Matthew 13:1-23
A few weeks ago I shared the wisdom of my wife teaching our children to ‘focus on the
flowers instead of the dirt.’ While that resonated with some, I had at least one person who said, “But I LOVE the dirt. It’s what makes things grow!”
All I can say is...good point. Let’s talk about the dirt! After all, that’s what Jesus was talking about in the parable of the sower. First let’s have a word of caution, though. On the surface, it seems like Jesus paints a very one-dimensional tableau of the human condition. In other words, while there are certainly outside forces that we cannot control, none of us should be reduced to an identity as a beaten path, or shallow soil, or even the expectation that we have it all figured out and should yield in abundance every season.
It certainly works for the illustration to say some of us are like this and some of us are like that, but I think we need to be aware that – beyond the purpose of realizing our limitations –the purpose of faith is an ongoing transformation. In fact, even the best soil will become fallow if the crops aren’t rotated.
So, where does that leave us? Well, if the seed is the word of God and we are the soil, we obviously want to be the good soil – or so it would seem. It does make me wonder what the original audience thought when they heard this parable, though. Teaching in parables was a pretty common practice at that time because it allowed the teacher to put things in terms that people understood like farming, baking, herding, building, and gathering in community.
The idea of a “sower” would be familiar but scattering seeds like he did would seem pretty odd. Was it a lesson about frugality, like “don’t spread seeds where they won’t grow”? Was he even talking about them? Were they the soil? Even the disciples weren’t sure about it. They asked him why he spoke in parables. Then Jesus quoted a pretty unsettling passage from Isaiah that seemed to be a way of saying that God was on the side of the wealthy and did not want the masses to repent, because then he would have to heal them!
Let’s dig a little deeper on that. In v.12 Jesus said, “ Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” As I’ve said before, context matters. In this section, Jesus is talking about “knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven.” He is talking about an awareness of God’s grace and mercy, which is scattered recklessly and abundantly.
Those who have very little experience of grace and mercy will find it hard to build upon, like the foolish builder. Those who do not walk through the door are not going to sit at the table in the banquet. Those who have not been prepared – like good soil – are not going to be able to produce grain. Those who are afraid or unwilling to see the crow aren’t going to look to the cross.
That brings us to the next bizarro thing that Jesus says. “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.’
How can God scatter grace and mercy and love with reckless abandon and not want to heal us at the same time? Well, the best I can say is that God obviously wants to heal us –because all we have to do is ask – but I believe there is something more going on here. I mentioned before that this is a tableau, or maybe a snapshot, of human existence. What we also see in this moment in time is that God had more in mind for Jesus than a barnburner of a sermon that makes everyone repent.
God knows that there is only so much that we can do on our own, and the confusion of
God’s people are simply a recognition of our need for the mission of Jesus. The crow is a
recognition of the need for the cross, and the progression of soil from hard to rocky to fertile ground points toward the resurrection and the renewal of life!
flowers instead of the dirt.’ While that resonated with some, I had at least one person who said, “But I LOVE the dirt. It’s what makes things grow!”
All I can say is...good point. Let’s talk about the dirt! After all, that’s what Jesus was talking about in the parable of the sower. First let’s have a word of caution, though. On the surface, it seems like Jesus paints a very one-dimensional tableau of the human condition. In other words, while there are certainly outside forces that we cannot control, none of us should be reduced to an identity as a beaten path, or shallow soil, or even the expectation that we have it all figured out and should yield in abundance every season.
It certainly works for the illustration to say some of us are like this and some of us are like that, but I think we need to be aware that – beyond the purpose of realizing our limitations –the purpose of faith is an ongoing transformation. In fact, even the best soil will become fallow if the crops aren’t rotated.
So, where does that leave us? Well, if the seed is the word of God and we are the soil, we obviously want to be the good soil – or so it would seem. It does make me wonder what the original audience thought when they heard this parable, though. Teaching in parables was a pretty common practice at that time because it allowed the teacher to put things in terms that people understood like farming, baking, herding, building, and gathering in community.
The idea of a “sower” would be familiar but scattering seeds like he did would seem pretty odd. Was it a lesson about frugality, like “don’t spread seeds where they won’t grow”? Was he even talking about them? Were they the soil? Even the disciples weren’t sure about it. They asked him why he spoke in parables. Then Jesus quoted a pretty unsettling passage from Isaiah that seemed to be a way of saying that God was on the side of the wealthy and did not want the masses to repent, because then he would have to heal them!
Let’s dig a little deeper on that. In v.12 Jesus said, “ Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.” As I’ve said before, context matters. In this section, Jesus is talking about “knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven.” He is talking about an awareness of God’s grace and mercy, which is scattered recklessly and abundantly.
Those who have very little experience of grace and mercy will find it hard to build upon, like the foolish builder. Those who do not walk through the door are not going to sit at the table in the banquet. Those who have not been prepared – like good soil – are not going to be able to produce grain. Those who are afraid or unwilling to see the crow aren’t going to look to the cross.
That brings us to the next bizarro thing that Jesus says. “For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.’
How can God scatter grace and mercy and love with reckless abandon and not want to heal us at the same time? Well, the best I can say is that God obviously wants to heal us –because all we have to do is ask – but I believe there is something more going on here. I mentioned before that this is a tableau, or maybe a snapshot, of human existence. What we also see in this moment in time is that God had more in mind for Jesus than a barnburner of a sermon that makes everyone repent.
God knows that there is only so much that we can do on our own, and the confusion of
God’s people are simply a recognition of our need for the mission of Jesus. The crow is a
recognition of the need for the cross, and the progression of soil from hard to rocky to fertile ground points toward the resurrection and the renewal of life!
So how do we get there? First off, we have to recognize that we cannot do it on our own. We love because God loves us, and we are transformed by God’s love just as we are transformed by loving others. That’s the bedrock the soil sits on top of.
We also have to realize that we are not the sum total of our experiences. We are not
completely defined by what we have done or by what has been done to us. Outside forces may even “snatch away the word of God” from us, but that does not stop God from constantly sending it our way. By outside forces, I’m not talking about some Loup Garou Boogie Man, and I’m not talking about people who burn Bibles (an action which I condemn). I’m talking about our fellow humans who neglect the word of God until it becomes irrelevant or watered down to the point that “love your neighbor as yourself” becomes ambiguous –and sometimes I’m as guilty of that as anyone.
Thanks be to God that there is more to us than all of this. There is more to us than our denial of responsibility in the impurity of the soil we share or the hardness of our hearts that we learn and teach others to express. Thanks be to God that even when we have become like the rocky, hard ground we can still become broken down and composted into good soil.
For those unfamiliar with it, composting is the way you create good soil out of organic materials. When I was a kid, we had what we called the compost pit. We always collected food scraps and lawn clippings and other nasty things that could rot together and turn into good soil for the garden, but even that stuff needed tending. Ever the wise woman, my mom taught me that I could use a pitchfork to turn over all that gross stuff and look for worms.
Stirring it up activated the processes that helped it become good soil. The worms and bugs helped break it down even further (they also made good bait for fishing), and so it is with the choices we make and the situations we face.
By God’s grace, and by no other means, all that we endure and all that we celebrate gets broken down, mixed up, and sifted through until we yield a bumper crop of the same grace and mercy that we have received. When that happens, we will know that we have become good soil indeed. The good news is that even when we realize that we have become hardened or impure or assailed by forces beyond our control, we can still look to the cross.
The mission of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin and the healing of the nations was accomplished in the cross and the empty tomb. Now the mission is ours. Now we must be willing to let all that distract us from expressing the love and grace and mercy of God bebroken down again and again and again into so much good soil, for good soil yields more and more expressions of the word of God.
In the end, that’s all we are anyway. We were created in the image of God. At your birth, you were God’s next “Big Idea.” Even though we are all at times the one who snatches God’s word from others, or even the one who loves the idea of grace but hates the practice of it, we are still entrusted with the word of God, the seed of life. We are still being prepared to be those who listen, follow, and reflect God’s love in the space between us.
At least, I pray that it may be so with me, and I pray that it may be so with you, and to God be the glory – now and always. Amen.
We also have to realize that we are not the sum total of our experiences. We are not
completely defined by what we have done or by what has been done to us. Outside forces may even “snatch away the word of God” from us, but that does not stop God from constantly sending it our way. By outside forces, I’m not talking about some Loup Garou Boogie Man, and I’m not talking about people who burn Bibles (an action which I condemn). I’m talking about our fellow humans who neglect the word of God until it becomes irrelevant or watered down to the point that “love your neighbor as yourself” becomes ambiguous –and sometimes I’m as guilty of that as anyone.
Thanks be to God that there is more to us than all of this. There is more to us than our denial of responsibility in the impurity of the soil we share or the hardness of our hearts that we learn and teach others to express. Thanks be to God that even when we have become like the rocky, hard ground we can still become broken down and composted into good soil.
For those unfamiliar with it, composting is the way you create good soil out of organic materials. When I was a kid, we had what we called the compost pit. We always collected food scraps and lawn clippings and other nasty things that could rot together and turn into good soil for the garden, but even that stuff needed tending. Ever the wise woman, my mom taught me that I could use a pitchfork to turn over all that gross stuff and look for worms.
Stirring it up activated the processes that helped it become good soil. The worms and bugs helped break it down even further (they also made good bait for fishing), and so it is with the choices we make and the situations we face.
By God’s grace, and by no other means, all that we endure and all that we celebrate gets broken down, mixed up, and sifted through until we yield a bumper crop of the same grace and mercy that we have received. When that happens, we will know that we have become good soil indeed. The good news is that even when we realize that we have become hardened or impure or assailed by forces beyond our control, we can still look to the cross.
The mission of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin and the healing of the nations was accomplished in the cross and the empty tomb. Now the mission is ours. Now we must be willing to let all that distract us from expressing the love and grace and mercy of God bebroken down again and again and again into so much good soil, for good soil yields more and more expressions of the word of God.
In the end, that’s all we are anyway. We were created in the image of God. At your birth, you were God’s next “Big Idea.” Even though we are all at times the one who snatches God’s word from others, or even the one who loves the idea of grace but hates the practice of it, we are still entrusted with the word of God, the seed of life. We are still being prepared to be those who listen, follow, and reflect God’s love in the space between us.
At least, I pray that it may be so with me, and I pray that it may be so with you, and to God be the glory – now and always. Amen.
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