Sunday, July 13, 2014

Sunday Sermon 7/13/14

Today's gospel is the parable of the sower and the seeds. The "sower" has become the "farmer" now as the process of sowing described has vanished from all but the most primitive farms. That elaboration, that change in text, is a worry as it is an accommodation to modernity; how much more accommodation will be necessary for the modern world?
It is filled with symbolism-as all parables must be-but there is a hard element here: The seed falls on different soil, some unprepared, some overtly hostile, some simply incompatible with growth of the seed. Whose fault is that and will the soil be held responsible?

Sowing by Edward Thomas:

It was a perfect day
For sowing; just
As sweet and dry was the ground
As tobacco-dust.

I tasted deep the hour
Between the far
Owl's chuckling first soft cry
And the first star.

A long stretched hour it was;
Nothing undone
Remained; the early seeds
All safely sown.

And now, hark at the rain,
Windless and light,
Half a kiss, half a tear,
Saying good-night

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