Lives Matter

I came across an interesting post on Missio Alliance about ways predominantly white churches can respond positively to the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter campaigns.

It is written by a pastor in the US, but I was struck by its echo of the message of St Paul to churches almost two thousand years ago. It is fundamental to the Gospel of Jesus that in him are gathered all ethnicities, all social classes and all genders:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:28)

Black lives matter because all lives matter and it is black lives which are being disproportionately squandered in Western Europe and North America. Whatever the ethnic mix of our own local church community, as part of the worldwide family of Jesus we need to live out the truth that central to our 'good news' is that the lives of our black brothers and sisters matter.

The lives of the poorest in our society matter. Across the world it is the poorest whose lives are being disproportionately thrown away. Whatever the social mix of our own local church community, if we are part of the worldwide family of Jesus we need to live out the truth that central to the Christian message is that the lives of our poorest brothers and sisters matter.

Trans lives matter, as do gay and lesbian lives. Across the world including, sadly, its religious communities, those who do not conform to gender norms are disproportionately abused, bullied, rejected and murdered. Whatever the mix of gender conformity in our own local church community, as part of the family of Jesus we need to live out the heart of our 'good news' that the lives of our LGBT+ siblings matter.

There are, of course, so many other disadvantaged groups in our societies, but these are three where many predominantly white UK churches seem to be in denial (as well as being the three specifically covered by St Paul). The Christian Gospel is that in Christ all lives matter, so we are called to act specifically on behalf of those 'others' whose lives are treated as 'less' by the societies of which we are a part.

Grace and peace.

When We Judge Others We Condemn Ourselves

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

There are a number of places in the Gospels which tell of Jesus healing someone in desperate need, only for those in positions of religious authority to condemn him for it. One example is told by Matthew:

Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.  And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”  But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”

Jesus responds that "the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." People whose hearts are full of evil will see evil, even in what is good.

Which brings us to our next Beatitude: blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. It is only as our hearts are purified from the filth which enshrouds them that we begin to see the pure wholesome light of God.

Jesus tells us not to judge others; doing so is a sign that our hearts are not pure. There is a passage in St Paul's letter to the church in Rome which begins by talking about people who are far from God whose lifestyles end up in a mess. That bit is often quoted by religious types, but they somehow forget about the punchline:

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.

Those self-appointed judges struggle with this: how can they be accused of "degrading passions" and a "debased mind"? The truth is that in passing judgement on others they show themselves to have impure and degraded hearts, fully deserving of all the rigours of God's judgement.

If they had pure hearts they would see God present and at work wherever they looked, for God is everywhere. They would see children of God, who he loves and longs to save, and would do everything they could to show these children God's loving grace, not heartless judgement.

If only we had pure hearts, what difference could we make with Jesus?

But how can our hearts be purified? By us praying lots and reading the Bible? Well, it can't hurt ... but remember that the Pharisees did a lot of that. By asking God to change our hearts through his Holy Spirit within us? Probably better, and it does fit in with the words of the ancient prophet Ezekiel:

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

But we are called to more than that. God will do the bulk of the work, of course, but we must do our part as well: we need to actively look for Jesus in the people and situations around us, and join in with whatever he is doing. We must freely share God's grace and God's love.

We must let people know the good news that God wants to include everyone in his family, however unlikely that may seem in human terms. It is as we see Jesus in those who our neighbours scorn, especially those despised by our religious neighbours, that we know we are making progress.

Everybody has a choice, of course, and can turn away from God as easily as they can turn to him. May your choices in the coming weeks always turn you toward the light of God  and may you and yours know the blessings of his wonderful grace.

Judgement & Exclusion

There's rather a lot about judgement in Matthew's account of Jesus' life. In part this makes sense as the people he was writing to were attempting to come to terms with the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem and the suffering which accompanied it.

So this is introduced in a series of stories and parables highlighting the faithlessness of the religious leaders in Jesus' day and the judgement which would surely follow after they persecuted first Jesus and then his followers for so many years.

Finally, the end of chapter 23 and the bulk of 24 addresses the consequence of this, bringing together the terrible suffering during the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, and the hope of Jesus' eventual return into one terrible apocalyptic warning. We're bad at apocalyptic today so we tend to get lost in this passage but it most likely made sense, even brought a sense of comfort and meaning, to its early readers.

Then in chapter 25 the scope widens and we get three quick parables about judgement more generally, which are potentially easier to follow and apply today. These parables, known traditionally as The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, The Parable of the Talents and The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats are all parables of judgement.

Interestingly, given the traditional  Protestant religious focus on 'Salvation by faith not works', all three parables are most immediately about actions. Equally interestingly, given the traditional religious focus on avoiding 'sin' - refraining from doing forbidden things - all three are about people's failure (or not) to do what they should have done; no-one is criticised for doing something wrong, just for failing to do something right.

In the first, ten young women are chosen to accompany a bridegroom to his wedding feast. Five of the ten are prepared and ready when he comes, so they are welcomed into the feast in places of honour. The other five were not ready when he came and they are excluded: the bridegroom says he does not know them.

In the second parable a wealthy man goes on a journey so he gives his servants portions of his immense wealth to use while he is away. This is a tremendous opportunity which two of the servants use, whilst the third buries the wealth away and tries to go on with his life. When their master returns those who used the opportunity are praised and "given charge of many things"; the servant who deliberately failed to use the opportunity, however, is sharply criticised and thrown outside "into the darkness".

The final parable has Jesus returning in glory to judge people from all the nations. When he judges he does so on the basis of how they have treated those in need around them. He says the way we have treated the neediest is the way we treat him, and he separates people on this basis into those facing eternal life and those facing punishment.

Literally the word translated 'punishment' in that final parable means 'pruning' or cutting away, so again the implication is that judgement is about separation: separating those included in God's Kingdom from those who are excluded from it.

The basis for that separation is either what we do or, maybe more likely, on the underlying attitude: an attitude of expectancy which leads us to make sure we are ready and prepared; an attitude of trust which leads us to make use of opportunities God gives us; and especially an attitude of compassion for those we see in need.

And, in the end, inclusion means life and exclusion means death. How we live matters.

"Jesus Might Have Been Gay"

That made me blink!

The context was a book promotion, by its three Dutch authors, of a new book called Re-imagining The Bible For Today. It was advertised as being about engaging people from around the fringes of faith with the Bible, which was enough to drag me across to Salisbury on my scooter one slightly chilly Friday afternoon.

One of the areas they talked about in their presentation was times they had encouraged special-interest groups to question and interact with the text: feminists, environmentalists and gay groups included. I must admit my 'political correctness' alarm was ringing at this point, but the discussions actually seem to have been carefully structured and focused to genuinely provoke a different way of looking at well-known texts.

One example Bert Dicou spoke about was a time he led a discussion on the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, with a gay activist group. It seems they related easily to ideas about travelling and eating together and so growing a relationship, but one of the young men had a question: might Jesus have been gay? It seems Dicou (or maybe someone else involved) told him that he might have been. The young man found himself freed to start attending his local church, for the first time since childhood.

That has to be a good thing, surely, but I must admit the answer given brought me up short - it was, for me, such an unexpected idea. Which I guess is the idea of such discussions, they help us think the unthinkable. I find it raises two main extra questions of its own.

The first is the obvious one: might Jesus have been gay ... really?

I am not aware of anything in the Gospels which so much as hints that Jesus was sexually active: contextually it seems plausible to assume that he was not. Which leaves his sexuality - in the sense of any romantic or sexual attractions - a completely blank page. Within the constraints of what we are told, the rest we tentatively assume for ourselves. So it is genuinely reasonable to say that Jesus might have been gay - although also reasonable to say that he probably wasn't.

The other question I find myself wondering is why that 'might' made such a difference to the young man?

I suspect it could be to do with being part of a community which has long been discriminated against: an 'us and them' with Jesus assumed to be part of the excluding majority. A session engaging with Jesus as a companion and  a traveller helps to break down religious preconceptions, then even just the possibility that Jesus might have been part of the young man's community helps him to see that Jesus can accept and love him as he is. The rigid boundary just isn't there with Jesus.

That simple might leaves the understanding that, for him, Jesus really was 'one of us', therefore he can be one of Jesus' followers. He is free because he understands that Jesus is free, is another way to look at it.

Either way, a good excuse for an excellent song from Joan Osborne:

Vision & Seeing

At St John's over the next six months or so we will be exploring visions for our future as a 'community church', in partnership with a group from Greyfriars who, we hope, will be coming to join us. With a bit of luck we'll also be exploring in partnership with God ... there's not much point if not!

So this post is intended to be a quick (-ish) summary of where I'm at now, at the start of this shared process - obviously this is something we've been looking at ourselves for a while, so none of us are really starting from a blank sheet.

In the best church tradition, I'll do this as three points ... or maybe just three different angles.

The first part is simply the idea mentioned above: that St John's needs to be a community church. Not a church defined by it's walls, although they give a good local focus; nor by its churchgoers, although they are its lifeblood; but by the community it engages with, serves, and works with.

Churches just 'serving' their local community sometimes lose the plot, because that's not really how people work. It is in working in partnership with people that all grow and all can use their talents together in the most effective ways. I was listening to a lady from Greyfriars a couple of weeks ago who spoke of "a church without walls", which conveys the idea nicely.

The next point is about numbers. I think we need a decent sized core congregation to provide the foundation (in Jesus, of course), stability and direction for the work. I see that as being around 100 people over a couple of congregations. Any larger and the thing becomes an all-devouring monster, in my view. But we are within a community of over 9,000 people, so if we are to be really effective we will need to involve and include much more than that core congregation.

Currently we take part in a number of initiatives which are separate from the core of the church and are run in partnership with those who go to other churches or none: there's a 'cooking club' on the Amersham Road estate, which is intended to grow into a 'fresh expression' but needs resource to really progress; there is the 'community cafe' on Tuesdays, which could usefully run on other days of the week; there is a 'food for families' group using part of the church grounds. All of these involve us, are separate from the church organisation, and have great potential to grow and do much, much more if more people got involved.

I see this as the best model going forward: a kind of 'hub and satellites' picture. Something where people who 'don't go to church' can live and grow as enthusiastic followers of Jesus without getting bogged down in all the 'religious' stuff.

The final point is not about organisation or about models, but about who we are especially there for. Who we can work with to be life-giving and grace-transmitting. To my mind the priority should be those who are lonely and lost in our neighbourhoods; those who feel worthless and rejected; those with enormous creativity and love to bring to the table, but who don't feel they belong enough to have the right outlet. Those whom God especially loves because religious people have traditionally turned their backs on them.

The thought of partnering with people from Greyfriars to reach those in need of such life-giving inclusion and welcome is one I find concerning^*. But that is the nature of God's Kingdom: it moves forward through the most unexpected people.

To finish, the final verse and chorus from the Bad Pollyanna song above, which I think says a lot about what churches should be relaying to their communities:

Let me put my cards on the table
I've been where you are
I'll never see the stain of a label
Or a scar
You need to know that I won't reject you
Let's unbreak your heart
You are not the voices that shame you

When you are lost
I will find you
Through the dark
I can see you
And you are loved
You are worthy
You can't hide
All the beauty
I can see you

Because that's what Jesus says ... to you and to those around you.

* NB 'Concern' does not equal rejection, more an appreciation that God's way sometimes involves a degree of surprise. It seems likely that those considering moving to St John's will have concerns of their own, of course.

Sacred Cows

Sacred cow: Something too highly regarded to be open to criticism or curtailment.

Lots of us find change in our lives to be an uncomfortable process for all sorts of reasons, both practical and abstract. Change is especially difficult when it challenges core assumptions which we may not even have realised were there.

The same discomfort, but magnified, tends to face churches as we recognise our need for change. St John's Church has been wrestling with it for a few years now, and we're coming to recognise that our pace of change needs to increase dramatically into the near future.

Our Rector, who specialises in interesting questions, asked a few weeks ago what the 'sacred cows' were here: what is there which is sacrosanct for us - not open to change at all.

The trouble with initial responses to a question like that, at least for me, is that I tend to think of other people's sacred cows: the pulpit which is never used - long made obsolete by a sound system and a change to the old patriarchal culture - but which we can't get rid of, or even move; or archaic language used in prayer - often taken to mean the exact opposite of what was meant originally. I'm happy to lose their sacred cows, but I wasn't even sure I had any.

Later I did some more thinking. We definitely need to change and grow, but what would be too high a price?

As a parish we say that our core values are being 'inclusive, generous and life-giving'. At St John's we try to focus those values around being welcoming: as a church community we aim to offer a welcome which is open, inclusive, generous and life-giving. Somewhere in that lie my sacred cows.

Over the river is a large Anglican church, one of whose senior members has a reputation for being very unwelcoming toward same-sex couples: they hit the front page of the local paper on the issue some years back. If that church offered us a group led by this senior member to help us grow, I would take a lot of convincing.

Similarly there are a number of religious groups around Reading, many following a charismatic tradition, who are virulently anti-Muslim. I don't see how partnership with such groups could possibly work.

Now, I need to be careful here. Being unwelcoming to those with reservations about same-sex relationships, say, is also neither inclusive nor open. But there is a difference between following one's conscience in one's own life and trying to use your values to exclude or to manipulate the behaviour of others. As the saying goes: "If you don't believe in gay marriage then don't marry a gay person."

There is a question of integrity, of being true to the Christian values we proclaim. There is also, for me, a fundamental question around what it is which is distinctive about the faith proclaimed in the pages of the New Testament, particularly by Jesus himself.

My reading is that Jesus offered openness and genuine welcome to those excluded by the religious groups of his day. I am in the middle of a little book by Rowan Williams on Paul, looking why what he said was so revolutionary, then and now. Again the answer lies around inclusion not exclusion, welcome not rejection, removing barriers not building them.

In my view any attempt to build up St John's numbers by building walls, by scorning and excluding others, and by emphasising our own holiness and distinctiveness, may or may not help with numbers and dedication, but it would be building up something which is non-Christian, or at best sub-Christian.

Herod's Temple was characterised by its high walls and by its levels of exclusion: a building whose purpose was meant to be bringing people close to God in worship became a place dedicated to separating people from God. When Jesus died on the cross, we are told that the curtain in that Temple, the curtain which separated off the 'Holy of Holies', God's dwelling place, was torn in two, from top to bottom, opening the way to God for all.

Following Jesus is about enabling people to meet God for themselves - all sorts of people, irrespective of gender, social class, race, religious upbringing, relationships, scientific literacy, doubts and certainties. All are welcome to 'taste and see' in their own way; our job is to welcome them and to share what we have found to be life-affirming.

That's my sacred cow. What about you?

Sinners

Jesus famously said that he came to call sinners, not the righteous, but who did he mean by that?

To 20th-Century churchgoers the answer would have been obvious: sinners are the bad and the wicked, especially those whose wrong-doing has something to do with sex or the ten commandments. To early 21st-Century non-churchgoers sin is more of a marketing term, implying luxury and indulgence, with a hint of defiance against overweening authority.

In Biblical times the meaning was quite different. In contrast to the righteous, the δικαίους, who followed the rules and fitted into the framework of their society, sinners, the ἁμαρτωλούς, were those who had missed the mark, not kept to their society's rules. In the case of the Jews this was all about the covenant on Mount Sinai, and being God's people.

The book of Exodus tells of that covenant: God told the Israelites that if they followed his commands he would be their God and they would be his people. It was a contract, with definite terms and conditions.

A large part of the rest of the Old Testament tells of how the Israelites failed, again and again, to keep their side of the bargain. Eventually God withdrew his protection and the nation of Israel was driven out by the Assyrians; later Judea was taken into exile by the Babylonians. The Jews (aka Judeans) eventually returned to their lands, the inhabitants of the northern kingdom, Israel, never really did (there is some confusion about the status of the Samaritans, who claimed to be descendants of these Israelites although the Jews denied this).

Although the Jews (many of them) returned to their lands, they never really had control over them: Persians, Greeks and then Romans claimed authority instead. So, we can tell from documents from Jesus' time and earlier found over the past few decades, they decided that the exile was, in a sense, still ongoing. That God and his chosen king would eventually come and truly establish God's Kingdom of justice and freedom and peace ... at least for the Jews.

Part of this development was the idea that it wasn't enough to be a Jew to be one of God's people - you had to be a righteous Jew: one who truly follows all the conditions of that Sinai covenant. If you kept all the rules of the Law you were included in that promised Kingdom; if you missed the mark, failed to keep the terms of the contract, then you were a sinner, outside the Kingdom.

Of course, those of us who are Gentiles, non-Jews, are automatically outside the Kingdom, automatically sinners.

The trouble was that the religious authorities, who determined how those terms and conditions should be applied, interpreted them on their own terms. So, oddly enough, those who behaved religiously would be declared righteous, those who had to get on with normal life would find themselves being declared sinners, missing the mark and falling outside the covenant.

For example, their interpretation of the food laws effectively meant that Jews were not allowed to eat at the homes of Gentiles. At a time when Gentiles are in charge, that means that anyone working with the Romans or Greeks would soon be either out of a job - as eating together was an important part of the way that these relationships worked - or would be declared a sinner.

Similarly, anyone caring for the sick on a regular basis would soon find themselves doing or touching something they shouldn't, just as part of living. And anyone who actually was chronically sick - for instance the woman in the story who suffered from a long term haemorrhage - was excluded almost by definition.

People were excluded from God's Kingdom effectively because they were not rich and privileged enough to follow the lifestyle set as the target by the privileged religious leaders.

You begin to see why Jesus got so angry, perhaps?

There is an enormous amount of good in the Old Testament, including much that was amazingly progressive for its day. But the people in leadership, the ones who were supposed to make it work, instead abused and exploited their people in the name of God and of His covenant. A new approach was needed.

Jesus died on a cross, and rose again, in order that all those who could not qualify for membership of God's Kingdom under the old contract could take out a new one instead. A new contract which doesn't depend on following rules, but on following Jesus, and which focuses on including all who are willing to turn to God in order to be made new, and on welcoming the previously excluded into the family of God's people.

I just wish that today's religious leaders would properly come to terms with this.

People Like Us

About a month ago I did a post - A Quiet Life - looking at a couple of comments I had received about church services, and commenting on the second of them. It's well nigh time to look at the other one:

"Our Sunday service should be for everyone in the local community; but really it's for people like us."

To some extent 'people like us' could be seen in terms of standard things like age, race or class - and at St John's age in particular is a big factor. But I think there is another another sense of the term which has relevance to churches well beyond St John's, or even Caversham.

John Pritchard, in his book Beginning Again, makes the point that people have very different personal styles, which include different natural approaches to prayer and worship. Some have a very verbal, unemotional style: for them relating to God through words given in a controlled, formalised setting brings most satisfaction. Others need to be more emotional to fully engage, to express their hearts and to relate to God through feelings and desires. Then there are those who express themselves naturally in action and movement, those whose natural worship involves creativity and wonder, and so on.

I suggest that the vast majority of churches in the Reading area, and probably across the country, focus very tightly on the verbal and unemotional. Even those churches who sing modern "I love Jesus and he loves me" style choruses are, I would say, really only providing ersatz, prepackaged imitations of true emotion. Those who are used to such can use them, of course, to express something real, as can those who are used to formal prayers and liturgies. But that is really for the 'people like us' who are attracted enough to stick around in the first place.

Where is the space in our regular patterns of church worship for artists? Or for lively dancers? For prophets and healers to give God's blessing in the Spirit's time not ours?

It seems to me that the vast majority of church services in the UK are based around the idea that most worshippers sit passively to be talked to (at?) by one or more leaders, sit or stand to say words chosen by those same leaders or by some overarching organisation, and stand to sing songs chosen by one or more other leaders. Little corporate church worship is truly participative, or active, or truly engaging. Much, probably most, collective worship in UK churches is for consumers not for active members.

Inevitably most people who go to such services do so because they like it that way, more or less. Arguments and pressures are about details, about small variations in delivery ('happy-clappy' songs or 'dirgelike' hymns), and about ways of rearranging the deck-chairs ... well, furniture anyway. So most services remain for 'people like us'.

I write blog posts, so it is fairly obvious that I like working with words (along with the odd picture). I enjoy sitting and listening to a good sermon, although there are few preachers skilled enough to work without some form of visual input, I think. I generally prefer a style which is cool and thoughtful to one which is emotive and loud.

So, when it comes to 'people like us', I count as one of 'us'. But I value immensely different viewpoints and different styles, and I don't understand how anyone can function without a sense of wonder and an appreciation of creativity - even if it is other people's creativity.

Diversity is a vital part of human communities (indeed in non-human ones too), and part of the richness of the fullness of life Jesus offers lies in its range and inclusion of difference.

Having a restrictive church style is all very well and good for those who like it, but if we want to engage properly with the majority whose styles are different we need a rethink.

Maybe it's one church with several different congregations, maybe it is one congregation with a range of different experiences; maybe it is something else entirely.

God cares deeply for all those around who are 'not like us' - we are called to do the same.

Omnibus

For All

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you ...
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

There is a thread running all through the Bible which, in its day, was absolutely revolutionary. So much so that these days it hardly seems exceptional at all. Sometimes it's even practised!

Way, way back, when gods were tribal, or at most national, God calls Abraham to leave his home and to go where He sends him. God says that He will bless Abraham's descendants, but also says He will bless the rest of the world through them.

Gods didn't do that back then. A tribal god was there to look after their chosen tribe, a national god to look after their nation ... if they felt like it, if the correct rituals and sacrifices had been given. Yet here is this (apparently new) god saying He has chosen His people to bless all the other tribes, all the other peoples too.

In many ways the Old Testament is the story of the Israelites determinedly not doing that. But also it is the story of their prophets reminding them, again and again, that this was their special calling: to bless others. Even deadly enemies - consider Jonah's unwilling mission.

Then Jesus comes along:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

It's the whole world that God loves, not just the Jewish bit, not only religious people, or any other sort of aristocracy, but everyone.

Jesus was put to death, and rose again, and then there was Pentecost. Suddenly, not only is God wanting to bless all the world through His people, but He is wanting to include everyone as part of His people. Jews and foreigners, Samaritans, even an Ethiopian eunuch, all invited to become God's people, nobody excluded.

Probably the first written of the documents now called the New Testament was Paul's letter to the Galatians. In that Paul spells out in some detail that all these distinctions and all these exclusions are redundant in Jesus. Jesus isn't just for Jews or Greeks, not just for Europeans, Americans, or Africans, he is for all the world; he is not just for men or just for women, not just for those who are gay nor those who are straight, he is for everyone; not just the rich, nor just the poor, nor even just the middle classes, but all people are invited into God's Kingdom, all people are offered a blessing through Jesus.

So that is the job of Jesus' church: to offer a welcome to all people in Jesus' name, and to offer a blessing to everyone around them. Some local churches do that well, others fall short ... such is life. May God bless you and all whom you care for, this week and into the future.

The Sower and The Seed II

'Israel' in the New Testament almost always refers to the people (the descendants of Israel, aka Jacob Ben-Isaac) not to a country. This is hardly surprising, as no country called Israel had existed for more than seven centuries, and even back then it had specifically excluded Jews, who inhabitanted the separate kingdom of Judah. Jews, however, were always part of the people Israel.

The exception to the above is in the second chapter of Matthew's gospel, where he talks about the return of Jesus' family from exile in Egypt to 'the land of Israel' - as a clear reference to the old Exodus journey.

When Jesus told his parable about the sower and the seed, many in the crowd would have been familiar with the writing of the prophet Isaiah. Many years before, Isaiah had written a poem, known as 'The Song of the Vineyard', which talked about Israel as a vineyard which would only bear bad fruit. Therefore God had abandoned it and given it over to being trampled, filled with weeds, and dried out.

Why, in Jesus' parable, was the land so neglected? Because when God looked to Israel in that time for justice and righteousness, nothing had changed: He found only bloodshed and cries of distress.

Yet Jesus still came to scatter the seed. Much of it was wasted, perhaps - this was not good land. But there were still places, here and there, maybe where it was least expected, in which seed did manage to take root, to grow and to bear good fruit. Israel's leaders may have rejected Jesus and handed him over to be crucified, but there was still a remnant of Israel to remain faithful and to receive God's Spirit: new life for them and for the world.

And so it seems to continue: the seed is scattered and people respond in different ways: some with indifference, some with enthusiasm; some bear good fruit, others very bad - as a knowledge of church history makes only too clear.

But I'm not sure the story ends there. I think (after discussing the passage with others) that there is another, higher note in the chord - one which is maybe more directly relevant to our lives today.

Jesus' death and resurrection changes everything, and that change is enabled by God's Spirit poured into people's hearts. It seems to me that the farmer is at work again: clearing stones and removing weeds. God's Spirit waters and cleanses lives, allowing fruit to grow in the most unlikely places.

There are people in churches today who are sure of their own righteousness (in Jesus, of course), and of their own suitability to grow fruit for God. Maybe they are right. But there are many others, inside and outside churches, who are all too aware of their own limitations, who assume their own unsuitability to be God's garden.

The truth is that it is often those who are most aware of their need for help who will bear the most fruit, because they will let the Spirit do the work. Jesus changes everything: it is the flawed and the insecure who are the most important in His Kingdom. If that is you, then be glad. Watch out for, and celebrate, God at work within you. Be open with those around you, about your flaws and about your growth, that they may share in your encouragement.

God is good and God is love ... sometimes we forget.