Media Connections for July 13

Our texts for this Sunday as we enter into the horribly named season of Ordinary Time (I like calling it the Season of Pentecost better--we continue to see the wind and flame of God's Spirit at work in our lives, "ordinary" though they may be) are Genesis 25:19-34 (we will be in the story of Jacob and his family for several weeks now) and Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (the first of several nature-based parables about what God and God's kingdom are like). You may read these texts here, and good luck if you can figure out how they might converge in our sermon this week! Isaiah 55:10-13 is also worth a read (this is the basis of our Call to Worship). You can read all these texts here.

Our media connections this week will connect with the Matthew reading, which has been one of my favorite parables for quite some time now. The different kinds of soil make the parable memorable; but the part of the parable that sticks out to me is the image of the one doing the sowing. Look at the pieces of art below with a particular eye to how the Sower is portrayed. What do you see in this character? What is consistent across the pieces of art? What varies? How would you paint, sculpt, or describe the character you meet in Matthew 13?

Perhaps the most famous of The Sower paintings, by Vincent Van Gogh:

Another well known painting of The Sower, by James Tissot:

 An illumination of the text from the manuscript of the St. John's Bible:

 The Sower, by Bertram Poole

 The Parable of the Sower by Miki de Goodaboom