Harvesting The Truth

Mt. 13:1-9

Today Jesus tells us the parable of the sower. It is actually a story of how people handle the truth.

The farmer was sowing at a time before modern machinery has introduced precision into the process. He reaches into a bag, takes a handful of seed, and flings them around him as he walks across the field. Four different things happen to the seed.

Some fall on the footpath that runs beside the field. The ground is hard-packed, the seeds cannot penetrate into the earth and after a while birds eat them. These represent the people who respond to the truth by just closing their minds and not allowing it to ever find lodging or take root inside their heart. That is a sad way to handle the truth - but it happens all the time.

Every doctor can verify this fact. A woman discovers in her body one of the warning signs of cancer but she will not go for a check-up because she is afraid of what it might reveal. She would rather live in darkness and doubt than face the possible painful light of the truth. If indeed she is sick, her best chance for health lies in facing the truth as quickly as possible.

We can treat moral and spiritual truth the same way. Think for how long we closed our eyes to the problems of racial injustice. God's truth was there all the time, telling us that prejudice and discrimination were wrong. But we closed our minds and hardened our hearts, and refused to hear it. The truth can be disturbing and so sometimes we just block it out and refuse to hear it.

Let us look at what happens to the second type of seed which falls in shallow soil over a layer of rock. The seed sprouts and grows quickly but because there is no depth of soil it cannot endure the heat of the sun. Jesus explained this as someone who accepts the truth at first, but when some trial or persecution comes that person falls away. The truth hasn't taken root.

We may have treated truth like this ourselves, perhaps meeting opposition, challenges to our faith, and we were not strong enough to face them. Or, we have hard decisions to make, and we know what is the right thing to do, but we choose the easy option. So we behave like the seed in the shallow soil. The truth starts to grow, but when we feel the heat, it withers and dies.

Then, there is the thorny ground. The seed takes root, comes up, grows for a while but finally the thorns choke it. This represents the truth that gets crowded out of our lives by the worries of the world and the lure of its riches. Everyone of us knows something about this. A father and a mother know that they should spend time with their children, get to know them, love them and guide them. But their careers and outside activities come first. Then one day they look around and find their children have gone. Years go by so quickly; and once they have gone, these opportunities will never come round again.

Truth is a hardy plant. All the thorns and thistles in the world will never kill it, but they can certainly crowd it out of our lives. If we are to clear the ground and keep our lives uncluttered what we need is a spiritual hoe, namely getting our priorities correct. Then we can give the truth a chance to take hold and room to grow.

Finally, some of the seed fell on good ground, and produced a harvest. That is what the truth of God is supposed to do. It isn't a theory that we hold in our heads; it's a seed that is planted in our hearts. God puts it there to produce something good in our lives. Any farmer will tell us that a harvest never just happens. It requires effort. Perhaps 95 percent of it depends on the sun, the soil, the seed and the rain. That means God handles the lion's share, but the farmer's five percent is still important. Without it there would be no harvest!

So it is with your life and mine. God confronts us time and time again with the truth, sows good seed in our hearts, and then expects a harvest. God gives us the potential to reap a full harvest. Sometimes we will produce much less than that - it will all depend on how we respond to the truth. And what is this harvest? It is all the good and positive things we produce in our lives.

Lord Jesus, let us end today by reaping a full harvest of love, kindness, generosity and availability Let us give these top priority as we cultivate them, water them and watch them grow. That is the way to respond to truth. In partnership with God we may surprise ourselves with what kind of harvest could be produced in one little lifetime.