Sexagesima Sunday

“A sower went out to sow his seed.”—Luke viii. 5.

Preachers sometimes think that the parable we have read in the Gospel for this day applies especially, almost exclusively, to their work. They divide their hearers into classes corresponding to the soils of which our Lord speaks. Some are wayside hearers, some are stony, some are choked with thorns. They come to sow the seed; theirs is the joy when fruits proceed from it, theirs is the disappointment when it is wasted.

It seems to me that many dangers are latent in language of this kind. There are surely no distinctions so precious and so perfect as those which our Lord gives us in this parable of parables, this parable by which we are to understand all parables. That they apply to hearers, He tells us Himself. But they require to be dealt with carefully and reverently. If the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven could be set forth in a few technical phrases or formal generalizations, the manifold processes of Nature would not have been called in to illustrate them. Those processes are living. They must be studied in the region from which they are drawn, not in mere descriptions. It is still more important that we should study the applications of them, not in other men, but ourselves. The preacher will fall into grievous hypocrisy if he seeks to ascertain what is meant by any of these characters from observation of his neighbours. The command, “Cast first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother’s eye,” must always be present to him in all its terror. No one has leave to pretend that he is exempt from it.

But this way of considering the subject is likely to betray us into a still greater mistake. We may fancy that we are the sowers. Other motives besides personal vanity and ecclesiastical pretension may tempt us to acquiesce secretly with this interpretation, even if we have not courage to proclaim it in all its fulness and audacity. Some puzzles which divines are very glad to escape would be avoided, if they could persuade themselves that they were to some extent the persons of whom our Lord speaks. But the words in another parable—like in all essentials to this—must be applied to it: “He that soweth the seed is the Son of Man.” Be the consequences of the assumption what they may, we must start from it; no other will make the interpretation which our Lord gave His disciples of the parable, or any one hint contained in the lesson which he draws from the whole of it, in the least intelligible. Not one who stands outside of the man, and utters certain sentences, well or ill-compacted, rhythmical or inharmonious, refined or vulgar, into his ear, can sow those words to which the seed in the ground is compared. Only He Who has framed the ear that it may receive sounds, and the heart that it may entertain words, only He can do this work. Whether the seed is carried away, or falls upon stones, or amidst weeds, or into a good well-ploughed land that returns it a hundredfold, the same doctrine must hold. We cannot change the person to suit the convenience of any theorist. The Son of Man, the Lord of the heart and will of man, from Whom all the energies and capacities of man are derived, must bestow whatever might bear fruit in him, even if it actually perishes.

What a difference this makes in the extent as well as the depth of the ground over which the seed is scattered! The minister of a London parish perhaps complains that three-fourths of his flock die without having heard his voice, or knowing for what end he is placed among them. Does he really suppose that they die without hearing the Voice of the Son of Man? Do they die then without having been poor or sick, without having had any human relations, without ever having had a struggle in themselves, a desire formed and not accomplished? If these have been with them, the Son of Man has been with them. Wherever any human sympathy or affection has fought with any merely grovelling animal affection which is its counterfeit; wherever selfishness has not held supreme and unquestioned dominion—and do you know any one in whom it reigns with no opposition?—the Son of Man has been there. You talk rhetorically, with a certain approximation to truth, of some places being very hells on earth. I say, if you go down into these hells, He is there. There is not one of them in which there are not the remains of the human face divine, however brutal, however diabolical it may have become. And where there is that sign, there is the Sign of the Son of Man; a truer one, though a more terrible one, than that which the Pharisees desired to see in the heavens.

And wherever the Son of Man is, there He is sowing His seed. The thought in any fallen creatures that there may be and must be a way out of the abyss to some firmer standing-ground, to some region of twilight if not of day, this is seed of His planting; this, in whomsoever it is found, can have dropped from no hand except His. It may, as He tells us, be quickly snatched away. It may endure for a time and then sicken, perhaps through the very sunshine which seemed likely to make it expand. It may be choked after it has gained some strength and stature. But its origin is not the less certain. The wretched circumstances of the man did not put it into him. The comrades that are mocking him and seducing him, and yet have the same hope dimly working in themselves, did not put it into him. His own selfish nature did not put it into him. From the Son of Man it came. Whether it is on the surface, whether it is in the undersoil, be assured that it would not be there, if He had not gone forth to sow, if that had not been His function ever since the world began.

But how is this, if the seed is the Word of God? Do these wretched people of whom I have been speaking know anything of the Scriptures? Is it not probable that many of them are not acquainted with the commonest facts in the Old and New Testament? May it not be that some of those who have heard these facts are only using them to make their curses more emphatic and hideous? All this may be; and yet, if the Scriptures are true, if the records of the Old and New Testaments are facts, there is no speech or language where the Voice of the Word of God is not heard. The earth would be dissolved and the pillars of it, if He were not bearing them up. The consciences of men could not be accusing and excusing one another, if He were not awakening, illuminating, informing them. The seed then that is put into men’s hearts must be the Word of God. It could have no vital generative power if it were anything else. If it have any good in it, it must come from Him Who alone is good. If it is to produce good, the Creator must go forth with it.

I know how hard it is to hold fast this belief. Even though we have Christ’s express assertion that it is so; even though the whole parable becomes a contradiction, if we suppose that the seed which fell by the wayside is different seed from that which fell on the good ground, the understanding still suggests the doubt, how can that be, if God is omnipotent? And those who would suppress all other doubts of the understanding, on the plea that they interfere with the direct statements of Scripture, insist that this one ought to be cherished, and that a long array of inferences may be deduced from it. I am far from denying the difficulty, or that to some it may be a very painful one. I do not see how it can be otherwise, to any who have not resolved that the Righteousness of God which has been revealed in Christ must be maintained, however little we may be able to explain the apparent limitation of His Power. This one has been declared to us and to our children. It is an eternal inheritance. To lose it is to lose everything. Power we believe to be the handmaid of Righteousness. He Who is Love is clothed with Power. The clothing may be laid aside, as it was when Christ took upon Him the form of a servant, and became subject to Death. The Righteous and Gracious Will never can be; that came forth most in weakness. If we do not believe this, what is the Parable of the Sower to us, or any other of Christ’s works, or Christ Himself? If we do believe this, why must we cheat ourselves of a lesson which is in strict and perfect consistency with it, because we are more jealous for God’s Power than His Son is? I have no doubt that that Power will vindicate itself in its good time; I have no doubt that the only Power which ever did, and which ever can act upon a heart—the Power of Love—will prove itself to be far mightier than we have taken it to be. But in the meantime let each of us say, with shame and confusion of face, “I know that it is God’s Word, and not man’s, that has encountered the rock and the thorns in me. I know that it is God’s good and gracious Will declared by that Word which my will has fought against. It is all very well to persuade myself that I have not done this, that it is impossible I should. I have tried to make my conscience swallow that sophistry; but it will not. It repeats plainly and clearly God’s words, ‘I have called and ye refused. Ye have set at nought my counsel; ye would have none of my reproof.’”

The decent and disreputable, the wise and the foolish, the preacher and those to whom he preaches, have the same need to make this confession; each has the witness in himself that it is a true one. Let each of us look back over the last few years of his life, or over any that he likes to choose as the most favourable specimen of it. Let him think over the outward events that have befallen him in that time; and then let him ask himself, “Did no words come close to me, to me, from loving lips, out of open graves, out of sorrows which might have crushed the proudest spirit? and did no idle conceit, no hungry craving for approbation, no bitter resentment against an offender, imaginary or real, scatter these words into air? The Son of Man was with me, sowing his Master’s seed, and the Devil carried it off. God was in that place, and I knew it not, and would have another there instead of Him.” Has it not been so? Does not that Spirit who bringeth all things to remembrance tell us that it has?

Or—to take the next portion of the parable—have we had no experience of a heart which appears to be anything but hard and stony,—it receives impressions so quickly, it is touched by the description of sorrows so easily, it is so ready to admire goodness, so ready to concur in all plans for good—and yet which is hard, is stony? for affections or convictions do not penetrate into it; they endure no conflict or pressure; they do not displace the love of ease and indulgence which was there before. We have had such an experience—where? In some neighbour? In some person who was sitting to us as the model of a character which we supposed to be rather common in our age? Oh! has it not been at home we have found that heart? Has nothing told us that we were likely to be—that we have often actually been—our own models? That the habit of the time is our habit? It is not safe for any of us to shrink from that revelation, however painful it may be. It is the Word of God makes it to us, and that Word of God is seeking to destroy, by all our discipline, that levity of mind, that incapacity for depth and earnestness of purpose, which we have sought vainly to cure for ourselves.

Again. Have we fancied that the easy luxurious life of some imaginary or actual rich man has filled his heart with prickly thorns and unwholesome weeds? Or that this has happened to some busy merchant or tradesman, through his restless diligence in the accumulation of money? Or that the like have grown up in some poor man, who must always be vexed with the thought, how he will stay his children’s hunger on the morrow? Are there then men or women without these? Is there any of us, priest or layman, who has not suffered cares like these to grow; who has not planted them, and cultivated them with his own hand? Silly delusion to say so! Mad attempt to disguise from ourselves the truth that there have been disciplinary fires in the world about us and in ourselves, which have been designed to burn up these thorns, that the Word of God might have free space to unfold itself within us!

But that good ground of which our Lord speaks dare we say that we know anything of that? Or must we go to the lives of the Saints, that we may learn what it signifies, and whence it derives its advantages. We may go there if we please; they will teach us much. For they will tell us of the stubbornness and the impotency of their wills, and of the sore lessons by which they were brought to understand that all things are of God, and that they could only do any good works because He worked in them to will and to do of His good pleasure. But have we no nearer and readier helps for arriving at that truth? Are not all the experiences I have spoken of already such helps? Have we not found that we have been resisting a Will which we are created to obey? Were not the desires and thoughts and hopes of which we suffered the Evil Spirit to plunder us, thoughts and desires and hopes which God Himself was inspiring us with? Was not that hard crust of vanity interposed between us and a power that was putting contempt upon it, making us inwardly despise it? Were not those frivolous and restless cares an outgrowth, strange and irregular, upon a soil that was created to produce something different, which we knew was capable of producing something different? Is not the good ground the heart and will of—every man, when he learns that he is a man, and not a beast or a God. Not a beast, or he might trust to nature and instinct. Not a God, or he might follow the decrees of his own will. But a man related to God; His servant and His child, created by Him in Christ Jesus, planted again in that divine root that he might bring forth fruit, and that his fruit might remain.

Yes, brethren! it is our business to testify to all men that this is their condition. We are not to pretend that they must come to Church in order that they may be brought under the discipline of the Son of Man, in order that the Word of God may work in their hearts. They come here to learn that they cannot escape from the Son of Man; that He is with them when they lie down, and when they rise up; that He is spying out all their ways. They come here to be told what that flame is, which ever and anon breaks out within them; what those smouldering ashes, which they always fear may burst into a flame after it seems to have been extinguished. We are to tell them that the Word of God kindles that fire; that it is seeking to burn up what is evil and false within them; that it will not cease to scorch and torment them till they have yielded to this process, and desired that it should be an effectual one. We are to preach this to you; we are to preach it to ourselves, knowing well that God is preaching it to us all—not here, but out of the whirlwind. The sermon is a poor godless substitute for the lessons of life. It may be a godly interpreter of those lessons. It may remove some of the confusions which hinder us from doing our work manfully; this confusion most of all, that we do not know whether the Creator of the Universe, the Lord of ourselves, is working with us or against us; whether every effort we make is an effort to overcome some reluctance of His to bless us, some purpose of His to do us mischief; or whether He is acting upon us continually to overcome our reluctance to be blessed, to hinder us from wasting all our energies, and from ruining ourselves. So far as the sermon does this, he who delivers it may be in a very subordinate sense a sower of the divine seed. He is not so to the exclusion of any other minister of the Son of Man who has a different office. He is so least of all, so as to interfere with His office Who alone is Lord of the field, and Who alone can make it bear. He exists to declare that that Lord is the same from generation to generation; the same in Will as when He died for man; the same in Power as when He rose from the dead; and that there can be no barrenness or failure in all His universe, when we cease to measure our will and power against His.

The Parable of the Sower, then, serves better for testing what is passing in the heart of each hearer than for arraying hearers into classes. I do not however forget that it was spoken, like our Lord’s other parables, to a multitude. The desire for influencing crowds may be carried to great excess; it may involve terrible temptations. But there is a great justification for it. We may speak of a multitude of reeds being moved by the same wind. We may complain—in the language which St. Paul addresses to the Corinthians in the Epistle to-day—that those are liked best by crowds, who would bring them into bondage and smite them in the face. But such charges require to be well weighed before they are brought forward. There is something very awful, and very elevating too, in the influence which is produced upon a whole body of men by words addressed, ever so coarsely, to them as spiritual beings. As they listen to that voice, they confess that they are men bound together by the same bond, having the same interests; they confess that the same God is speaking to them all. Can you not think that whatever the message may be which is delivered by mortal lips, the Son of Man may be in the midst of such a multitude, sowing His seed in their hearts? It is something for men to be awakened to the thought that there is any one caring for them and wishing them good. They must think more reverently, more truly, of their Father in Heaven, when they suppose He is not indifferent to them, even if they think that He is only minded to punish them for their sins. And surely no punishments which can be set before them in rude material forms are so terrible as the actual separation from goodness and truth, of which the conscience bears witness to itself, and to which it has now perhaps been for the first time awakened. The reasons for terror are not exaggerated, though they may be misreported. What is needed is not that we should speak slightingly of such influences, from whatever quarter they may proceed,—not that we should try to explain away the reality of them,—not that we should boast of our own teaching, as if it were better and wiser, because it falls more lifelessly on men’s ears:—but to desire very earnestly that we may bear true witness of God, and so counteract any false witness of Him. It is easy to persuade ourselves—God knows how easy—that we ought to darken His character just a little, that we may increase men’s dread of continuing in their sins; that we ought, just a little, to lower the language of Apostles, when they say that it is His wish that all men should believe and come to the knowledge of the truth. Is it safe to use such very large expressions to men, so indifferent as the congregations of rich men generally are, so besotted as the congregations of poor men are likely enough to be? I answer to those who use such arguments, believing in their Bibles, “It stands written. Dare you change it?” I answer to those who believe in Jesus Christ, “You call Him the Image of God. Do you think He is? Dare you represent God as something else than that Image tells you He is?” I answer to those who plead experience, “Do you find that the distrust of God’s willingness to make you all that you ought to be increases your power of becoming that which you ought to be? Do you find that questioning whether He will break the chain of evil passions and habits from your neck makes you less tolerant of that chain?” I answer to those who speak of the Church as enjoining confession of sins as the way to peace with God, “I rejoice and give thanks that she does. I know that we ought to confess, one and all, that we are created to bring forth good fruits, and that we have not brought them forth; that no divine seeds need be taken from us by the Evil Spirit, and that they have been taken away; that we need not be cold and heartless, and that we have been; that we need not be choked with cares and pleasures of this life, and that we have been. The Church bids me to confess to God because He is good, and desires me to be good; to confess to God because He has redeemed mankind in Christ Jesus; to confess to God because He has given us His Spirit, and renewed His Spirit continually in us. If He were not our Father, and were not good, we should have lost nothing by being separate from Him; if He had not redeemed us, we should commit no sin in not claiming our redemption; if there were no Holy Spirit urging us to obedience, we should be guilty of no disobedience. Believing in One God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the perfect Righteousness and Love, we can confess, He enables us to confess together, He gives us absolution together.”

And, lastly, I answer to those who talk of the impossibility of speaking to the multitude without darkening the character of God to them,—Jesus Christ spoke to the multitude, and said, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” And the multitude said, “He speaketh as one having authority, and not as the Scribes.” He spoke His parables to a multitude whose eyes were blinded, whose hearts were gross. And these parables are revelations of the Kingdom of Righteousness, Peace, and Joy, which He said was near to publicans and sinners. And these parables are revelations of the Will of that Shepherd, who goes into the wilderness to seek the sheep that was lost; of that Father, Who so loved the world that He gave His Son for it. These parables are declaring that God sows the good seed in His field; that not He, but the enemy, sows tares; that in the end the tares will be burnt, and that what He has planted shall bring forth fruit, which He will gather, and in which He will delight for ever.