A farmer went out to sow his seed. He
tosses it on the walkways where the birds gobble it up. He throws it in the
gravel where there’s not enough dirt for the seeds to take root. So it sprouts
quickly but the sun cooks it just as quickly. He slings it into the briars
where whatever sprouts is soon choked out. He scatters some of it in good soil
and it grows and produces.
What
kind of farmer is this? Was he drunk? Doesn’t he know the cost of seed? Is he
in too much of a rush to be off doing more interesting things? Look what he’s
wasted. To be fair, the farming methods of that age were a bit primitive,
casting the seed by hand and letting it fall where it would. But there’s more
here than meets the eye and that’s the way of parables.
Jesus
teaches with parables. This is the start of a series—we’ll be coming to the
others in the next few weeks. Jesus was a storyteller. It was how he got his
point across as he uses examples from the everyday lives of his listeners. And
these parables often turn people’s ideas of what they think they know upside
down. He used examples they would understand but then he puts a twist in them
that leave people nodding in agreement, pausing as what he says sinks in and
then scratching their heads.
The
parable of the sower seems pretty straightforward to those of us who have heard
it so many times … especially with the benefit of Jesus’ explanation to his
disciples. He tells them that the seed is the message about the kingdom of God.
The different soils—path, rocky, weedy, and fertile are people who hear the
kingdom message.
The
person representing the hard packed path is the the one who hears the message
but doesn’t accept it at all. The person representing the poor, stony soil is
the one who hears and receives the message, even eagerly, but this person is
shallow and has no roots in the faith. Without roots, he quickly falls away. It
makes me think of conversion experiences … or love. At first there’s a lot of
emotion and it feels great. The person thinks it’s always going to be that way,
that they’ll always be on that high. But life isn’t like that. When the
ordinary set in, with love or faith, if the roots aren’t there, there’s great
disappointment and a turning away.
The weedy soil is
the person who hears and receives the word but the cares of the world, worries
about her life and the lure of wealth draw her away to worldly pursuits. This
person doesn’t have time for the actual discipleship part of faith—there’s too
many other things pulling at her. And some of those things are in direct
competition with what following Jesus requires.
The person who
represents the fertile soil is, of course, the person who hears and understands
and believes and then lives it. People see this person’s life and they want
that for themselves. And more are added to the faith—that’s called bearing
fruit.
So why the
parable? Remember that the Gospels were written after the death and
resurrection of Jesus. The early church was facing a hard time and a lot of
opposition in spreading the good news of
Jesus. These early evangelists were being warned that not all of their
efforts would bear fruit—that they would experience the same opposition Jesus
faced.
They
were also being assured that their efforts were not in vain. Even though some
people refused to accept what they taught, even though some would hear it but
quickly lose interest, even though some of them would be overwhelmed by daily
life and find they didn’t have room for the word, there would be some who would get it, join the faith, and live
it. Not only that, but the results of those converts’ discipleship would
produce results far beyond reasonable expectation. It would be a miracle.
Jesus said the
results would be anywhere from thirty-fold to a hundred fold—thirty times the
amount of seed planted to one hundred times. One commentator put it this way,
“Even if the harvest were only thirty-fold, this story would end with a miracle.
Seven-fold meant a good year for a farmer, and tenfold meant true abundance.
Thirty-fold would feed a village for a year and a hundred-fold would let the
farmer retire to a villa by the Sea of Galilee.”1
A typical
conclusion to a sermon on this passage would be to challenge the congregation
to consider what type of soil they are. Will they reject the word? Are they
shallow and not putting roots down deep enough to sustain their faith? Are they
letting the troubles and wealth and worries of the world crowd out what’s
really important—God’s kingdom. Or are they fertile soil, willing to receive
the good news of God’s kingdom and live it out and share that good news with
others. So that wraps up the teaching of this scripture passage….unless we’re
open to looking at it from some different perspectives.
Is this the
parable of the sower or the parable of the soil or the parable of miracles?
First consider the sower. Who is it? It could be God. It could be Jesus. It
could be the folks in the early church. It could be you. And what if it is you?
We would be facing the same opposition and struggles that the early church
did—that Jesus himself faced. But think
for a moment of our role as farmer.
If we are
spreading the good news of the Gospel of Jesus and the kingdom of God, how are
we doing it? Is it haphazard, land where it may, take root or not, keep moving
and keep spreading? Are we willing to leave it to chance? What responsibility
do we have as we scatter the word?
There are always
going to be those who straight out reject what we have to say. You can argue,
but 2 Timothy 2 cautions us against that. He says it ruins the hearer. They
just may not be ready yet. But those others where the seed didn’t take root, is
it possible to have a different outcome? When I explored this passage with Judy
and Javier, Judy raised the thought of whether we are sometimes careless in how
we sow the word and whether we need to do a bit more preparation and aftercare,
nurturing a person in the faith. Good point.
What if we took a
little more time to prepare a person to hear the message, provided them with additional
resources to help them understand and grow in the faith—books, classes,
discussions, prayer groups. What if we took the time to talk with them about
the obstacles they will face and how to deal with them or helped them sink
their roots deep in the faith? In other words, what if we were committed to
nurturing someone in the faith, to walk with them and help them grow—rather
like tending a garden. It might take longer and be more work than with those
who are ready, receptive, and willing to embrace the good news, but wouldn’t
the results be worth it? Now you’ve expanded the potential harvest.
But we’ve all also
had experiences where our efforts simply didn’t play out. We plant those seeds
and they may sprout. The plant grows and strong and healthy but bears no fruit.
They soak up what’s offered to them, take up soil and sun and water and
resources—but there’s no visible living out of the faith, no sharing it, no
hard work of following Jesus. Instead it’s just the warm and fuzzy of Jesus and
me and being in a social community. That’s discouraging.
It’s also
discouraging to scatter the seeds and have them not sprout at all or to
promptly wither and disappear. We’ve seen those in the pews—and then they’re
gone. Maybe they weren’t reasonable prospects to begin with. Maybe we shouldn’t
have wasted our time on them. After all, didn’t Jesus tell the disciples when
he sent them out on their own that if someone didn’t accept what they had to
say, they should shake the dust off their feet and move on?
That sounds harsh
and unlike Jesus. Perhaps we need to take it in the context of Jesus’ ministry
and knowing that he had limited time before his death and resurrection. If we
consider what we do know about Jesus, it was that he extended grace in the most
unlikely places and to the most unlikely people. Jesus associated with a lot of
bad soil: tax collectors, sinners, the demon possessed, lepers, outcasts, etc.
Why would he waste his time on that lot? Maybe it’s because he saw them with
love, knew they were kingdom material and worth his time. Not all of them
became his followers—at least not in the stories we know.
See, there’s a lot
we don’t know; a lot we don’t get to
know. It’s a crude analogy, but maybe the kingdom work is a lot like a factory
assembly line. We only see the part we put in, not the progression and not the
final product. We don’t get to claim all the credit. The Apostle Paul
understood that when he was dealing with contentions in the church at Corinth
with people claiming loyalty to different leaders in the church. Paul said, “I
planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow” (1 Cor 3:-7).
God is the wild
card. We don’t know how God will work in the most unlikely people and
circumstances. I have an arrangement of huge rocks in my yard. I recently discovered
a lavender plant growing on one of the rocks. No soil, just whatever dust and
debris gathers in the cracks of rocks. That’s not going to last, I thought. Despite my skepticism, it’s blooming. Those blooms will go to seed and scatter, planting new lavender
plants perhaps in equally unlikely places.
Plants are
interesting in the way they spread. Some plants cast their own seeds when they
burst open. Some are designed to attach to something else, like the fur of an
animal and be carried to where it can sprout. Others blow in the wind like
dandelion fluff or like the lavender seed did for my new plant. Others can’t open until they’ve experienced the crucible of a
fire while still others have to remain dormant for awhile. People are a lot
like that.
We might be some
small piece in their lives that starts a process. That’s the planting of the
seed. It might be through a simple kindness or the witness of our lives or the
sharing of an experience that God helped you to face. You may not see an
immediate response. You may not know the impact of your words or actions.
Then maybe someone
else comes along in that person’s life and they add a little more—they water.
The person takes that in and may still not take action themselves. But they
remember. Those words and actions shared become part of that person’s memory
bank. And then, at the crucial time, when that person’ need is great, when the
soil is fertile, they remember. The seed sprouts and grows and God is there
working the miracle.
For that person
who finds hope and grace, was it a waste of time? We like nice and orderly planning,
to know what to do and to see the results. But we don’t get to control the
process. The Spirit’s work is often wild and chaotic. What we do is sow grace and love. We cast it out there randomly, without
regard for whether we think the soil is fertile or worthy of our efforts. Grace
is never wasted. We never know where and when love will bear fruit. They are
seeds planted that may well sprout at some unknown time. God is in the business
of miracles.
So, as urged by
Thomas Long, “Keep on spreading the seed; keep on preaching the gospel and
showing the compassion of the kingdom. In ways we do not always know and in
places we cannot always see … even now the great harvest of God is growing rich
and full in the fields.”2 Seeds
contain forces of life and transformation; they hold the potential of what can
be. They hold the potential for the miraculous and that is what God does so
well. So scatter the seeds of God’s love and grace. Scatter with abandon. You
never know what unlikely soil will be God’s garden. Amen.
1Talitha J. Arnold, Feasting on the Word, Year A Volume 3, page 236
2 Thomas G. Long, Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Volume 1, p. 352
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