York Minster

Sowing the seeds of faith

Date: 18th November 2007
Preacher: The Revd Dr Jonathan Draper

This has to be one of the most dull Sundays of the liturgical year, and not just because I’m preaching at evensong. In two weeks time a new liturgical year begins with Advent Sunday and we are immediately into the excitement of the build up to Christmas and a time that is really rich in its spiritual fare. Over the past few weeks we have been in a profound period of remembrance from All Saints and All Souls at the beginning of the month to Remembrance Sunday last week. Today we hit a sort of thematic no-mans land with the snappily named second Sunday before Advent, or, almost as bad, in the BCP calendar, the 24th Sunday After Trinity – nearly half a year since the heady days of summer when we celebrated God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now we are reduced to counting down the weeks to Advent, and it feels like the liturgical year is running out of steam.

The readings for this evening, however, are at least coherent in themselves, which is not always true, though I’ve struggled a bit to find what it might be that brings them together. In the OT reading from Daniel we have the famous story of Daniel in the lions den and his miraculous escape. In the NT reading from Matthew we have the equally famous parable of the Sower. The first story is about how God protects faithful Daniel from those who sought to do him harm and how the bad guys were found out and done away with. The second story is about categories of discipleship, from those in whom the seed of the word takes root and bears much fruit, to those whose faith is shallow and withers at the first hot sign of pressure. And it is those categories of discipleship that I want to explore briefly with you now.

In this story Jesus is, as ever, addressing two audiences, as it were: the first is the great crowd who were so many that they forced him to climb into a boat so that he could address them, and the second is his disciples. Jesus is very aware that he has caused a stir and that people are excited by his fresh approach to their religion and by the healings that take place wherever he goes. He pulls in the crowds, but he doesn’t want the inner circle of his disciples to be taken in by the crowds and their acclaim. Jesus knows that the crowds are fickle, and that easy enthusiasm when the commitment costs nothing can soon be replaced by a falling away and even antagonism when the going gets tough.

So Jesus illustrates for them all that there are many threats to discipleship. There is first of all the simple attraction of doing the easy thing, or, as the story puts it, of being snatched away by the evil one. You’ll not be surprised to hear that I don’t think the devil comes along and takes faith away from people; most of us are not in thrall to evil. But we all do things that enable evil to flourish, and that is almost always simply by doing the easy thing, that which requires least mental or physical or spiritual effort: yes this Jesus may be of some interest, but I can’t really be bothered; the seed of faith fails to take hold, the word is heard but not really understood and nothing comes of it.

Then there is the one who receives the seed of faith in an immediate and enthusiastic way, but soon falls away because there is no depth to their faith. I used to meet a lot of people like this when I was a parish priest in London, people who had responded to a simple emotional appeal and whose faith depended on maintaining a certain emotional intensity, which not surprisingly, is difficult and rather tiresome to do, and ultimately means that you are simply having to live off your own inner life. If it doesn’t feel right, then it’s no good. Manufacturing emotional intensity in the place of sustainable intellectual and spiritual discipline will always be hard. And when there is no intellectual or spiritual depth to faith it, too, withers away for lack of sustenance.

And then, of course, there is the faith that struggles with understanding how to distinguish between what is pressing or difficult or urgent and what is important. It is ever so easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cares and concerns that make up our lives and we can lose our sense of proportion, our sense of what really matters; this can choke off faith and leave us rudderless.

These three things are great dangers to faith: not wanting to make the effort, depending on a shallow emotional intensity, and losing a sense of what really matters. The great thing, Jesus says, is not just to receive the word of faith, not just to hear it gladly, but to understand it, to make the effort, to allow it to go deep, to make it a priority; and not only to understand it, but to let it change your life, to let it bear fruit.

Amen.