Matthew 13: 1-9 When we were playing our little game earlier – mentioning just a couple of words to guess a fairy story from – I could have said “magic beans”, and I’m sure you would all have said ‘Jack and the beanstalk’. Do you know that story? How Jack sells the family’s cow for a handful of magic beans? His mum’s not very impressed and just throws them out the window, but the next morning they discover that the beans have grown into a huge beanstalk that reaches up to the clouds. Well there’s nothing magical about the seeds in the story Jesus tells. They are just ordinary seeds. And the story is quite an ordinary story. Nothing much seems to happen, certainly nothing unexpected. Someone goes out to sow, the seeds fall on the ground, and some of them grow. Not very exciting is it?!? I wonder if you have ever planted a seed? If you have, I bet you weren’t like the sower in Jesus’ story. You probably didn’t just go outside and throw the seeds anywhere, with some landing on the path, and some landing in the rocks, and some landing in thorns. I reckon if you’ve planted a seed you will have taken great care – there’s only so many in a packet isn’t there? Maybe you’ve carefully planted the seed in a pot, and kept it on the window sill, keeping it safe, giving it lots of light, and watering it everyday. Maybe you planted it outside in the ground, but before you did, you probably carefully chose where it would go, so it had the right conditions. Then you dug the ground over, and you took out all the weeds, and all the stones. The sower in the story Jesus tells is a bit different though. This isn’t someone whose only got a tiny packet of seeds. This is someone with so many seeds they can be scattered everywhere. Who knows where they will grow? It’s a picture of abundance; there is lots of seed, plenty to go round. It’s a picture of generosity; the sower doesn’t try and keep it all safe, the sower happily spreads the seed far and wide. I think this might be a picture of what God is like. God who is generous, who creates more than enough. God who shares his love widely and freely, who gives to all, to everyone. I wonder, is this how you see God? Matthew 13: 18-23 I said earlier that there was nothing magic about the seeds in Jesus’ story. They are just ordinary seeds, full of God’s goodness. But in the story different things happen to the seed. Some don’t grow at all because the birds eat them, some grow quickly to start with but get burnt in the sun, and some get crowded out by the weeds and thorns. And some seeds grow so much, and so well, that they produce lots of crops – as much as 100 times more! That’s amazing! All the seeds were the same, but only some grew – why was that? When Jesus explains the story to his followers, he says what makes the difference is not the seed but the ground the seed falls on. There’s nothing wrong with the seed that fell on the path – it’s good, that’s why the birds eat it! There’s nothing wrong with the seed that fell on the rocky ground, or in with the weeds, but the rocks and the weeds don’t let it grow properly, they get in the way. Jesus says this is like what happens in our lives. God gives his love to everyone. When people hear the news of God’s love, what happens depends on how we respond. Sometimes we might just ignore it – it doesn’t have time to grow in us, it’s snatched away like the birds eating the seed. Sometimes we might think this is great, until something starts to go wrong, something gets a bit difficult. Or we think there are other things more exciting and interesting and we spend our time thinking about them, or trying to get them. When this happens we’re like the rocky or weedy ground, and the seed stops growing. But when we hear of God’s love, and trust God, and try to follow in Jesus’ way – to live and love like he did – then Jesus says we’re like the good soil. The ground where the crops grew and there was even more. When we accept God’s love it starts to change us, just like the seed growing, and producing crops. So I wonder, how do you respond to the news of God’s love? Will you ignore it, or be distracted by other things, or worries, or will you let God’s love take root in you, and grow? Jesus finished his story by saying “let anyone with ears listen”. Listen then to God’s message of generous love, that is for you, and for everyone. Let it into your heart, and let that love grow within you. Be the soil that produces fruit

“You are the light of the world.” When you hear Jesus’ description of his followers as a lamp placed upon a lampstand, I wonder what image comes to mind? A small bedside table lamp? One of those desk lamps with the bendy necks? A camping lantern? An elegant, tall, freestanding sitting room lamp? When I was thinking of this passage in the context of our service tonight, following on from our Pentecost Prayer Day and our theme of how we can keep on glowing in the power of the Holy Spirit, the image that came to my mind was of Lumiere. Not the festival in Durham, but the character in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast! Lumiere is a living candelabra (he was maitre’d to the prince, but when the prince refused to show hospitality to an enchantress disguised as a beggar, her curse was to turn the prince into a beast, and all his servants into living household objects). As a living candelabra he continued to be both kind-hearted and somewhat rebellious, often thinking he knows best and acting accordingly. Now I’m fairly sure this isn’t the image Jesus had in mind when he described that lamp being placed on the lampstand, but I wonder if that’s sometimes why we don’t glow in the power of the Holy Spirit? Are we sometimes a bit like Lumiere (I know I am!) – a lamp who thinks we know best, a lamp that is able to walk off to where we think we need to be, maybe even a lamp who’s a little bit rebellious? Do we glow a little less bright because some of the time we are using up our energy trying to be the one who does the placing rather than simply being a lamp? In the image that Jesus uses there is the lamp, and there is the one who lights it and places it. If we are that lamp, would we glow brighter and longer if we were content to be where the one who lit us has placed us? What if we were just to trust that God has placed us where we are now to shine God’s light on the people around us and the places we’re in right now? What if we take seriously where we are, and simply get on with shining God’s light to those we know in the places we are? Now of course many of you will have been doing that over the last weeks and months especially as we’ve responded to Covid-19 and lockdown. Your light has been shining on the places and people around you. And it’s not always been easy. In fact although many of our usual activities and ways of doing things have stopped, it’s been quite a demanding time. Many of us are feeling quite tired and exhausted. Perhaps this is where we really need to get Lumiere out of our minds and have some idea of the type of lamp Jesus might have had in mind. Jesus was probably talking about a simple oil lamp. Made of pottery it would have had a well to hold the oil, and then some kind of funnel through which the wick would have come. The wick would be poking out the top. It’s this that would be lit, and that would shine its light around the room when placed upon the lampstand. When looking at the lamp, the oil would be hidden inside the pottery. Unseen, it is the oil that would have kept the lamp burning. Pull the wick up too high and it would burn for a while with the oil it had absorbed, before then burning through the wick itself, and burning itself out. Oil has often been used as a symbol of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. If we want to stay alight as lamps, if we want to continue to glow, we need to ensure we stay in touch with the oil within. That which is unseen from the outside, but essential for the lamp to function. This imagery of the lamp comes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, but later on Jesus will talk of the need to pray and to fast in secret. Two unseen ways in which we continue to draw on the power of the Holy Spirit. We see this pattern in Jesus’ own ministry – drawing away to spend time alone with God, that his words, action, and being might continue to shine before others. Sometimes we can get caught up in the shining, the doing of good deeds, that we find our wick runs dry. It’s no longer the oil that’s burning but just us. The imagery of the oil lamp reminds us that we need to pay attention not just to where we are, and trust where we have been placed, but also to be attentive to the oil within, that which cannot be seen from outside but which is essential for the lamp to burn. What are the ways that you draw on God’s Spirit, that you get filled with God’s power, love and life? How have you been spending time with God? Have you been paying attention to this so that you can continue to burn bright, to glow with the power of the Holy Spirit?

Today we come to the end of our story. The tension over who will provide for Naomi and Ruth is resolved in a rather busy scene where we are introduced to a whole range of characters – there’s another relative of Boaz and Naomi, a group of 10 men at the city gate, as well as people gathering, and women blessing Naomi. Then the book ends with a birth and a whole list of names. But where, in all of this, is God? You might think this a strange question – after all, we’ve been looking at a book of the Bible, surely it’s all about God? One of the reasons the book of Ruth appeals to many is because it’s a very human story – we recognize the characters, the struggles and dilemmas facing them, and their emotions, but God appears to be strangely absent. In the whole story, God is only mentioned 21 times, and the vast majority of these times God is only mentioned in a greeting or prayer. There are no instructions from God, no-one hears God speaking. Only twice are we told that God actually does something – once at the start, when Naomi decides to return from Moab, because God has considered the people in Judah and given them food (1:6), and once at the end, when God enables Ruth to fall pregnant (4:13). Apart from this it seems as if God does nothing. Perhaps this is another reason why the story appeals to many. Isn’t this often our experience? It’s not always obvious that God has something to say and is trying to speak with us. It’s often not clear to us how, or even if, God is at work around us. We journey through life and many times God doesn’t seem especially present. And there are times, as Naomi and Ruth experienced, when it seems God has utterly abandoned us. Yet the testimony of the women who gather around Naomi after Ruth gives birth to Obed is that this is not the case (4:14). They praise God because they see that God has not left her without someone to care for her, provide for her, protect her. It’s perhaps not so much that God was absent, but that God was hidden. With all the tragedy that had befallen her, Naomi could not understand how God was at work, and she had given up trying to comprehend God’s ways. But Naomi’s inability to see God at the time within her circumstances does not mean God was absent, even if God was hidden. And such hiddenness is temporary. At the end of the story, as the women look back, it becomes clear how God was working. One of the messages of Ruth might well be to encourage us not to despair when it appears that God is doing nothing in a particular situation, but to continue to trust in God’s providence. To reassure us that even if we cannot see God at work, God’s hiddenness is not absence. But if God was not absent, how was God at work? How was God moving events towards the outworking of God’s plans? God’s hiddenness within the story reminds us that God’s way of working his purposes out is through people. God chooses people through whom God influences events in the world. Even if God’s presence is sometimes imperceptible, God continues to shape and love the world through people, through their actions, through their prayers. This is what we’ve been exploring over these last few weeks. Through Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi we have seen something of God’s hesed – his faithful, loving kindness – towards humanity. In Ruth’s struggle for justice, and the generosity of Boaz, we have seen God’s care of the vulnerable. Even in last week’s difficult chapter, with Naomi’s dubious, manipulative plan, we can see God working to redeem the situation through the response of Boaz. A response that comes to fruition in today’s reading. A fruition that indicates a much bigger horizon than Naomi had possibly imagined. Through the redeeming of her land, and of Ruth, Naomi was seeking provision for herself and Ruth, for a continuation of her husband and son’s name. But God was using her and Boaz’s actions for so much more; not just the redemption of one family, but of all humanity. That’s the point of the genealogy – the list of names – at the end of Ruth (4:17-22). It leads us into the bigger story; Ruth’s son Obed becomes the grandfather of David, Israel’s greatest king. A genealogy that the gospel writers continue for us, for from the line of David comes Jesus, the ultimate Redeemer, who saves us from our sins. But this journey into the bigger story only happens because God chooses to work through ordinary people. Although Ruth and Naomi are not named in the genealogy, the witness of the people at the city gate, and at the birth of Obed, make it clear that none of this would have happened without them. Most stories end with death, but the story of Ruth ends with a birth. It stands for the promise of life that God is working to bring not just for Ruth and Naomi, but for all creation. That God will continue to work through Ruth’s descendents to bring life in all its fullness to all people. In doing so, perhaps the ending of the story is suggesting that each of us is pregnant with God’s promise. If the story of Ruth reveals to us the wonder that God chooses to work through ordinary people, what of God’s plans and promises is pregnant within you? What is God wanting to bring to birth through you? How might God use our ordinary lives to lead people into God’s bigger story? How might God be present to us, working in the lives of those around us?

RUTH chapter 3 I want to share my three R’s with you. Not the three R’s of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, but using Dr Rachel Starr’s headings in her notes on the Methodist Bible month: Resisting, Redeeming and Restoring. RESISTING Chapter 3 begins with Naomi scheming and planning a way of obtaining a greater degree of security for her daughter in law Ruth. Some of the events recorded in the Book of Ruth probably make us feel rather uncomfortable. There are issues here about seduction and abuse and certainly degrees of sexual inappropriateness. Naomi suggests Ruth bathes, anoints and adorns herself then goes to Boaz at night while he is sleeping and lies down next to him. There appears to be a resistance to normal patterns of conventions and behaviour in the culture of the day. Ruth is encouraged by Naomi to take some initiatives towards Boaz. Ruth does not resist anything Naomi suggests, she goes along with it, she colludes with the plan. I wonder if we are guilty of colluding with things we perhaps should have resisted. Take for example the whole issues of statues to slave traders. Edward Colston’s statue was pulled from its plinth and Bristol and his symbolic figure was rolled down the street and cast into Bristol dock. There have been campaigns for many a year to remove him from his honoured place as we now see he made his money from an horrific business. History is unfolding all the time, it is not just a static deposit of facts, our perceptions of people change as we become more sensitive to issues. The programme on TV “a house through time” by David Olusoga has provided a fascinating insight into the people who lived in Guinea Street, Bristol, the first owner being a slave-ship owner who was trading in black captives from Africa as the name of the street suggests. It now houses a refugee who lodges there with the family who own it. Whatever our view of someone like Winston Churchill, we are probably aware now much more than ever that all people are a complex mixture of good and bad, glorious actions and grimy dimensions too. I was brought up to remember from my grandad what Churchill thoughtshould happen to striking miners in a previous era! Most of us are a complex mix of good and evil. Sometimes our motives are less then they might be. As human beings we are capable of great acts of honour, service and self-sacrifice but we also all have the potential for scheming, plotting and less than glorious words and deeds and attitudes. We must make a real concerted effort to ensure that we resist evil and do good. REDEMPTION I heard Peter Stanford’s Private Passions on Radio 3 last week. He told the story of his meeting with Lord Longford some years ago and Longford’s passion for the release of Myra Hyndley. Longford as a Christian was passionate about prison reform and made the comment to the young journalist Peter Stanford that if you ever slip into believing that someone is incapable of rehabilitation you are actually saying something about human nature that goes against all we proclaim in the gospel. Longford believed passionately in rehabilitation, as a campaigner for prison reform, and as a Christian in the concept of redemption. In an old hymn by Thomas Ken of “Awake my soul and with the sun” we sing in verse 2 “redeem the misspent moments past and live each day as if thy last”. It seems to suggest we can make good what we made a mess of in the past. We profess to believe in a God who redeems, who continues to work his work of grace in the life of the world he loves and has redeemed in his Son. Boaz awakes to find a beautiful woman lying next to him and he asks “Who are you?”. I wonder how good we are at seeing the whole person in the folk we encounter and seeing their potential rather than who they seem to present themselves as to us. The shabbily dressed person we might encounter probably has a sad story to tell if only we make time to listen to it, if we could only take time to get to know the person behind the appearance we might shun. They also have potential. Boaz sees Ruth more than just a foreigner as he did in the previous chapter, he now sees her as the widow of Elimelech’s son. Boaz comes to see her as a kins-woman, one of his own kith and kin. And he wants her to know God’s blessing, to see things go well for her, after her disappointment and calamity. She goes home with a plentiful supply of barley. Bill Gowland (founder of the Luton Industrial Mission in the 1960’s) was passionate about the Church needing to stand alongside people in their daily lives and work. He coined a phrase “that we cannot redeem what we do not understand”. Of course, it is God who redeems but he does call us, as his followers, to share in the work he is doing, for God’s work continues. Part of our task as disciples of Christ is to get alongside people in all the daily struggles they encounter and to look and listen for the signs of God’s kingdom around us and among us, to see God’s work of redemption in situations in our world today. We believe in a God who takes what we are and what we offer and transforms them by his grace. So we can sing in the words of Kevin Nichols “In bread we bring you Lord” (689 StF) “Take all that daily toil, plant in our hearts’ poor soil, take all we start and spoil, each hopeful dream, the chances we have missed, the graces we resist, Lord in your Eucharist, take and redeem”. Or if you prefer , In the words of Charles Wesley “Great is our redeeming Lord in power and truth and grace”. RESTORING The story of Ruth chapter 3 ends with Ruth returning to Naomi with six measures of barley, the plans Naomi has hatched is working and coming to fruition, her mission is almost complete. Boaz is seeing Ruth in a different way and the fortunes of the family are looking up. There looks like the potential of some restoration of fortunes, the redeeming of the land that once belonged to Elimelech, there is hope for the future and promise filled with potential. In these days of Coronavirus restriction and the gradual lifting of those restrictions, I wonder what we are hoping might be restored. Many of us are probably longing for a restoration of things as we knew them at the beginning of March. Chances are that those days are either some way off yet or perhaps will never return as they were. In the life of the Church we probably will never return to how things were and perhaps we shouldn’t, because some of the things we did and the way we did them were already long past their sell-by date. The restoration might well be quite different from how things used to be. So, I end with some questions to ponder, “What work of restoration is God calling us to?”, “What things have been restored during these odd days of Coronavirus that we had lost sight of? “ (and I know the way we have been looking after each other is perhaps one such thing, “watching over one another in love”). “What things are we hoping might be restored? And what things should and what things should not be restored?”. And how do we decide? Renewal is perhaps a better word because God is continually making things new. We are going to sing a hymn now which speaks of such a renewal in the life of God’s Church…..Lord your Church on earth is seeking… StF 410/ HAP 774 Lord thy Church on earth is seeking