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Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 13 July 2014


Van Gogh  - The Sower

Van Gogh - The Sower

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jesus is a great teacher, he keeps things simple and direct but has a depth of knowledge and understanding that allows his hearers to come back to his teaching again and again and find more there. This is something I’ve learnt in all my years of teaching, especially at university level: to communicate is not to aim at impressing your students with your cleverness or great expanse of knowledge, but to share with them, in ways they can understand, all that you want to teach. It’s empowerment, it’s also called wearing your learning lightly so that nobody is put off.

Jesus uses images and symbols from life, if any message of his is difficult it’s simply because we have to engage a little more with it, let it penetrate beyond our intellect into our heart and life. In the parable of the sower we find a great example of how Jesus reaches out. Underneath the tale of the sower and the seed is the offer of salvation; the word of God is being sown amongst the fields of our lives. What we discover in the parable are four ways people respond.

What are they? There’s the ‘hard ‘of heart, which deliberately don’t want to accept the gift of salvation and so refuse to listen. Then there are those who seem to listen and accept but actually have a very shallow response, its only skin deep, the stony ground where things don’t root. The thorny person accepts the word but gets sidetracked, there are too many other things to enjoy, discover, and demand their attention. Lastly we have the one who accepts what is offered and grows into God’s love.

Now I don’t believe that the first three categories are meant to be permanent states of being! The key to the parable is that salvation is being offered and the seed is continually being sown. What is required is more than a superficial response from us; rather true conversion of heart and life.

Isaiah tells us that God will carry on sowing the word: ‘my word shall not return to me void but shall do my will achieving the end for which I sent it’. So the parable of the sower continues with us, we must also be sowers of the word preparing others to receive the Lord!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.

To sign Fr Robin's petition to Prime Minister David Cameron calling for the creation of a Stephen Sutton award: see: www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/prime-minister-create-a-stephen-sutton-award-and-start-changing-the-honours-system?utm_campaign=new_signature&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt#

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