Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the Sixth Sunday after Trinity

There have been a lot of big emotions in the Abbey in the last couple of weeks – joy and celebration, tears and goodbyes, hope, expectation, anxiety, fear. All of these may be felt by visitors and pilgrims who walk through the Abbey's doors every day, but perhaps particularly now: the beginning of July, the end of the school year. In the last two weeks we have held four end-of-year services for four different schools. That's around 3,300 pupils coming here to give thanks for the year that has been and look ahead to what is to come over the summer, and beyond. Today is the last day of the year for our Choir School, and this afternoon we will say "thank you" and "goodbye for now" to some of our choristers who are moving on to new things. When we see these 3,300 young people next, many will be taller; there will be new classes, new classmates, new teachers, because the end of a school year always means the beginning of something new. Whether it's a change of tie as you move into the next year group, or even a new job, or a new school, or university. Lots of big emotions, at a time of big change.

We all know change can be scary. I wonder how many of you remember first-day nerves when you first set off to a new school? But within any change is the seed of potential. Jesus speaks about it in the Gospel of John, in language that rhymes with our Gospel reading today: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." There is fear and concern about what must be left behind for change to happen (Jesus is preparing his disciples for what must face him at his crucifixion), but at the same time change is an opportunity: opportunity for growth, for discovery, for finding new joys and new friends. But that change, that growth, it takes work. Growth of any kind doesn't happen without something feeding it, something to sustain it. You cannot leave a plant alone on a windowsill and expect it to flourish, as my poor parched peace lily will attest.

Today's Gospel is all about growth – about what it takes to not only grow, but to flourish – to produce far beyond all expectations. It might well be called "the parable of the soils" rather than "the parable of the Sower," because what the Sower does doesn't change. They sow on good soil and bad alike. The variable that determines whether the seed will grow or not is the soil. This is a rare parable, in that Jesus explains afterwards what the story means. Indeed, it is so rare that some scholars believe the explanation was a later addition by some helpful scribe. It is quite clear that we are supposed to be the soil of various kinds: either hearing the word and understanding it, or not understanding it, or not giving it enough depth to put down roots and grow. Where we have to be careful, however, as in any parable, is the assumption that our roles are fixed. That we have nothing to do with what kind of soil we are, or indeed, the assumption that we are only one kind of soil at all. It is a much simpler story to think that we are born to be one kind of soil, and that there is nothing we can do about it. After all, what can the soil do if it has rocks in it? That kind of thinking can either lead to despair: we are bad soil, and there's nothing we can do about it. Or pride: we are good soil, and we don't have to try any more – it'll just happen for us. Some of us might be hearing this parable today in one soil frame of mind but might find ourselves in quite a different place tomorrow. Or even more complicatedly, we might contain all the kinds of soil in ourselves at once; a sort of geology of the soul. Strata laid down by the different times and experiences of our lives.

So how do we cultivate good soil in the gardens of our hearts? What helps us to hear the word and understand it? There's a clue even in that statement: understanding is something that is active, not passive. Simply hearing is not enough. Jesus made that clear again and again. Indeed, he got quite cross with those who heard him but did not put the effort into understanding him, often because of the rocks or thorns in their own lives that prevented his words from putting down roots. Later in Matthew, Jesus denounces the scribes and the Pharisees who do not practice what they teach but instead love the status and position that their roles give them. They assumed they had good soil, but their desire for status and worldly renown were the thorns that came up and choked their growth. Understanding takes action. As Jesus says in the parable of the house on the rock, "anyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who builds his house on the rock."

We all have rocks or birds or thorns which prevent us from fully engaging with what we hear in this church or another. The birds are the pressures from outside: the world that tells us that we don't have time, that it's foolish, that sets up other idols for us to worship. The rocks are the pressures from inside ourselves: our feelings of unworthiness or our feelings of pride, the comfortable idea that just sitting and listening is enough. The perils of cheap grace, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it. The idea that grace might come if we just tick the right religious boxes. But removing our rocks, frightening off the birds, gardening our soul, takes work.

But where is God in all this? At the moment I'm starting to sound like some kind of self-help guide. The worst kind that says: "It's your fault it's not working. If you just download this app, or take up this diet, or repeat mantras to yourself in the mirror every morning, you will become a better person." But God is essential to any of the work that we do, and to work out why we must return to the Sower. It is his parable after all. I've already mentioned that this Sower is a strange one, who chucks his seeds around with liberal abandon, not caring where they fall. Just because we are flawed people with the complex strata of our souls doesn't mean that God sees us as any less worthy of hearing, or of understanding. The seeds God sows are not a demand – an investment made in the hope of a good return – they are a gift, freely and stupidly generously given. They are the gift of potential, the gift of change with all of the excitement and fear that might cause, and it's offered to us every day.

It might be a long time since we set off to a new school, new rucksack and over-large blazer and excitement and nerves, but those feelings, that potential is offered to us every time we come here. The opportunity to be good gardeners, to grow and to shape and to change, to become people who flourish. It takes our input, it takes work, but if it doesn't happen this week, or next week, or next year, God still turns up. He still sows his seeds in us, still feeds us in the bread and the wine that is his own son who gave himself for us; a grain of wheat that fell to the earth and died to bear the fruit of our redemption. We are offered the opportunity to change and to flourish, so that we can go out in joy, and be led back in peace.