The Parable of the Sower. One of the best known of Jesus'
pithy little anecdotes, these "earthly stories with a heavenly
meaning." P. G. Wodehouse says, "A parable is one of those
stories in the Bible that at first sounds like a pleasant yarn,
but keeps something up its sleeve which suddenly pops up and
knocks you flat."(1) OK.
Jesus was good at this sort of thing. A crowd would gather,
and he would start in. There was once a farmer who started
scattering seeds. Some fell on the road, some on rocky ground,
some among thorns, and some on good ground. The seeds that fell
on good ground did amazingly well. The seeds that fell elsewhere
did not. End of story. Then, Amen. Nothing else. You know.
The way the preacher walks to the back of the church after the
sermon and waits for people to come by with their comments -
"Enjoyed, it, pastor." My bet is that if you and I had been
there that day in that crowd of people, we would have been
scratching our heads and saying something like, "Say what?"
Obviously, this one is not about agriculture or efficient
gardening practices. Jesus is telling people a story in order to
talk about something else. This one really is MORE than a
parable, which comes from a Greek word meaning to "set side by
side" or "compare", but a mashal, which is the Hebrew word for
something called enigmatic speech. In other words, a story whose
meaning is not immediately apparent, something like a riddle,
intended to tease the mind into insight.(2)
As you Bible scholars all know, Matthew's gospel was
compiled and distributed probably some fifty years after Christ's
earthly ministry (around 85 AD). The early church had expanded
beyond Jerusalem through the missionary efforts of Paul and
others but was still rather minuscule in terms of numbers and
influence. There was opposition and even some persecution at the
hands of political and religious establishments. It was a time
when discouragement could have easily overcome that small band of
believers. These were the folks for whom Matthew was writing,
and this section of his gospel was organized just for them. In
chapter eleven, Jesus confronts political opposition as Herod
arrests and murders John the Baptist. In chapter twelve, he
faces religious opposition as the Scribes and Pharisees challenge
him and even suggest he is in league with the devil himself. Now
we come to chapter thirteen and a series of parables. The order
of arrangement is no accident - coming on the heels of these
accounts of continuous opposition, the stories were meant to
address that concern.
This first one, the Parable of the Sower, is the most
familiar,(although considering the emphasis of the story, it
should probably be called the Parable of the Soils). It uses
imagery that is familiar (even if less to us in urban America
than in agricultural Palestine). It offers an automatic four-point outline. And finally, for those who fear offering an
incorrect interpretation, there is (supposedly) Jesus' own
explanation of the meaning of the four types of soil (but most
scholars insist that the explanation is an addendum provided by a
later editor). No matter. It WILL preach.
Start with the imagery. As Jesus sat in that boat, he may
well have seen a farmer off in the distance going about his work,
scattering seed by hand. The field(3) would have been one of many
long narrow strips with the ground between serving as a right-of-way, a three-foot wide common path, beaten as hard as a pavement
by the feet of countless passers-by. If seed fell there, and
some was bound to, there was no more chance of its penetrating
into the earth than if it had fallen on concrete.
Then there was stony ground. Not ground filled with stones,
but rather what was common in that part of the world, a thin skin
of earth on top of an underlying shelf of limestone rock. The
earth might be only a very few inches deep before the rock was
reached. Seed could certainly germinate, because the ground
would grow warm quickly with the heat of the sun. But there was
no depth of earth and when a plant sent down its roots in search
of nourishment and moisture, it would meet only the rock. It
would swiftly starve, and shrivel and die.
Thorny ground? Deceptive. When the sower was sowing, the
ground would look clean enough. It is easy to make a garden look
clean by simply turning it over, but in the ground still lay the
fibrous roots of the couch grass and the bishop weed and all the
perennial pests, ready to spring to life again. Every gardener
knows that the weeds grow with a speed and strength that few good
seeds can equal. The result was that the good seed and the
dormant weeds grew together, but the weeds were so strong that
they throttled the life out of the seed.
Finally, the good ground. Deep and clean and soft. The
seed could gain an entry, find nourishment, and grow unchecked.
In the good ground it brought forth an abundant harvest.
Suddenly the preacher thunders, "And what type of soil are
you?" (Isn't that the way it is supposed to go?) First, there
are those whose minds are shut, those into whom the seed of an
idea has no more chance of taking root than the seed that falls
onto a path beaten hard by many feet. Is that you? Then there
is the one whose mind is like the shallow ground, someone who
follows the fads, responds to the emotion of the moment, who
takes something up quickly and just as quickly drops it. Is that
you? Or there is that busy, busy, busy individual who has so
many irons in the fire, so many interests in life, that often the
most important things, get crowded out. Is that you? Finally,
the good ground, the fertile mind - like good soil, it is open,
deep, uncluttered. A word from the Lord will take root there
and bear an abundant harvest. Is that you?
Well, to be painfully honest, answering for myself, I am ALL
of them. There are times when someone speaks to me that they may
as well be talking to a wall. For whatever reason, I do not hear
what they are saying. The seed is falling on the path. There
are times when an idea comes to which I latch right on with
enthusiasm but there is no follow-through. It dies away. Stony
ground. My life is busy, as is yours. Everyone knows we have
far less leisure time than we used to. Good ideas come, and they
begin to take root, but with so many competing claims on me, they
fade and eventually wither. Thorny ground. Finally, yes, there
are times when something comes along that takes root - it grows
and blossoms and produces abundantly. I wish that such were
always the case, but... Does that sound like anyone you know?
Frankly, we could listen to a thousand sermons on these soil
types and still be the same mixtures as we are - part and parcel
of being human. That is one of the things that convinces me that
Jesus had something else in mind when he told this story.
Another is the placement of the parable in the gospel
narrative. This is right after accounts of opposition, and the
first in a series of vignettes that describe the sure and certain
victory of the Kingdom of God.
One more thing convinces me: Jesus was a good storyteller,
and good storytellers know that you cannot make a multitude of
points in a story and have any hope of your listeners remembering
them. Jesus had a point to make here, not a whole list of them.
So, what is his point? For Matthew's audience of good
church folk who, for various and sundry reasons, might be a bit
discouraged, it comes right at the end. Fertility Facts of the
Kingdom. The harvest. The AMAZING harvest. Thirty-fold.
Sixty-fold. A hundred-fold. A harvest of four- to ten-fold was
considered normal, with a harvest of fifteen times what was sown
being exceptionally good.(4) Who was responsible for such a thing?
The Sower? Of course not. It could be none other than God.
Always has been. Always will be. Even when we figure it is all
up to us. Fertility Facts of the Kingdom.
Several years ago I quoted something from Janet Mathistad, a
Lutheran pastor in Minot, ND, and it is worth quoting again.
She wrote concerning this parable,
One aspect of this text that has interested me is that
even in the good soil, there was such a difference of
yields. I got an insight into one answer back in 1993,
when I had just married my husband, who is a farmer.
That was the summer that the Mississippi River flooded,
and our area of North Dakota received 13 inches of rain
in June (our total average annual moisture is only 17
inches). A phenomenon happened in Todd's durum fields
that he referred to as "stooling out." Whereas
normally, each seed sends up one stalk and produces one
head of wheat, when the weather is cooler and wetter,
the grain will send up a second and even a third stalk.
The yield is therefore abundantly greater...
Pastor Janet continued.
I see it as an example of something that humans have no
control over. If the wheat stools out, it is not
because the farmer was especially clever or because the
soil was so good, but because the weather conditions
were right. It seems that in farming or in ministry,
we can sow, but we cannot guarantee results. We can
give it our best effort, but cannot completely control
the outcome. Only God can do that.(5)
Hmm. The Parable of the Sower. In the original version, I
suspect we would identify Jesus as the farmer, the seed as the
gospel, and the field as the world. But the truth is that we too
are involved in spreading the seed, whether it be by preaching,
teaching, singing, inviting, or day-to-day LIVING.
I would love to tell you DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED, but I know
that is easier said than done. I wish I would not get
discouraged, but I do. Membership declines; finances tight; a
neighborhood that has changed; there are hopeful signs here and
there, but, one way or the other, onward and upward, no matter
what. You work hard, but where are the results? The message of
the parable to all of us who, on behalf of Jesus, are sowers of
seed is do not get discouraged over RESULTS. Those are out of
your hand.
You may encounter those outside the church who could care
less about this enterprise and will never be convinced that we
are worth bothering with. The well-trodden path. Keep sowing
the seed. There are those who respond quickly, join with us in
our work and worship, but who just as quickly, and for no
apparent reason, stop coming. Stony ground. Keep sowing the
seed. There are those who are active for a time, but slowly
participate less and less (and especially if something occurred
that was in the least bit upsetting); church used to be a
priority but now there are so many other things to do. Thorny
ground. Keep sowing the seed. And then there are those who are
the pillars of the church - here every time the doors are open,
always willing to take on any task, always anxious to be part of
the solution rather than part of the problem. Somebody sowed
that seed. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. And keep
sowing the seed. You never know. You just never know.
Never underestimate the power of a seed. In the 1950's,
African-Americans began demanding their civil rights, and though
the road was long and sometimes very bloody, the seed they sowed
finally blossomed. Keep sowing the seed. This past week,
250,000 marchers gathered in Scotland - the largest gathering
ever in that nation - calling attention to the problems of
poverty, AIDS, and global warming, problems that CAN be solved if
the wealthy nations of the west decide to do it. The world
leaders gathered for the summit there heard the call, and, for
the most part, responded (even if not to the level they could
have - unfortunately, the worst response came from the US). Keep
sowing the seed. Billy Graham last week concluded what is
probably his last evangelistic crusade in a remarkable 60-year
ministry. How many seeds has he sown? What kind of harvest has
it been? Keep sowing the seed.
Never underestimate the power of a seed. In 1949 there were
approximately 700-thousand evangelical Christians in China, the
result of almost 100 years of missionary work. Not a great
number when you consider a total population that was, at the
time, rapidly approaching 1 billion people, but not insignificant
either. But 1949 was a watershed year there - Mao Tse Tung and
the Communist party came to power and China closed its doors to
the outside world. Christian missions were shut down. The end
of Christianity in China, right? Hardly. In the years since,
despite the lack of mission efforts from outside, the growth has
been phenomenal. Today the statistics vary according to the
reporting entity. However, official government statistics put
the number at 25-30 million (a figure that some say is not nearly
large enough, but still...), an incredible increase since 1949,
making Christianity the second largest religious affiliation in
China next to Buddhism.(6) How do you explain it? Fertility
Facts! The seed was sown.
It would have been easy to predict in 1949 that this was the
end of the church in China. And some did. But they did not
know. Nor do any of us ever. No preacher or teacher ever does.
The word is simply this: keep sowing the seed. We can leave the
rest to God, and the harvest can be beyond belief. Those are the
Fertility Facts. And that is GOOD news indeed.
Amen!
1. Quoted in A. M. Hunter, The Parables Then and Now, (Philadelphia : Westminster
Press, 1971), p. 10
2. Barry J. Robinson, "Get a Grip," http://www.spirit-net.ca/sermons/a-or15-keeping.php
3. Soil information from William Barclay, And Jesus Said: A Handbook on the Parables of
Jesus, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), pp. 18-19
4. The New Interpreter's Bible, CD-ROM (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997)
5. Janet Mathistad, via Ecunet, "Gospel Notes for Next Sunday," #3026, 7/7/99
6. http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Christians-in-China.html
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