A Sower Went Out To Sow

St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Matthew 13: 1-9, Rev. Marianne Niesen, July 13, 2008

 

You have just heard - once again - the well known Parable of the Sower. Like so many scripture readings, this one is familiar to many of us . . . so familiar in fact that it may have a ‘ho-hum’ quality to it. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," we think to ourselves. "We’ve heard this one and we know the message. . . good soil is the best. We should be ‘good soil’ for the word of God." Or, perhaps we are thinking to ourselves about how much rocky soil there is around here . . . "if only they would be a little better soil, things would be a lot easier." Sometimes familiarity with something does not help with understanding and I think this parable is a case in point. Here’s the clue . . . any time you hear a parable and think you understand it easily, think again. Parables are never what they seem to be at first. In particular, Jesus’ parables always took people deeper or pushed them further or opened them up in new ways. And they are meant to do the same for us.

You see, parables were not run-of-the-mill teaching tools. A parable was not told by a teacher like Jesus to a group of well behaved students who sat taking notes and nodding their heads in agreement. Quite the contrary in fact . . . parables were engagements and everyone hearing was expected to play. They were meant to teach a lesson, to be sure, but the lesson was often anything but clear and straightforward. A parable was meant to draw out those hearing it, to engage them at a level that called for involvement. Parables worked on the hearers and in the hearers.

Very likely, then, the telling of this parable went something like this . . .

Jesus began, his voice booming over the gentle sound of the waves lapping at his boat. He had pushed out a bit from shore, remember, perhaps to have a better view of the crowd. Whatever the reason, he said Listen!

Yes, we’re with you so far, Jesus. We’re listenin’! Shhh . . . he’s got another story for us. Quiet, you folks in the back! He said listen!

A sower went out to sow.

Jesus gestured to the fields behind the crowd. They looked around. The fields were probably lush, green. Small patches of farmed land dotted the hillside. Some of those gathered probably recognized their farms in the distance.

A sower, you say Jesus? A sower? We know all about sowing. ‘Course we call ‘em ‘farmers’ and they sure do more than sow. They water and they till and they hoe and they reap. OK already . . . go on. What’s with this sower of yours?

Jesus smiled . . . and as he sowed, some seed fell on the path and birds came and ate the seed.

Nothin’ new there, Jesus. Of course the birds came. That’s how they get fed. Some seed always falls on the path . . . there are paths all over these hills, these fields. Sowers gotta be careful about that, Jesus.

Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil. They sprang up but had no roots. The sun scorched them and they dried up, withered away.

Hold on Jesus! Look around you! All our ground is rocky. We got more rocks than Rome has legions! We got more rocks than trees! Of course seed fell on rocky soil but a good farmer - like old Sam here - can make it work. That’s why you gotta do more than sow . . . you till the ground, you move rocks. Course, your Dad’s a carpenter and like we always say, carpenters don’t know much about farming!

Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns choked them . . .

You’re gettin’ somewhere now, Jesus . . . why on earth would a sower scatter seed in thorns? That’s just bad sowin’! That’s just bad preparation, poor planning. That’s what that is . . . this sower of yours is sure wasting seeds. Rocks are hard to avoid but thorns . . . no sower has to sow in thorns.

And some seeds fell on good soil and brought forth a hundred, sixty, thirty fold.

Hold on just one minute, Jesus! You’re overboard now. The sun must be getting to you! Even the best year of all won’t yield more than seven-fold. Maybe eight. Never thirty, little less a hundred. Jesus, your story would be better if it had a little semblance of reality to it. What kind of crazy sower is this anyway? What kind of story you tellin’ us?

Let anyone with ears, listen! Jesus didn’t say another word. In fact, he just rowed further out in the Sea of Galilee. And they go away, pondering - such a strange story about such a strange sower. Who was that sower? What kind of sower would be so extravagant as to simply scatter seeds without the proper preparation of the ground? But look, someone says . . . look right there . . . seed growing right out of the rock. What would we do without those trees that seem to grow out of impossible soil and provide shade in the fields? And look here, plants and thorns growing together. And look at the flowers on this footpath! Thank God for a bit of seed in unlikely places. Who is that sower?

Let anyone with ears, listen And the people did. They took that parable home with them. They pondered, they considered. They’d heard Jesus before and they knew there was something for them to learn. So they let the parable infect them.

Like those first hearers, we tend to think at first that this parable is about us . . . about how we sow or what kind of soil we are. Or, we think this is about prudent use of resources. But it clearly is not about us or what we do at all. As the parable gets inside us, we realize this is a parable about God and how God works. We look around at the seeds of life scattered in unlikely places and we know for sure that God is different from us. God’s ways are not our ways.

Jesus may have been a city boy but he knew better than to suggest that ordinary sowers would scatter seed without thought to where it would fall. Jesus knew farmers didn’t operate like that. They didn’t have the luxury of seed bags that never ran out of seed. This parable was meant to startle and to create some shock. It started with the obvious and ended with the unimaginable, prodding hearers to look at their world.

For you see, Jesus, despite what he had been taught about people, had befriended a tax collector named Matthew and a sick woman named Mary from the village of Magdala. He had met an unclean woman with a flow of blood whose faith was so awesome he could only marvel at its depth. He’d met a centurion concerned enough about a servant’s health that he dared cross boundaries and seek the services of a Jewish healer. He’d met a leper and a blind man and a deaf man - all who reached out with a faith no one thought they had - and were healed. Jesus had come face to face with the thorny, rocky, rootless dregs of humanity and recognized in them all the seeds of God’s grace. This God he called Abba was working far beyond the narrow confines of the law - even the law they called divine. The Divine Sower was not held captive by religious leaders, living only at the temple . . . no, God was loose! And God’s harvest would be as extravagant as God’s sowing was relentless.

God’s ways are not our ways. God sows extravagantly and we try so hard to organize it and clean it up! Bishop Will Willimon, in a sermon he prepared on this scripture text made this observation:

 

Much of the great good that this God does is unseen by the world, unacknowledged and unnoticed. Few of us will ever read through the Bible, much less comprehend all of the Bible. God has just said too much to us, on too many different subjects, on too diverse occasions. So we hire preachers, to plow through the Bible, then reduce what we have read to four spiritual laws, or three basic principles, or six fundamentals. We human beings act as if it’s our job to comprehend all of God, but in order to do that we have got to considerably reduce God, bring everything down to the lowest common denominator, something that you can put on a bumper sticker.

But then we are reminded that God is bigger than all of our reductions and generalizations.

 

We really want neat, well organized rows in our sowing. But God will not be stopped or contained. Not even by a parable! Let anyone with ears, listen!

A sower went out to sow and, without any thought for good order, good preparation, good planning, that sower scattered seeds everywhere and they grew. When we really think about it, you and I know that, contrary to the parable, seeds can germinate among rocks and thorns and even on a foot path. Each summer, I always try to get up to Glacier for at least a few days. We usually take the road through Augusta and then through the Blackfeet reservation to Browning and then north to St. Mary’s. I am always fascinated by the remnants of the old now unused highway that you can see from the road. Slowly, surely, the grass and wildflowers are reclaiming that road bed - every year it is a little less visible . . . seeds scattered on a rocky, perhaps thorny path attest to the power of a seed. Consider how hard you need to work to keep grass from growing through even the smallest crack in the sidewalk! These were the things the hearers of Jesus’ parable considered as they left that day . . . and you can bet they came back later that day or the next day and argued with Jesus.

You’re wrong, Jesus . . . your parable has it wrong . . . seed grows on a footpath! I’ve seen it even on rocky ground! Even thorns couldn’t stop that tree in Jacob’s field. That sower, Jesus, that sower was foolish . . . but thank God for that foolish sower. And that’s when Jesus would have smiled and said. God is like that. That’s why the harvest is so rich . . . more than we can imagine! Listen if you have ears to hear!

A German medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, writing in the 14th century had this reflection that seems to clearly speak to the power and extravagance of God’s seed scattering. He wrote:

 

The seed of God is in us . . . now, the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, that of a nut tree into a nut tree, and the seed of God grows into God. But if the good seed has a foolish and wicked farmer, then weeds will grow, smothering the good seed and pushing it out, so that it cannot reach the light or grow to its full height. But . . . since it is God himself who has engendered this seed, sowing and implanting it, it can never be destroyed or extinguished in itself, even if it is overgrown and hidden. It glows and gleams, shines and burns and always seeks God.

 

That’s why we ought never give up on a seed! Meister Eckhart was not a fly-by-night. He was a scholar who taught at the University of Paris and the University of Cologne. And, when the Vatican declared him to be a heretic for his radical views, especially on the extravagance of God’s love and immanence of God’s presence, his fame and prominence probably saved him from being burned at the stake.

This crazy sower is not for the faint of heart and the message of this parable has never been easy to hear. We much prefer a God we can control - or at least understand. But it is not to be that way. In the end, pondering this parable, there are two things we must grasp if we are to truly follow Jesus. First, God is with us and in us - all of us. The seed of God is in us. And second, we have some growing to do - all of us. For, the seed of God seeks to grow us up into God. Rather than reducing God’s love, God’s grace, God’s work to the lowest common denominator - like 6 fundamentals or 4 spiritual laws - look instead for the extravagance of the Divine Sower all around.

Listen, if you have ears to hear!