Scripture Matthew 13:1-9 NRSVUE
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. If you have ears, hear!”
Meditation
Context is everything. It’s good to be aware of what has led up to Jesus sharing this parable. We’re in Chapter 13. Chapter 12 of Matthew’s gospel is filled with people challenging Jesus, and rejecting his message, and it all happens in just one day. The day begins with his disciples getting him in trouble for picking grain on the Sabbath, and continues with Jesus healing someone that same day—which is permitted by Jewish law, though he still gets pushback for doing it. After Jesus does this, one group begins making plans to destroy him. When Jesus casts out a demon, he is accused of having a demon himself. After some pointed teaching on Jesus’ part, his family seeks him out, and all the evidence points to their being unhappy with him, too. It is one long, miserable day.
Our passage begins, “That same day…” Jesus leaves his house and goes to sit by the sea. An enormous crowd gathers, though, so he boards a boat and preaches from it, with the crowds standing on the sand. He tells this parable about someone seeking to plant something. The sower goes about scattering the seed, and it falls in all kinds of places. Some seeds fall on a path and are eaten up by the birds, some fall on rocky ground, others endure an attack by thorns. And finally, we hear, some has fallen on good soil, and brings a yield of 30, 60, even 100 times the original investment.
With that terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day as its prologue, it stands to reason that this parable is a commentary. Jesus is trying to plant the good news, and it lands in all kinds of places and has all kinds of responses. It lands in places where it doesn’t have a chance, because there people defending their own status, ready to gobble it up, or there isn’t enough depth of understanding, or conditions are so adverse, it just goes up in flames.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how careless the sower is? Why does the sower let the seeds fall in all those areas where they don’t have a chance? Why is it that the sower doesn’t simply look for a place that has only good soil—i.e., receptive people to hear the Word—and plant all the seeds there? Fascinating, really. It’s almost as if the sower thinks good things might come up in places we might assume were a “hostile environment.”
Do we have our own ideas about what makes “good soil,” versus, what fosters poor conditions, in terms of our sharing the love of God with our neighbors? Do we limit our focus in spreading the good news to people who are mostly like us? Are we even in a position to know what “good soil” looks like?
Consider this: I think of the thorns as representing adversity—terrible living conditions, all kinds of painful challenges. But people respond to adversity in different ways. Some people gravitate towards God when things get hard. They pray more. They start going to church. And some feel abandoned by God in the same circumstances, and withdraw. Does that mean one person is “better soil” than the other? I don’t think so.
If he is the sower, I think Jesus models for us exactly how we ought to share the love of God: indiscriminately. Messily. Carelessly—not in the sense of not bothering to do it, but doing it with abandon. Assuming there is good soil anywhere and everywhere. If God can produce water from a stone, God can surely produce good soil from thorns.
This isn’t just about sharing what we claim in God’s love, though. This is about all the seeds we plant, whether in our children, our workplaces, our Zumba classes. We should probably start thinking of ourselves as sowers, 24/ 7, because we are. We are always leaving seeds behind us, whether of joy, or sorrow, or grumpiness, or curiosity, or patience, or fury. Or anything else we are carrying. We are always planting seeds, and we never know exactly what will sprout from them, or where they will flourish.
So let’s think of ourselves as sowers, with treasure within that we are probably planting, intentionally or not. We always leave traces of what we carry, which means we have the opportunity to plant something beautiful, every minute of every day.
Thanks be to God. Amen.