We've planted our vegetable garden again this year, or I should say
Andy planted our vegetable garden again this year: tomatoes, beans
eggplant, and melons. They're all taking good root this year. Our
trees are beginning to bear fruit in abundance. If you need apricots,
come pick off our two trees!
When we sow seeds in our garden, it isn't the sowing that is the
hobby. It is the gathering of the abundant harvest that really makes
gardening fun. Jesus used this very simple tale to tell an important
story, to reveal an important truth. With a parable, Jesus revealed
something of God's activity in the world and in our hearts. And there
is a word here, not only of power contained in God's word, but also a
word of responsibility for those who have ears to hear.
So let's take a look at this story. We have three important elements
of this story. (You're not supposed to dissect a parable into minute
little pieces, but clearly, overall the story is a metaphor. The
obvious meaning is most likely Jesus' meaning.) The first element of
the story is the sower, whom we hear nothing about except that he
sowed the seeds. The sower represents God going about the
business of revealing himself. The sower sows seeds in the soil. God
plants his word in our hearts.
The second element is the seed. The seed is the Word of God, which,
when planted in a new place, unleashes the power of the kingdom of
God. The Word of God, broadcast and scattered, accomplishes
something: something other-worldly, something spiritual. It is not
purposeless. It is not without meaning. Quite the contrary. God's
Word has power. Paul put it this way in his letter to the Romans,
"I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God
for the salvation of all who believe." The prophet Isaiah
broadcast to us these words of God in Chapter 55: "As the rain
and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without
watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields
seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so it is that my Word
goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will
accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent
it." So the word of God has purpose.
Then the third element in this story is the soil. Now the soil really
represents our ears, or our hearts. The other-worldly power, if
understood, takes root and grows and bears fruit in our lives. The
fruit Jesus talks about throughout the gospels is a life that
produces faith, produces obedience to God and love towards one's
neighbor. You know that it was a good seed that found good soil, when
it sprouts and it grows and it bears the fruit for which it is
created.
This parable asks us a very simple question: What kind of soil are
we? What kind of ears do we have? We are given four choices. There
are four kinds of soil that are illustrated in this passage. The
first is the compressed soil of the foot path. The seed that falls on
the hard ground will not grow there. It can't penetrate. It can't
take root and is vulnerable to the birds that will snatch it away.
Anybody who has ever planted a lawn and jealously guards that patch
of ground so the birds don't get the seed before it actually has a
chance to germinate knows what I mean. In this case, the Word has
been broadcast but falls on deaf ears. It was never understood. This
is the person who never gets it. In contrast, we had kind of an
"ah-hah" moment here a few minutes ago at the offering
time. .
I think about another time when, for years, I didn't "get
it." The minister of music at the church I served formerly had a
license plate that said, "SING FOURTH." For years I looked
at that license plate and assumed it meant "Sing the musical
interval of a fourth." All of a sudden, one morning, I looked at
that and said, "Oh my gosh! That's not what that means. It means
'Sing forth!" I finally got it. I was so embarrassed. How did I
miss that? Ah-hah!
There are people who hear the gospel, who perhaps hear the voice of
God, but they never get it. Before it has a chance to germinate, it
is snatched away. The Word is considered irrelevant, and it does not
register.
The second soil is the shallow soil that is the kind you see in the
Sierra where you've got these great big boulders. In Israel it would
be limestone or sandstone. In the Sierra it's granite. But there is a
very thin coating of soil over it. It's actually pretty slippery to
walk on. But you will find wildflowers that grow from it, without
much stamina. As soon as it gets really dry, there aren't enough
roots there to sustain the plant, and it withers and dies. This
represents the person who might have gotten the message of the
gospel, but forgets it. The Word is greeted with a joyful conversion,
but is not followed up in the Christian's life with time and effort
to understand and apply the Word of God to everyday life.
This contrasts with an image the Psalmist uses, of a tree sinking its
roots deeply down. Psalm 1: "Blessed is the
one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he
meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of
water, a tree which yields its fruits in season." So the
righteous one described in Psalm 1 is the one whose roots actually
can sink way down where there is an ever-present source of water. But
in the case described in Jesus' parable, the one who gets it but
forgets it when difficulties come - confusing circumstances, a
trauma, trials, persecution, whatever - this person's roots are not
deep enough to survive spiritually, and they wither away.
This is why I'm always talking about your discipleship. Now is the
time to learn what God has given you to learn because you don't know
if tomorrow or this week or this year will be the year you have to
know what you believe because it will be the only thing you have to
stand on. If your roots aren't deep before the storm comes or before
the withering sun comes, spiritually, you might not survive. That is
why Christian discipleship and nurture is so incredibly important.
The text is clear that this soil does represent a truly converted
person, but there is a vulnerability here that challenges our notion
of "once-saved, always saved." The Scripture is not really
clear on that particular point. In this case a person truly saved
greets the Word with joyful conversion but soon withers away under
certain conditions. There is a word of warning there. Don't be one
with shallow roots. You wouldn't want that to happen to you. We're
not called to put our trust in a brilliant, big conversion but on God
himself.
The third illustration is the soil that is overrun with thorns. Andy
and I were on a hike yesterday and saw some of the most spectacular
thistles, actually beautiful in their own perverted way. But those
thorns were twisty-turny along the edges of the trail and nothing
else can thrive around them. This signifies the person who gets it
but loses it, the person who hears the Word of God and responds
positively to it initially, but then the world in which that person
lives competes for his attention.
The Scripture here refers to two things that choke off the word: the
"anxiety of the age" (the worries of this world) and the
"lie of wealth." Two insidious competitors to God's Word
taking root in our life.
The anxiety of the age. What's that about? I think back to the week
or two prior to the Y2K turnover, remember, the last week of 1999.
You would turn on the television and everybody, everybody was
worried about all kinds of things happening when the calendar turned
2000. Do you remember that? I remember telling you at the time, I
stopped watching the television because the anxiety of the age was
overwhelming and, in my mind, unnecessary.
Other things that become anxiety of the age: What are we going to do
if we run out of power in the state of California, or what is
happening in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? Does this mean the end
of denominations? You know, those fears get bigger and bigger in our
minds, and actually compete to win in the minds and hearts of Christians.
Those who divert themselves towards those issues and lose sight of
the sower, our Lord Jesus Christ, are choked by the thorns.
The second is the lie of the world, the lie of wealth. Success,
the good life, and abundance of possessions - almost the opposite of
the anxiety of the age - woo people away from their reliance upon God.
There is a Jewish proverb that goes like this: Blessed is the man who
has little, for everything he has cries out to him, "Rely on
God." But the man who has everything is tempted with the cry of
his possessions, "Rely on us." That is the temptation: Too
much, too little, the anxiety of this age, those are the elements of
life around us that become the thorny soil that crowds out the fruit
of the Word of God in our lives.
And then finally we have the good soil, the well-cultivated soil,
aerated, watered, fertilized soil representing the person who gets it
and gets it and keeps getting it; the one who is not only receptive
but understands. The Protestant Reformers talked about how the Holy
Spirit working within us, helps us to understand. Fertile spiritual
soil does not belong to some people who are smarter than others, but
some people are more open to the work of the Spirit of God in their
lives and are ready to hear the translation of the Word into real
life terms. This is the person who hears the Word of God, understands
it, internalizes it, applies it, and because of that then, lives a
fruitful life for the kingdom.
In the middle section of this passage, we have the uncomfortable
references to those who do not understand, to those whose hearts are
hardened, whose ears are closed, whose eyes are blind to the truth of
the gospel. What is going on? If Jesus is so concerned for
people's receptivity, why would he make matters worse by telling
parables instead of just telling the truth straight out?
Jesus told stories, and by doing so was very much a man of his time.
People who thought in a Hebrew mindset told stories to convey the
profound truths of the universe. Jesus would tell the story, then
give a few little clues as to the meaning or the application of the
story. The hearer was invited to heed and to understand. We'll see
this pattern throughout the gospel as we look at more and more
parables. The story first, then the point second.
Now this is opposite to the way we do things in our Western
Greek-thinking world today. We make our point, and then we illustrate
it, right? At the offering time, I tried to do something a little
different. I started it with a story about those seed packets, and
then you got it, and then I explained the point. That's a more Hebrew
way of doing it, and that's what Jesus did.
The purpose of parables, Jesus said, was to make known the secrets of
the kingdom of heaven to ordinary people. If you're willing to enter
into the story that uses ordinary language, the truth of the gospel
is available to you. Jesus said: "Those people who think they're
wise are never going to get it, because they're way up there in the clouds.
They have a vested interest in not understanding that one becomes
humble in the face of the gospel. But those who understand the story
taught in a parable are open, open to the wondrous work of God in
their lives."
Remember last week the parable that the prophet Nathan told King
David after David's sin with Bathsheba? Nathan didn't come storming
into David's palace and say, "Don't you know that the law says
this and you're supposed to do this, this and this, and you've broken
the law?" No. What did Nathan do? He went in there and he told a
story of the wealthy man who had all kinds of herds, and yet when he
had house guests went to steal the one ewe lamb of his poor neighbor.
David reacted in outrage because he saw that outrage in the story.
And then what did Nathan do? He said, "David, that man is
you." Oh, he was nailed. He got it because he got the
story first.
Those who get it will hear it loud and clearly. Those who don't get
it call it nonsense. God has given every person the freedom to
call the gospel nonsense and to act accordingly. But when we do that,
we lose the opportunity to know God and to experience his salvation,
the very essence of what this parable represents. So I'd like to give
a word of encouragement to you, first of all, to all of you who are
teaching. Those of you who are Sunday school teachers, the preachers
in our midst, all of those who share the Word with someone else,
remain faithful to your task, even knowing that three-fourths of the
people you share the gospel with will not bear fruit. But know and be
encouraged by the fact that the fruitfulness of the remaining
one-quarter who do hear and understand the Word of God that you have
shared will make up for all the others.
And for those of us who are hearers of the Word, we are exhorted by
Jesus to keep receiving and keep hearing and keep understanding the Word.
If we remain open like that, then Jesus promises we will bear fruit.
Keep applying the Word of God to your lives. Everyday there is
something new that God is sharing with you through the Word written,
interpreted by his Holy Spirit in your life. Stay open to that, and
you will bear fruit.
That is the very simple promise given to us today. The gospel of
Jesus Christ is powerful. Those seeds are so laden and fertile.
Let them do their work, and God's Kingdom business will not only be
accomplished in us but through us! Let God yield the
increase as he desires.
Amen.
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