It’s hard to know what to say about the parable of the sower when Jesus kinda gives you the answer.

But like all parables, we should be cautious when we think the answers are clear and simple.

It would seem, from Jesus’ explanation that the meaning of this parable for us is pretty straightforward…

Be the good soil.

And absolutely that is an important and essential take away….

Be the good soil.

But that answer begs another question:

Can you be?

Can you be the good soil all the time?

In all the different areas of your life?

Thinking this parable is about different groups of people flattens everyone out:

You’re either in the rocky soil group

Or the group snared in thorns

or the group that is good soil.

If we take Jesus’ answer about the parable too literally there is a danger of perpetuating a kind of tribalistic mindset of who’s in and who is out.  Who are the “good” people and who are the “bad” people.

But before we go any further, I do want to be clear that of course Jesus is right…we all know people who receive God’s love and respond readily and joyfully, but stumble or fall away at the first sign of hardship…and we know people who hear God’s love and it just bounces off of them like seed hitting pavement.

Absolutely!

I just want to invite you to not stop there…to keep going with what this parable could be saying to us on this day…

So where else can we go?

Well, one possibility is to start with sheer human honesty…

I don’t know about you, but I am absolutely all of these different patches of soil throughout even just one day.

I can start my day with love in my heart for my family, and practicing patience, kindness, joy, and peace.

And then I get that e-mail

Or that phone call

Or my daughter starts throwing a tantrum

And suddenly I realize my soil may have had a few rocks in it,

Now there is just a little bit of suffering, and my open heartedness has just shriveled up some.

I might notice the thorns in my own life when I catch myself sacrificing my open heartedness for the sake of just getting the job done.

And sometimes I can’t even bring myself to pray because my heart has gotten so hard as pavement.

But what is also sheer human honesty is to name and notice that for me, it is always changing.

Yes, I have those days where all day I might be caught in thorns and stones, but then I have that dinner with my family…

And my daughter’s giggle and smile,

Or my wife’s hug and kiss

Will help lead me back to being the good soil.

 

So if you are like me…

If you go in and out of these states, these different patches of soil

Not just throughout your life time

Or throughout your year

But throughout even just one day…

How do we understand this parable and Jesus’ answer?

If we take a step back for a second, and pay attention to some of the wider context of this passage.

This parable is the beginning of a whole string of parables teaching the people and the disciples about what the Kingdom of God is like, what God’s Sovereignty looks like.

Perhaps we have paid too much attention to the various soils, and not enough attention to the sower and the seed.

In Jesus’ explanation of the parable, he says that the seed is the “word of the kingdom”

The Greek word used here for “word” is that theological rich logos…

the same logos that the poem at the beginning of John’s gospel proclaims: was with God and is God.

And in Jewish thought, the “Kingdom of God” was precisely that…it was an envisioned earthy kingdom where God would come to live and rule among the people.

So the seed isn’t simply a teaching or even the collected teachings of Jesus…

The seed in this parable is God’s very own presence…God’s universal truth that binds all of reality together…God’s reign of justice and mercy and shalom, peace.

And this powerful seed is everywhere.  You do not only find it in the hearts of good people, in the hearts of the saints.

You find God’s presence in and among those who are struggling with the cares and the anxieties of this life…with the rich and those who seek only wealth and comfort…with those who are struggling against the thorns of oppression.

You find God’s presence in and with those whose soil is rocky, those who are fickle, who lack commitment, and those whose suffering is so severe they cannot possibly keep their hearts open.

You even find God’s presence on the path, even if it’s brief and it gets snatched away quickly…even those whose hearts have completely turned to stone

Even they, even us in our times of stoned heartedness

You can find God’s presence, God’s kingdom there.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Wherever, or we could also say whenever, God’s presence finds and connects with the good soil in each of us, throughout our days…God’s love is able to produce an abundant harvest.

Absolutely no amount of rocks or thorns or pavement is able to block out all the good soil.

And God’s Presence is able to produce so abundantly in the good soil that there is enough.  The rocks and thorns and the stone pavement are all overcome by the richness, the vastness, and the abundance of God’s harvest.

One way to look at this parable is as a proclamation that God’s Loving Sovereignty shall overcome all adversity and opposition.

But it doesn’t deny the existence of that adversity and opposition.

The parable is honest about the fact that there are conditions and situations which lead people away from God’s presence, God’s Sovereignty.

Sin is real.

Which calls on us to be honest about the stones and the thorns in our lives.

What are the things in your life which cause you to be gripped by the thorns of wealth, privilege, and complacency?

Where is your heart as hard as pavement?

What stones are preventing God’s Presence from taking deeper roots into your own soul?

The parable asks us all these questions, not to shame us…

But to help us discover where in the garden of our own souls, God’s seed of a presence is trying to give birth to an abundant harvest.

We can trust that God’s Presence in our lives will produce an abundance that can sustain us through everything, and ultimately overcome all opposition,

if we can only clear the way.