As for [the seed] sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
Jesus of Nazareth
In this Reflection, I will mix metaphors but I do it on good authority. John wrote of Jesus, ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of men’. Two weekends ago, we reflected on Jesus saying that he was ‘the light of the world’ while he stood in the Temple treasury. John records Jesus’ words on another occasion: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (see John 1:4 & 8:12). The metaphors I’m mixing are light and life because they help us put into context Jesus’ words at the start of this Reflection.
Jesus of Nazareth told the parable of the sower often and we have versions of it in Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8. A man goes to sow seed on an area of uncultivated, common land. Some seed fell by the public footpath to be eaten by birds; some fell on rocky ground where it began to grow but, because it couldn’t push roots far down, it withered when the sun came up; some fell among thorns which choked the life of out of it; some fell on to good soil and grew to maturity to produce a crop of up to hundredfold – that is, 1,000%. As Jesus explained the parable, I won’t repeat him here.
I suspect this was Jesus’ favourite story for explaining both his essential message and his method for spreading it. Jesus described the process again when he said, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honour him’ (John 12:24-26).
The life of God, in Jesus, is the light of the world; the time of his glorification was the moment of his death. It’s no different for his followers. When Jesus met his disciples after his resurrection, he told them, ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you’. To spread the good news of Jesus, to be the light of the world (to quote Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount), we have to die. Jesus’ way is the way of a Christian.
The life in a grain of wheat is barren unless it goes into the ground, where it begins to disintegrate. As it falls apart, losing its own shape and form, gradually something new sprouts and grows and breaks through the earth. In time, it forms a head that contains many more grains of wheat, each with its own life that is the life of the original grain. And when those grains go back into the earth, the process is multiplied.
That’s how Christians die and live. To live as any person’s disciple is to forsake our own lifestyle, to ‘die’ to it, and to adopt the teacher’s ways. We see this in the Gospels, where Jesus’ closest disciples were repeatedly out of step with him. They criticised those who anointed Jesus with perfume, they wanted to call down judgment fire on the towns that rejected him and they thought the coming of the Kingdom of God meant the immediate end of Roman rule. Again and again, they had to adjust and adopt Jesus’ ways of thinking and doing.
But this sort of dying to self is not at all the way of the consumer societies in which most of us live today where we're easily choked by its thorns: the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things the cares and the pleasures of life. We may not have the spiritual life choked out of us to the point of spiritual death but neither do we grow to maturity to produce a crop.
Christians are to be ‘the light of the world’ but if we're disciples in name only, not really living as Jesus taught, lost among and largely indistinguishable from the thorns growing around us and limiting our own development, then we cannot be light and we lack the lifeforce necessary to mature to produce more grain, more disciples. I want therefore to conclude this Reflection by encouraging you to take the time necessary to examine your own lifestyle, to see if your spiritual life is being choked by the environment where you live and work.
For the next month, track all the money you spend: list the payment of every bill; list every chocolate bar, magazine, coffee and snack you buy. List the cost of your food and fuel and clothes. And list your regular giving and the coins you drop into a charity box. Record every single penny and cent you spend or give away.
This exercise is what people must do to take control of their money if they’re struggling to make ends meet or already in debt. But I have a deeper reason for suggesting it, even if your income comfortably exceeds your living costs.
Tracking every penny helps to bring alive the reality of our lifestyle, especially those of us who live in a society where wealth is venerated. It reveals our true priorities and shows the gap between who we think we are and the person we actually are. It also shows the gap between who we are and who we ought to be as disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. It shows how entwined we are among the thorns!
Tracking every penny helps to bring alive the reality of our lifestyle, especially those of us who live in a society where wealth is venerated. It reveals our true priorities and shows the gap between who we think we are and the person we actually are. It also shows the gap between who we are and who we ought to be as disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. It shows how entwined we are among the thorns!
I’ll explain what to do with the information next weekend, when we reflect on treasure in heaven.
© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.
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