Introduction
Good seed isn’t enough. To grow and thrive, producing a great crop, seed must be nurtured. In this week’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells of the fate of seeds sown on varying ground to illustrate the need to nurture and protect the seed that God’s Word sows in our hearts, so that it too might result in a flourishing harvest in our lives.
Context and reflection
Net curtains. That’s what Neil Stubley, head groundsman at Wimbledon, advises is the perfect means to protect your pristine lawn from the beaks of birds, while still letting in essential light and water. It’s a quirky tip, but then it’s never been an easy job to grow a consistent crop from seed, whether you’re a farmer or, like Stubley and his team, you’re tasked with providing the stage for one of the world’s premier sporting events. Wimbledon uses an astounding nine tonnes of seed a year, but it takes more than that to get results: ‘Lawns are a living, breathing surface – keep them healthy and you’ll be well rewarded. It’s more attention to detail and regular effort than rocket science’.
Seeding is also, of course, the term applied to the ranking of players in tennis, which determines who they might be drawn to play in the early rounds. According to Wikipedia, the term derives from the way seedlings might be laid out in a garden, small to large, to help them all thrive.
This Sunday afternoon will see the men’s singles final and Saturday the women’s. Already – at the time of writing – there have been some surprises. The first seed in the ladies’ singles, Angelique Kerber, lost her match on ‘Manic Monday’. On Tuesday, Great Britain’s Johanna Konta – seeded sixth – beat Simona Halep – seeded second – in the quarter-finals, making it the first year since 1978 that a British woman has reached the semis. Wednesday morning’s news stated proudly that this was the first time since 1973 that both a British man and woman had reached the quarters.
In interviews, Konta did not put her success down to a fluke of talent, but emphasised the ‘process’, saying after her quarter-final victory: ‘I feel very happy with how I was able to maintain my level throughout the whole match…and did that kind of through the thick and thin’.
Through ‘thick and thin’. Or through thick thorns (Matthew 13.7) and thin ground (Matthew 13.5-6). Through all things we need to persist, like Konta, despite the opposition we face. We need continually to nurture and grow our faith, by rooting it deep in our hearts and putting in ‘regular effort’ to maintain it, just as Stubley maintains his manicured grass.
It is persistent practice that nurtures the ‘seed’ potential of Wimbledon’s top players and it is persistent practice of faith that will nurture the seed in us, too – the seed of God’s Word.
Prayer
A prayer for growth in faith
Sower of seeds,
plant your Word deep in my heart.
Let it take root there.
Send your living water to rain down on me,
reviving and refreshing my faith,
so that it bursts forth from within me, like a spring shoot,
reaching out for the light of your Son, Jesus.
Let me blossom in the warmth of your love
and bear fruit for you by your Spirit.
Amen.
Questions
- A net curtain seems like a pretty unusual way to protect a lawn but it actually makes sense. What quirky methods help you to nurture and protect your faith? Maybe you like to make up words of praise to sing to songs on the radio, or you colour in words and phrases from the Gospel. Perhaps you secretly love reading Bible stories to your children in funny voices – and you find that helps you remember the message better yourself. Or perhaps something even more way out?
- What are the ‘thorns’ in your life that threaten to drown out God’s voice? What weeding might you need to do today?
- A seed needs good, deep soil to take root and flourish. How can you enrich your ‘soil’? Maybe for some it’s time to set aside more time for prayer, reflection or studying God’s Word? Perhaps you want to go deeper in understanding, through reading a book or commentary, or discussing the Word with others? Or do you feel it’s time to put something you’ve learned into practice in a practical way to help others?
Action
- If you’ve used the ‘seed prayers’ from the Children & Young People Explore & respond section, and you’ve provided suitable seed, you could encourage people to grow the seed at home and use it as a visual reminder to continue in prayer through the coming weeks. This might work better with some seeds than others! You’ll want something that germinates fairly quickly and easily, for example a broad bean or cress. There are lots of examples on the internet.
- The ideas below for young people could also work for other age groups, depending on the context.
- If you want to explore some of the things that get in the way of our faith growing and that might need ‘weeding’ out of our lives, you could cover over a picture of a healthy crop plant with sticky notes, each labelled with a temptation or distraction we might face, like the ‘lure of wealth’ that Matthew mentions in verse 22. Invite people to come and help with the weeding – reading out the labels and then peeling off the notes, screwing them up and throwing them into a bin, so that at the end the plant can be seen to flourish freely. With Jesus’ help we can turn to God and be freed from the thorns. (Alternatively, use blank notes and get people to call out obstacles to growing our faith. As each one is called out, just pull off a ‘weed’ and throw it straight away.) Tip: make sure there aren’t too many ‘weeds’ overwhelming your plant before you start or you could be kept going for some time!
Young people
- As a way in to discussing what seeds need to grow – and from that, what we need to grow in faith – you could start by looking at a range of seeds, the plants that grow from them, and their natural habitats. Try to gather together actual physical seeds. Look at them together; pass them round to feel and smell them, even taste them (if you can be sure no one has any allergies). Can you match the seeds to pictures of their parent plants and their natural – or farmed – habitats? You might easily recognise sunflower seeds and grains of rice and be able to match them to a photo of a glorious summer garden flower or a paddy field. But what about chia seeds? Or pine nuts? Wikipedia and other sites online will provide plenty of images and information to match whatever seeds you can obtain. What all the seeds have in common, though, is that their purpose is to grow and for that to happen they need to be nurtured.
- You could also look at some of the many different ways that seeds are formed and dispersed. A dandelion seed floats on filaments in the wind; a sycamore seed has ‘wings’ that spin it around and away from the tree. The purpose of all the different methods is the same – to get the seed to the best ground for growth.
- How can we become good ground for faith to grow and how can we nurture our faith once the seed has been planted?
Rebecca Froley was the launch web editor for ROOTS and still works online today, in the business information sector. She lives in Surrey – not too far from Wimbledon – and her garden needs weeding.
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