And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow” [Matthew 13:3].
Although it has been almost 33 years since the day the transforming conversation took place, I remember it as if it were yesterday. The time was Autumn 1987. I was a 36-year-old second-year seminarian at Duke. The setting was a homiletics class, consisting of 10 or 12 divinity school students like me — all of whom, unlike me, were in their early 20s — together with our skilled and thoughtful professor, the Rev. Dr. Richard Lischer, who was/is just a few years older than me.
The small size of the class and the subject matter of the course both lent themselves to discussion, and that day was no different. We were beginning a new topic: the parables of Jesus. Dr. Lischer asked us to consider the Parable of the Sower, which appears in all three Synoptics — although in slightly different forms — and in the Gospel of Thomas (one of the Gnostic gospels). Lischer asked, “Can any of you recall any sermons on the parable from your pasts? If so, can you share the basic thrust of the message?”
Several hands shot up immediately, and for the next 20 minutes or so, two or three in the class related somewhat similar variations on a theme. One student stressed, “I suppose the issue is what sort of soil you are. According to the parable, there are four kinds of soil into which the seed is sown. There is the path (Matthew 13:4), which is bare and, therefore, allows the birds to devour the seed. There is the rocky ground (13:5), where the seed springs up quickly, but then becomes scorched by the sun. There is the thorny patch (13:7), where the seeds grow up, but are choked off by the weeds. Finally, there is the good soil (13:8), in which the seeds can flourish and bring forth a bountiful harvest.”
Lischer pressed a bit, “And so the ‘truth’ being presented in the parable is what?
Several answered almost simultaneously, “That one should do all within one’s power to become good soil.”
The class was winding down, but Lischer had three more quick questions for us to consider before the next time we would gather. The first was, “If the different types of soil is the emphasis, why is it called ‘the Parable of the Sower?'”
And then, pausing for effect, he added two additional bombshells (at least for me), “Why must the parable be about us? Could it perhaps instead be about God?”
If the parable is not so much about the soil, but rather the sower, i.e., the farmer, a whole new set of considerations come to mind, do they not? As a close friend and graduate of N.C. State once quipped, “The Sower seems intent upon wasting three-quarters of his seed.”
Indeed, why wouldn’t the sower/farmer be more careful in his (or her) planting processes? That is to say that if one-quarter of the seed, planted in rich, good soil produces a hundredfold, wouldn’t the result have been four-hundredfold if more care have been given to the planting? As another friend has quipped, “Well, Jesus was raised as a carpenter, not a farmer.”
Can we see, however, that Jesus has another point to make. God is a bit of a spendthrift. God sows the “word of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:18), knowing well that some of it — much of it — will not take root or, taking root, will not flourish. God, however, isn’t the careful, dutiful planner/planter who pores over the actuarial tables to determine what might be the best plan. God is lavish, God is wild, God is uncontrollable. This is the same God who Jesus will later tell us, would risk the ninety-nine sheep to recover the one.
This is the God who choses an old man and a barren wife to be the father and mother of a nation through whom God would bring salvation. This is the God who would choose Moses, a Jew raised up as an Egyptian — a murderer — someone who apparently wasn’t clear of speech, to “negotiate” the freedom of the Israelites from bondage. This is a Christ who, when choosing those through whom He would found His church, chose a dozen semi-literate fishermen and laborers.
One difficulty in reading this parable as being about the soil is that it allows us to delude ourselves in one of two ways. We can either come to the quick conclusion that we are the good soil, within whom the word of the kingdom (again, 13:18) has been sown, and through whom, therefore, great fruit is assured to follow, or we can just as quickly come to the conclusion that, based upon our past actions, our failures and our lamentable experiences, we are beyond God’s grasp. We see ourselves as the well-worn path, or the rocky soil, or the soil beneath the patch of weeds. As such, we think, it makes no sense for God to spend God’s time sowing the word of the kingdom within souls such as us, since we “know” nothing good can come from it; it never has in the past.
Another problem with reading this parable as “the Parable of the Soil,” as opposed to the “Parable of the Sower,” is that the former reading misses an important truth: All of us are admixtures of all four kinds of soil. At times, we exhibit the best qualities of humanity; at others, not so much. “Wait for it, wait for it …. God already knows that.” Is the Good Shepherd surprised when the one wayward sheep wonders away from the flock?
The power of the parable is that while, to human eyes, much of the sower’s labor seems futile and fruitless, resulting in frequent failure, to Jesus, things are different. He is full of joyful confidence. God’s hour is coming and in that time, there will be a harvest of reward beyond all comprehension. In spite of every failure, God brings forward the glorious end that God has promised.
Some years ago, as I was pondering this parable for one of many times, I thought about the apostle Paul, or rather the pre-apostle, Saul. What kind of soil was he? It’s difficult to say, of course. There was certainly a side to Saul through which he would have said that he was the best of all possible soils, born, raised and educated as a Pharisee. And yet, while Christ trudged through Galilee, and as he walked through the streets of Jerusalem, his message of love and forgiveness did not produce any Pharisaic converts. Perhaps Saul, therefore, was the sort of soil found on the hard-packed pathway, the kind that is quickly devoured.
Bear in mind, however, that Jesus has more “weapons” than the sower’s bag. Indeed, he has a light-saber. He’ll show it to Saul as the latter heads toward Damascus one day.
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