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| Sower by Vincent Van Gogh |
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| The Sower by Lee Lawrie |
While I was growing up in the country back in rural Northeastern Pennsylvania, we had large yards around our home; front, back and sides. In the big back yard, we always had a garden. Actually there were several gardens; some with flowers some with vegetables. I remember clearly planting the vegetable gardens: corn, and zucchini, and lettuce, and beans, and tomatoes, and so on.
Most of it, of course, was planted from seeds in the spring. And what I remember was that we would create long furrows in the dirt. And then, according to the directions on the seed packets we would put one or two seeds every few inches. As spring wore on to summer and the chance of frost was but a memory, the seeds would sprout and small plants would appear in the soil. We would weed to eliminate any competition for the rain and nutrients in the soil. With enough care and tending, by the end of summer there would be fresh corn, zucchini, lettuce, beans, and tomatoes.
Of course, all this was done by hand; we dug up the garden and hoed the furrows and placed the seed in by ourselves; a far cry, I’m certain, from the practices of modern agribusinesses. Our little plot was nothing compared to the acres of farming that requires tractors and other machinery to do what we did by hand. But the basis of the growing process remains the same: create rows of holes in the dirt where seeds can go.
How different from the method that Jesus describes in his parable of the seeds. Then, the seeds were scattered by a sower who flings the seeds across a field, much like the statue of The Sower by Lee Lawrie which sits atop the tower of the Nebraskan capitol building or the painting by Van Gogh. No straight rows, no holes dug. Just hurl the seeds and wait.
And it was that waiting period that Jesus talked about. Some seeds get flung on a pathway with soil too compacted for any roots to take hold so they become bird feed. Some get flung in rocky soil, where there isn’t enough room for their roots and the sun scorches them. Some are thrown among thorns and weeds which allow the plant to grow a little but soon crowd out the young plant and choke it off. Finally, some of the seeds get tossed onto good soil: no rocks, no weeds or thorns and soil loose enough for roots to burrow down into the nutrient rich earth. These seeds of course are the ones that provide for the sower and yield the grain or vegetables that they were meant to produce.
Now why would Jesus talk in parables, which can be hard to understand and difficult to comprehend? Their meaning is as difficult to hold onto as grasping a fistful of sand. It seeps out of every opening in your hand until you are left with a few grains of sand and air.
Remember that Jesus was outside teaching this to the crowds. Early on, such as at the time of the sermon on the mount, Jesus was direct, as he was with his disciples in private. But why this switch to confounding parables at this point.
Possibly, Jesus’ renown was gaining attention in many quarters, including those arenas that would be a danger to his life, as we know happened. In large crowds, there could be followers and supporters but there could also be spies for the religious authorities and even the empire. In the NRSV Bible passage which we heard this morning, Jesus begins and ends this parable by saying “listen” a clue perhaps to his followers that they’re going to have to do some of the work here to understand what’s going on. “Let anyone with ears, listen.”
Jesus does, later in chapter 13, go on to explain this parable to his disciples who come out and ask him why he’s talking so confusingly in these parables. In his explanation, which we also heard this morning, he focuses on the seeds and what they do, where they land and how they are like us hearing the Word and reacting in various ways. It’s not about judging what kind of soil others have landed in, though the temptation to do could be strong. It’s about looking at the soil around you and where you yourself have landed that counts. To the tiny Christian community that Matthew was addressing, surely these words would have been comforting. In the face of opposition by the Jewish authorities and the great Roman Empire, surely they, those early Christians, must have wondered if they were going to survive, both individually and collectively. Finding yourself in good soil gives hope. And we, unlike seeds, have some say over what sort of soil we find ourselves in.
But what if it’s not all about us? What if the parable is about the sower, who, in this case, is God? As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns but about the extravagance of a sower who flings seed everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon…confident that there is enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes in at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?" (from UCC Samuel website: http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/july-10-2011-fifteenth-sunday.html)
Where does that leave us with this parable, if we focus on God the extravagant sower rather than on us and on the soil in which we find ourselves? That shift in focus, turns our attention to God’s grace and love which God flings about as if it weren’t the most precious thing in the world, even though it is. God’s seeds are indeed God’s grace and love which the world, whether it realizes it or not, desperately needs. God is profligate in distributing these seeds, even to us.
Of course, shifting the focus back to us for a moment, we can do what we please with these seeds of love and grace; we can hold onto them tightly and not let them out of our grasp or we can be find ways to pass them on, realizing that this God of ours is going to fling more seeds our way. In a sense we become the soil, not the seed. We can try to hold back the love and grace that God hurls about but if we are the good soil, we’ll allow it to take root and grow within us and then pass it on as a grown plant produces seed for the next generation of its species.
God will continue to fling the seeds of grace and love all over the world. It’s up to us what happens to the seeds that come our way. What will you do with your seeds?
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