a journey. 

We have a beginning and there is an end, a ‘telos’ a conclusion within the reality of the present. 

The plain truth is that we all are an admixture of both good and bad, we all those two wolves. And we each make a choice about which one to feed.

This again begins to nudge us into another huge subject, that of nature versus nurture.

Thee are numerous places you can go to explore this further but as a contemporary resource I have found Dr Gwen Adshead’s Reith Lectures and her book, ‘The Devil you know’ very helpful.  

In some older translation the word used for wheat is ‘tares’ which is closer to the original.

This is probably ‘darnel’ a poisonous weeds nearly indistinguishable from wheat until maturity.

Think now of Jesus’ run in with the Pharisees. Consider passage such as Matthew 23, and 25.

The Pharisee knew about orthodoxy for sure, the right practise, but in straining out gnats of orthodoxy had swallowed camels of orthopraxis – right action.

 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? “So, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “So then, you will know them by their fruits.”

Matthew 7:15-20.

James writes, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves.” James 1.22.

This is a very rich parable that is worth the effort of meditating upon in the context of the whole of Scripture and the larger narrative of what God has done and is doing regarding the evil in the world. (Much beyond the scope of a short reflection)

However, from this parable of Jesus, we learn than wheat and weeds can look alike and we have both wheat and weeds in our lives. That evil is a reality and that some people find themselves entrapped and ensnared by evil.  

In context we learn that it is not enough to have the right belief but also the right practise, evidenced by the fruit we produce. By our lives and our care for others. We also learn from the eagerness of the ‘slaves’ that we need to be cautious in our judgment. We need to be careful before we dive in and think we know how to tell if something is a weed or not. We learn that the ultimate judge is ‘The Son of Man’ – Jesus.

 ” But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

 

 

 https://youtu.be/u1WU-lSSKPE?si=_UE_vj-vzly7wghz

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Sowing Seeds Everywhere' - Transcript of Sermon July 12th 2026 (Proper 10)

 The Parable of the Sower  Matthew 13: 1-9 & 18-23

In her book, ‘Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi’, Amy-Jill Levine argues that our engagement with the stories Jesus told, the many parables he used, are not helped by our giving them titles.

(A.J Levine is a Jewish New Testament scholar of some renown)

Her contention is that is by naming them like this, The Good Samaritan, The Prodigal Son, The Wise Man building on rock, we are in danger of becoming familiar with these stories and their meaning and no longer hear and listen to what they are saying.

They become a little like those family stories that pass down the generations. Once the story begins everyone knows where it is going, often accompanied by a groan!

I found it helpful to read this parable and Jesus’s explanation in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Mathew offers a slighter longer version than Mark, while Luke’s version is terse.

It is also interesting to note that Matthew and Mark reverse the order of the yield with Luke not mentioning the yield at all.

For Matthew it is descending order, a hundred, sixty and thirty with Mark reversing that, thirty, sixty and a hundred.

In the wisdom of the Lectionary Compilers verses 10-17 are omitted from our Gospel reading set for today.

It is worth reading this back in and reflecting on this ‘filling’ in the outer layers of the parable and its explanation by Jesus to the disciples.

Note that the story was told to the crowds gathered by the seashore.

O, and by the way, in Matthew’s telling, this is later the same day after his mother and brothers had come wanting to speak to Jesus. And Jesus replied by redefining the family of God focussed around those who do the will of God.

Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”  Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”  Matt 12.48-50

And how do you know the will of God - by listening, listening, or in some translations, verily, verily, or truly, truly I say unto you…

‘Let them that have ears hear.’

And what are they to hear?

They are to hear the Word of God.

In the explanation, and note the explanation is to the disciple, not the crowd, ‘the word’ is mentioned five times in Matthew and eight times in Mark while Luke mentions it twice but does give us the phrase, ‘The Seed is the Word of God.’

 

The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews declares, ‘^…the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.’ 

And in Isaiah 55.10-11 we read,

‘As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the Sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’

Back some years ago on Gardeners Question Time on Radio Four, the aptly named, Arthur Fallowfield was well known for answering any question with what became a catch phrase, “well I think the answer lies in the soil.”

 

“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”  Matthew 13:23

However, in Jesus’ parable the seed is scattered hither and yon. On the path, amongst the thorn bushes, in rocky soil, amongst the weeds.

The method of sowing in Jesus’ day would have been broadcasting by hand.

 

But even here some care would have been taken about where the seed was thrown. It would not have obviously been cast amongst thorns, along the path and amongst rocks.  

In today’s agriculture machinery can plant seeds with great accuracy into well prepared soil so that maximum yield might be produced.

But here is a question I invite us all to ponder on.

Over many years now a certain type of management model has been adopted by the Church.

We count numbers, we write plans and vision statements.

We seek to be strategic and focussed in an attempt to gain maximum yield from our labours.

In my ministry as Diocesan Evangelist in Chichester and then Lichfield this was very much part of my work. Helping churches set visions, goals, drawing up Mission Action Plans.

However, some of this management model is now being challenged.

We are remembering that the Church is not an organisation but an organism.

It’s living, breathing, messy and unpredictable.

The ever-advancing world of AI is the management model on speed dial.

I am sure that there is a tool out there that if you were to put in the right data and ask how we could get maximum results from our endeavours of engagement as a Church it would offer a strategy.  

I would hazard a guess that the management model would say that we must be targeted and laser focussed to maximise the potential yield.

But look again at this parable and ask yourself, does this parable invite us to broadcast or to be strategic in where we sow the seeds of the Gospel?

And how we would begin to judge whether this or that soil type is good and will be receptive to the Gospel seed sown with love and compassion.

How are we going to look out at our community and make the decision that it would be a waste of resources to sow seeds amongst this group or that group, this individual or that individual.

Are we really able to say, no, those people are definitely in poor soil, so there is no point in casting any Gospel seeds there.

How can we begin to discern and should we even begin to try and discern.

Over the years I have seen most of these soil types and the resultant crop. People falling away, the lure of something better to do than engage with God’s family on Sunday morning. The driven work ethic after the baubles of the world.

But I have also seen people come to thrive and flourish a bit like some of those flowers that grow out of concrete or tarmac. The good soil was there but it wasn’t obvious.

And if you are sitting there this morning, or if you are watching online and your thinking, God’s word could never flourish in my heart and life. I have done things that even God can’t forgive. The soil I was raised in and that I’m sitting in right now is bad soil to the core.

Let me remind you that John Newton was the captain of a slave ship. He became a Christian, became a staunch abolitionist and wrote ‘Amazing Grace.’

Now that’s why I want to advocate broadcasting the Gospel seed as widely as possible.

That’s the reason I volunteer to work in the prisons. Because of the transforming power of God. I was on a training session recently with the Welcome Directory, set up to help Prison Leavers engage with Faith Communities. We had on the call a serial offender who had found new purpose and direction in his live because someone didn’t bother with a soil analysis but sowed the word of God into his live. And the new life of Jesus shone out of his eyes. 

The Good News of God’s Kingdom come upon earth brings life, light, hope and forgiveness.

‘The Seed is the Word of God’ – and we are invited to broadcast it to everyone no matter where we find them or in what circumstances they are living.

Because as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3.6.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”

Some of us will plant seeds, others will nurture them, but it is always God’s who brings the growth, some thirty, some sixty and some a hundred-fold.

It’s time for us to put on our gardening gloves, grab that basket of seeds and get to work…

In the words of John Wesley…

“Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can,

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can.”

God of the poor
Friend of the weak
Give us compassion we pray
Melt our cold hearts
Let tears fall like rain
Come, change our love
From a spark to a flame

 https://youtu.be/pPvioAt5fq4?si=CQqjmodjRsjHzGSV

If you want to hear the Sermon in context follow this link....

https://www.youtube.com/live/a4RcdaCs4oY?si=FZvdpLbgJtH7nWcA