Zetland Park Methodist Church Pastoral Letters
September 2016
Busy
Well, it has been a busy week, a very busy week! Everywhere I have looked, farmers are busy with the harvesting of grain crops, combine harvesters and tractors busying up and down fields, working well into the night - and probably through it - before the weather turns.
Of course, that reminds me of one of my favourite parables told by Jesus, the Parable of the Sower, which is so often heard at this time of year as we approach Harvest Thanksgivings, even though, if the honest truth be known, it has little to commend it as good instruction to farmers!
Like many of the parables of Jesus, those who first heard them would likely either have been left scratching their heads, laughing out loud or scoffing! In the time of Jesus farmers were very careful not to waste good and valuable seed by letting it fall in unproductive corners; on the path, in patches of weeds or on unprepared rocky ground! But, of course, the parable isn't about farming, it is about God and what God does! The sowing of the seed of God's love has never been restricted by Him to only those who will respond, but is sown liberally abroad for all to experience - God loves all his creatures and wants all people to know and experience that love.
That is the difference between humankind and God - we are so precise and restrictive, sometimes even selfish, but God is so generous. God's grace and love is for all, even if some chose not to accept it. And this is the essential message the church always needs to be reminded - His grace and love are not just for me and us, they are for all and second only to worshipping God, the churches' task is to show and spread that love to all. It was the thirst to share that love which drove the Wesley's and the other founders of Methodism to teaching, preaching and good works which were the marks of the growing church. Wesley had a succinct way of putting it, of which you may have heard ...
- all need to be saved
- all can be saved
- all may know themselves to be saved
- all may be completely saved
But if all are to be saved, then all need to hear the message, the message which is nicely put in Romans 10:14:
"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"
So let us all go generously sowing God's seeds of love and kindness, and especially to those who have not yet experienced the love of God for themselves!
All Blessings