If you have grown up with any knowledge of scripture and the teachings of Jesus, you almost certainly know that parables were Jesus’ preferred mode of teaching: these curious stories or images that, if we read them at the depth they invite, often leave us with more questions than answers. Or at minimum, open our imaginations to a wide array of inferences and meanings.

We continue in the 13th chapter of Matthew’s gospel this morning, with another parable of Jesus that comes just after the one we considered last week about a sower who “goes out to sow,” casting the seed upon different types of soil. This week, we hear of another sower, this time who seems to be growing different plants.

“Due to a connection issue images from worship are not available until 20:50; the entire audio is available.”

A few weeks ago, I wrote a Children’s Worship Hour lesson for today’s text from Genesis. I typically look at the passage that will be preached on a given Sunday, find a good version of the story in one of the Children’s bibles from the collection I’ve curated across the years, and then work from that story to put together a teaching moment, a game and a craft for our 3-5 year olds. The supplies for these lessons are put together in buckets for our Firecracker and Sparkler classes by Jan Wilson, whose 20^th anniversary at Northminster we are celebrating this week, and those who volunteer, or are sometimes voluntold, with our children lead them in the lesson while we are in Big Church. Our hope is that by teaching the same text to our youngest children that is preached with the grownups, we are creating space for continued conversations about the text when we leave worship each week.

There are some passages in scripture to which it is difficult to say “This is the word of the Lord,” and even more  so, “thanks be to God.”

*Due to technical issues, audio does not begin until the choral anthem.*