SEXAGESIMA.
S. MARK iv. 3.
“Hearken: Behold, a sower went forth to sow.”
THE Holy Gospel here tells us of the beginning of one of our Blessed
Lord’s sermons. “Much people were gathered together, and were come to Him
out of every city:” (St. Luke viii. 4.) and when they were all in expectation,
thus He began, “Hearken.” You may imagine how they listened, how
every eye, ear, and mind, in that great multitude was fastened on Him,
wondering what He might be going to say. And can you not also imagine,
that when He went on and just told them, “A sower went forth to sow,” they
might for a moment or two be surprised, and begin to say in their hearts,
What is this? What has this to do with faith and religion and the service
of God? “A sower went forth to sow!” well, that is no new thing: of course
the sower goes out at the usual time of year to get the crop into the ground:
and if he did not, we all know that we muse do without bread: but the kingdom
of God which this Jesus of Nazareth is preaching, we have always understood
to be something new and strange, and we cannot imagine why He begins speaking
of such an ordinary thing as sowing seed. They might say among themselves
what was once said by the hearers of the prophet Ezekiel, “Wilt thou not
tell us what these things are to us, that thou sayest so?” (Ezek.
xxiv. 19.)
Our Lord we know expounded it all to His disciples. But without going
on now to that explanation, which you heard in the Gospel of the day, I
wish you to consider only those simple words, “Behold, a sower went forth
to sow.” You will find a great deal more in them than you might at first
think; deep knowledge, warning of heavenly truth.
In the first place, the mere act of putting the seed into the ground
is a lesson from Almighty God, to put us in mind of the fall of our first
parents, and our sad condition in consequence of it. Before Adam fell,
as you know, the Lord God Himself planted the trees upon the fruit whereof
Adam was to live; no need for Adam to sow or set them in the ground, God
caused them to grow there (as men speak) of their own accord: “every tree
that was pleasant to the sight and good for food.” Adam had indeed to dress
and keep the garden, but it was not in the way of toil or hard work : it
was rather, as we may believe, in the way of service done to Almighty God
the Owner of the garden; it was pleasurable exercise, not wearisome trouble:
and having so done, he had but to put forth his hand, and take of all trees
but one, and freely eat. But when they had unhappily listened to the enemy—when
lust had brought sin, and sin death—all this as you know was changed; the
sentence went out immediately, “Cursed is the ground:” and ever since the
rule of this world has been, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.”
(Genesis iii. 19.) The ground, left to itself, as we all know, brings
forth only thorns and thistles, nettles and all manner of weeds and rubbish:
if you want good food out of it, “Wine that maketh glad the heart of man,
and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s
heart,” (Psalm civ. 15.) there must be ploughing, raking and harrowing,
planting and sowing, fencing and weeding, and all the hard and anxious
work of the farm and garden. And why should it be so? What reason is there
in the nature of things, why a piece of ground left to itself should not
bear wheat and barley, vines or good fruits, as well as nettles and brambles
and all manner of weeds? You never can find any reason, but this
one, that it so pleased God. It pleased God that the ground so left
to itself without any sort of cultivation, should not ordinarily bring
forth the food that is needed for man’s life. And why? For
a token to us all how displeasing sin is to God: for a remembrance of His
curse laid upon the earth for the first sinner’s sake. That curse
is not worn out: this world indeed appears to grow on the whole, outwardly
and bodily, more and more comfortable to live in, as fresh contrivances
are found out, and civilization, as it is called, goes on: but still each
new generation finds, as the former generation had done, that the old sentence
remains, man’s life must be labour and sorrow. Earth, left to itself,
will not feed him.
And thus you perceive that so common a sight as a sower going out to
sow his seed is, as I said, a lesson from God, to make you aware how He
hates sin, and how surely the words which He has spoken against sinners
will sooner or later come to pass.
But the same thing, the sight of a man sowing, is in another way a token
of His great mercy. For by this parable He has taught us that this our
ordinary sowing is just a type and parable of Jesus Christ the great Husbandman
coming to amend this wicked and unfruitful soil—man’s fallen and corrupt
heart and life—whose end otherwise is to be burned. “He that soweth
the good seed is the Son of Man:” He soweth, that we may reap, and then
so merciful and condescending is He, that He looks forward to the harvest
as to a time of joy for Himself as well as for us: “that both He
that soweth and he that reapeth,” (S. John iv. 36) the Saviour and those
who are saved by Him, “may rejoice together.” That is, at the last day,
when He will see us again, His joy, which He took in us when He first made
us His children, remaining in us, and our joy made full by our entering
into His joy: entering for ever into the joy of our Lord.
That will be the harvest: but now it is the seed-time: and Christ, as
you have heard from Himself, is the Sower: “He that soweth the good seed
is the Son of Man.” Christ is the Sower: now consider what is the seed.
First, the seed is the Word of God: He tells us so Himself. The Sower went
forth to sow when Jesus Christ began to go about in Galilee, preaching
the Gospel of the kingdom, shewing forth the glad tidings of the kingdom
of God. His Sermon on the Mount, and the rest of His holy sayings, were
the good seed of the Gospel, scattered here and there: like bread cast
on the waters, to be found after many days. It was sown broadcast over
the whole country, sometimes among the multitude, sometimes among His disciples
only. And when He was gone away from us into heaven, still the same Word
continued to be sown, and He to be the Sower of it. No longer indeed in
His own Person, but by His Blessed Spirit coming down upon His Apostles,
He filled their bosom with good seed, “pressed down and shaken together,
and running over;” (S. Luke vi. 38.) and what they had freely received
they were freely to give. And they did so in all peoples, nations and languages:
“their sound went out into all lands, and their words into the ends of
the world.” (Psalm xix. 4.) And so He has done ever since, by the
same His Apostles and their successors, with whom He has promised to be
always, even unto the end of the world. So He does to each one of you,
my brethren, as often as you come into this Church and hear the Bible read
and the meaning of it preached. At every such time it is as if God’s providence
spake to your inward ear and conscience, saying, ‘Hearken: behold the Sower
is going forth to sow.’ Nay, and this is true also as often as any one
of you, rich or poor, man or woman, opens his Bible in faith and humility,
and reads the holy Word which the Blessed Spirit has caused to be written
for his learning, whether he read it in silence to himself or in fatherly
care to his family, or in quiet friendliness to some other who cannot perhaps
read it for himself. Such moments are very serious, and by God’s
help may be very blessed. For then it is indeed the Divine and gracious
Saviour, sowing the very word of life: as He has been doing, publickly
and from house to house, now for these 1800 years: as it is written, “He
hath dispersed,” that is, hath sown His seed, “abroad, and given to the
poor” (for “to the poor the Gospel is preached”). “His righteousness endureth
for ever.” (Ps. cxii. 9.)
But the good seed which the Son of Man sows has yet another and a still
more gracious meaning. It signifies not only the Word and doctrine,
but the living souls also which hear the Word and believe the doctrine
: for so we learn in another parable: “He that soweth the good seed is
the Son of Man: the good seed are the children of the kingdom.” (S. Matt.
xiii. 37, 38) So that the heavenly and Divine Sower is always, night
and day, sowing not only the Word but the Church upon earth. The
Word He sows by preaching and teaching: the Church by holy Baptism: as
the Holy Ghost tells us by S. Peter, “Ye are born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God which abideth for ever:”(1
S. Peter i. 23.) i.e. Christ Who is the Word of the Father, Himself
living and enduring for ever, gives you a new birth of incorruptible seed
by making you members of Himself, which we all know He does in our Baptism.
Christians then, baptized persons, wherever they are found, in whatever
way they are behaving, are or have been the crop and the harvest of Christ.
As such He sowed them in His field, the world; as such He is ready to cherish,
to water, to protect, to fence them in by all the means of grace in His
holy Church.
You, my brethren, e.g. you who are gathered together in this congregation
are as a field of standing corn, which the careful and wise Husbandman
has planted in His own ground, has anxiously provided for in every way:
a field on which the eyes of the great Owner of all are continually fixed
as on Israel of old, (Deut. xi. 12.) from the beginning of the year to
the end of the year. You one with another make up the standing corn
in this field, each one a separate plant, and from each one according to
his growth the Husbandman looks for fruit in due time. Only He is
not like an earthly husbandman, in that He knows each seed separately,
yes every one of the innumerable plants, the millions of souls that are
growing or ever have been growing on His land. He takes account of each
separately, what fruit it ought to have borne, and what it really does
bear. His eye detects every weed, every tare, which has intruded itself
among the wheat. For the present indeed He seems to take no notice, for
the harvest is not yet come: but it will come, and that speedily:
and then you will know and feel, if you would not before, that His Eye
has all the while been upon you; and what if you should also feel that
you have been all the while forgetting Him?
Christ then is the Sower, and His Word and His Church are the Seed.
Now you know how a man who goes out to sow feels as concerning the crop
which he sows. What if he sees any one disturbing the seed on purpose?
pulling up the young plants? trampling them down as they grow? turning
in mischievous animals? sowing or planting weeds, to choke the good corn?
How should you like this, brethren, were any one to deal in this way with
your field, or your garden, and that perhaps regularly year after year?
Of course you would say as it is in the parable, “An enemy hath done this.”
(S. Matt. xiii. 28.) You would count that person your enemy, and
one of the most spiteful of enemies, who should so deal with the crop on
which you had set your heart; on which you had spent your labour, your
time, your care. Much more if the person so wronging you should prove to
be one most deeply obliged to you; one whose life you had saved; one who
owed to you all he has in the world. You would say, and all your neighbours
would agree with you, ‘How would he like it if any one used him
so?’ Well, my brethren, do as you would be done by. Behold, here is your
best friend, your only Saviour, the Good and Holy Jesus Who bought you
with His own Blood, behold He has been here sowing His seed, the seed of
eternal life, in your hearts, and in the hearts of all these your fellow
Christians on every side of you. This parish, this congregation, is one
of His fields. His corn is growing here: He will come bye and bye at the
harvest to gather it in: and He would fain save it all: not one grain would
He have spoiled or lost: it is a thing which He has so much at heart, that
He even died the death of a malefactor that He might bring it about. If
then you love Him at all, if you have the least wish to please Him, must
you not be very careful not to damage this crop of His? You would think
it very unkind if any one came into your garden, and rode or walked carelessly
about among your choice herbs and flowers, for which you had paid a large
sum : but you think very little of dealing carelessly with the souls for
whom Christ died. You will utter your oaths and curses or other bad words
in the hearing of young Christian children, or you will even come here
and keep a sort of school for teaching the little ones to behave amiss
in the very house of God. Is this doing as you would be done by?
Do you think your Saviour cares less for the souls of these little ones
than you do for your plants and flowers? Nay, He will not endure them to
be trampled on: He is even now preparing the millstone to be tied round
your neck and to drown you, not in the depth of the sea but in the bottomless
pit of fire, whoever you are that take a wicked pleasure in teaching these
little ones to sin.
And as His anger is towards those who damage His crop, such is His tender
love and favour towards those who take an interest in it. The least
little token that you really care for instruction; your coming here when
you can on Festivals and other week-days; your listening at lessons and
sermons; your turning away from those who would disturb you at Church;
your making a rule to read in your Bible, if it be but a few verses, regularly
at home; your sparing, if it be but a few pence, as often as you can for
Church Missions: every one of these things, even the least little prayer
and endeavour to promote the working of God’s word on your own and other
men’s hearts, our dear Lord will take kindly; He will not forget it: in
its way it will bring you a blessing. It is said to such, Ye “are labourers
together with God.” (1 Cor. iii. 9.) What an honour is that, my brethren,
and at the same time what a great thing to answer for! Think of it
in this way! Most of you are labouring men : you work for this master
and that: but remember that after all there are but two masters. Under
which are you now working? Whose wages are you now earning? Do not sleep
this night, until you have tried to answer this question in your own secret
heart and conscience: lest you should find yourself, waking, where those
must go, who die scorning God’s Word.
