It's been holiday time so a quiet blog. Back to 'normal' now.
It's ever a good idea to take a parable to it's logical conclusion. That always descends into confusion and probably a mile away from the truth. Did Jesus want us to interpret the parables at all, or were they just to be left as complete stories and left there to scratch at our prejudices and culture? Who knows.
Having said that, perhaps we are allowed to take the parables to pieces a bit to uncover and engage with different questions and insights and situations we find ourselves in. But again, who knows.
Having said that as well, one wee thought that I gleaned from some background reading is that if we take ourselves to be seeds (and who knows if we are meant to) then we can't help where we fall. Ours is either to complain and hold our hands in the air as say: we tried our best but have you seen the soil here! It's full of a generation who doesn't want to listen...too busy doing other things that we consider anti-god... and they have stopped up their ears... they can't hear us... and it's just terrible... and the church is going down the tubes... and it's really not our fault... etc, etc, etc.
The other way of looking at that is that stress not about where you fall. Some places are fertile and others places aren't. Ours is just to like our best we can the faith. I don't believe God has a score sheet of the number of converts we make. I am better disposed to God who is far more concerned and interested in how we live out our lives where we are.
We really get this church thing round the wrong way don't we? Church is about living. It is not an organisation that has to keep itself going. It is a place of love and grace that creates itself in the way we live in whatever soil we find ourselves. Surely that's something we do know...
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