Getting going now on our four week parable series called 'Harvest Tales' and busy re-writing the parable of the sower to give a clearer sense of time scale to a 21st century audience.  It's a good story (in the orignal, not my retelling!) of 'people like us' here in Dibley, and maybe the church in general, who find ourselves powerless in a land we once thought was ours.  Having no building, and no real prospect of one, we are forced to 'sow' in any bit of land we can find - even if a path runs through it, brickbats or rocks protrude through the soil and the weeds from next door threaten to choke whatever we plant.

It is a story of commitment - it takes several months from sowing to harvest

It is a story of risk taking - how much, if any, of the seed will actually grow?  Will there be a harvest?

It is a story of hope and a future - despite all the uncertainty and mishaps along the way there is a superb harvest.  Enough that the sower can make the required offering to God, feed the family, maybe sell some and leave some for the gleaners and after all this has been done, still have the seed to plant for next year.

The familiar gospel interpretation of the parable used in Sunday School is not without its mysteries - the private sharing with the 12 and the sudden change of metaphor part way through - trying to read/hear the story from the viewpoint of the first century peasant audience has allowed me to see more readily how it speaks to our situation.  As the old song says, 'the Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from God's word'