Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Faith *Seed, Scattered and Sown* Witness of Scripture: Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23 Anthem *For the Beauty of the Earth* Pierpoint/Stopford. FCC Chancel Choir Sermon *Seed and Soil* David Spain
Recorded on July 16, 2023
Let’s begin with the ending of today’s reading from Matthew, and then end with the beginning of Matthew’s story which is the parable of the Sower. This approach may be in the best spirit of what parables are meant to do, because as we remember when Jesus tells a parable, while he may use simple images, his parables have surprising endings that tend to reverse or upend how people think about God or faith or life. In fact, when it comes to parables, it may be most accurate to say they aren’t told with an ending in mind. Instead, parables are meant to open up possibilities rather than close down conversations. Jesus does not end his parables with a tidy moral summary like Aesop ends a fable; instead, Jesus’ parables tend to leave us wondering what will happen next; or, pondering what we might do. At most, Jesus might say something like “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen” without telling us for what we are to be listening, because Jesus’ parables are more descriptive than prescriptive, meant to engage more than conclude.
The word parable comes from the Greek parabole which means to lay alongside. Jesus lays alongside conventional understandings of life, a picture of the reign of God or the way of faith. Sometimes he will say “the kingdom of God is like…a mustard seed, or yeast in bread, or a treasure in a field, or a merchant looking for fine pearls, or a net thrown into the sea. Other times he launches into a story—a man was travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho; or, there was a woman who lost a coin and stayed up all night looking for it; or, there was a man who had two sons. Every now and then, one of Jesus’ parables gets an explanation, as is the case with Matthew’s story today. Explanations can be tricky because they can limit the imagination, or as in the case of a joke, if you have to explain it then why bother telling it.But Matthew saw fit to tell us that Jesus explained at least one part of this parable to his disciples, and so perhaps there is a way to hear the explanation without shutting down the imagination; perhaps even a way to hear the explanation that encourages the imagination.
The setting for the explanation is Jesus with his disciples. Earlier in the day, Jesus was sitting along the shoreline as a great crowd gathered around and he told this parable about a rather indiscriminate Sower. Later, maybe it is dinner that evening and Jesus has gone back to the house, his disciples are curious about his teachings.We can imagine Peter, James or John saying, “why parables Jesus…just give it to us straight, besides which it is obvious you skipped the latest agricultural conference on efficient seed-sowing methods.”Frankly, his answer is a little bit complicated, but the essence of it is that parables are meant to help people hear and see God, life, faith in a new way. Some things you can’t speak to directly, so you need a story to help drop the defenses and open the possibilities.
What is curious about Jesus’ response to the disciples is that while the parable is about a Sower, the explanation is about the soil. Is that because the disciples already understand the methods of the Sower—that seems unlikely based on their reactions to other stories Jesus tells them about God. Is it an explanation to help the disciples understand why there might be some who aren’t terribly impressed by Jesus, because by now though the crowds are still great according to Matthew, there is some drop off and some push back.Perhaps during dinner the disciples only focus on the soil—the gospels do say the disciples get distracted and disoriented; they have been known to misunderstand Jesus. For whatever reason, Jesus’ explanation focuses on the soil.
If the Sower is throwing seed everywhere, then why isn’t everywhere having a bumper crop?It’s an understandable inquiry to which Jesus offers a rather earthy explanation, which gives the disciples and anyone with ears to hear some thoughts to ponder. It could be easy to hear the explanations about four types of soil and conclude that life can be neatly summarized into four distinct planter boxes. Well, you are fertile soil, but you on the other hand are rather shallow or rather hardened or rather infested. It can be easy, and convenient to categorize. If it is not done with individuals, it can certainly be done to groups—well those people are [fill in your favorite label stoked by political persuasion in some of its forms or media messages in some of its presentations or sadly even religious rhetoric in some of its expressions]. However, nature reveals, and experience suggests that rarely if ever can life, much less people, be so neatly classified. So rather than create such convenient categories, it is more likely the case that there is a rich and variegated mixture of soil in each one of us.Receptivity to seed depends on many things—what the message is, and haven’t there been times when Jesus’s seed planting is hard to receive: ‘walk the extra mile, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, do unto others.’ What Jesus plants into the world can be challenging. So, we would be cautious to label the soil finally and irreversibly—not sure that’s even ours to do. We would remember that soil changes over time and there are so many factors to impact that. What age we are, what is happening in that moment —just because we are not ready to receive something now does not mean it can’t be embedded later; or, begin to grow at some point. Perhaps Jesus is telling his disciples every community that gathers is made up of all kinds of folk…all kinds of soil mixed through and within, so be careful about moralizing and judging others or ourselves. Like parables themselves, what Jesus says about soil is descriptive not prescriptive.
There are parables about working with soil, mixing in fertilizer, digging in the dirt, tending to the garden patch—and that is important and if you like working in the dirt there is even something enjoyable and healing about that.But that is not the focus of this parable, because this is not primarily a moralizing parable rendering a final judgment on what kind of soil we are, with almost a shaming undertone to it.Years ago, visiting another church with a friend, that was the speaker’s message—‘what kind of soil are you?’ I was a teenager, what a terrible message for a teen—we all know how vulnerable we are at that point in life because the soil is still evolving.
So, a few thoughts as we transition from the soil to the Sower. Even with all the variations in soil, it is not lost to us that the seed does what the seed is meant to do. There is incredible life in the seed that can sprout even in the barest of circumstances. We know this—take a walk around your block and see the growth that works its way through the cracks in the sidewalk; drive an interstate and see the plants emerging in between the slabs of concrete; watch your neighbors pull weeds from the middle of their cement driveway.Seeds do what they do. On our recent trip to Colorado, through the semi-arid high plains of western Oklahoma and Kansas, the panhandle of Texas, and eastern slope of New Mexico and Colorado, it was as green as I have ever seen it. It’s been raining and not just here. It is a reminder that although we may not see it, there is seed planted in soil that may look barren but in fact is not. It was magnificent, thanks to a Sower who is throwing seeds everywhere. And then there is this…along a path either in a yard or across a long stretch of land, there are blooming plants and groves of trees that emerge from seeds that no one planted. How did that happen? It’s those pesky birds that gobble up seeds and fly somewhere, leaving evidence of their having been there. Seed is powerful…it will do what it does. To be sure in this day and age, it is important to be mindful of how we treat the soil, if for no other reason than it is all a gift from God, and the seed—powerful as it is—needs a place to root.
But this parable is not really about the soil nor even about the seed, wondrous as both are. The story, the news that is good, is about the Sower—the world’s most magnanimous, extravagant, prodigious Planter ever. We know that parables were not given titles until much later, and in this case the title is right – “The Parable of the Sower.” It’s about the Sower, whose habits are given witness in that seemingly barren landscape that is sprouting green and lush. This seed throwing Sower, let’s admit, plays havoc with that tendency to keep things so neat and efficient. For someone who uses tiny slivers of paper, turns off the lights when leaving the room, and will eat marginal leftovers rather than throw out something, this reckless Sower seems a bit irresponsible and irritating. Hasn’t this Sower done an audit—three-fourths of the seed thrown doesn’t land well; to which the Sower says, “ah yes, but did you see the hundred-fold, the sixty-fold, the thirty-fold,” and you never know what and where the seed will take root, because seed will do what seed does. It may not always be efficient; but wow, it can be effective.
It would seem the Sower could get frustrated at times. Growth takes time, happens in ways and places that are not planned, may need to be done more than once or twice. Will Willimon tells of finding a stack of letters that his mother had kept. She had been a schoolteacher for 40 years and he commented that can be one of the most frustrating professions. He writes, “As a child I watched my mother filled with great dismay when her efforts seemed to fall on deaf ears. The lesson plan she devised in hours of preparation died in class. The struggling students with whom she spent hours, attempting to assist in learning, flunked the final exam anyway.In teaching there is much frustration.And yet, here were these undeniable testimonials to the harvest of her hard work. I wonder if she knew how much her time and effort had meant to these people?Did she know the fruitfulness of her labors. A man who had spent his whole life working with teachers in a continuing education center told Willimon, “The chief positive characteristic that a good teacher must have is this—good teachers must be in love with the art of sowing the seed, but do not need to be there for the harvest.’”(Lectionary Sermon Resource, Year A, Part 2, p. 97)
A Sower went out to sow—well that seems obvious. Sowers sow--it’s the technique that is surprising. But there is an incredible abundance in this world, in this galaxy, in this universe because of the Sower who goes out to sow. All I know to say to that is “thanks be to God!”