The Sower

Text:  Mark 4:1-20

Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah

September 8, 2024

The kingdom of God is like…

            A mustard seed

            Yeast that a woman puts into flour

            A wedding banquet

            Like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom

            Like a net that someone put down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.

            Like a merchant looking for fine pearls.

What do any of those things have to do with the way God works?  But this is the way Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God. He would say,

            The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop,

…or suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and loses one,

…or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one,

…or there was a man who had two sons,

…or a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he got the snot kicked out of him by robbers.

These are the beginnings of some parables of Jesus.  Parables are stories or metaphors that illustrate a spiritual truth. Some parables teach more than one truth because it seems that certain parables often have more than one meaning.

It says, Jesus taught people many things by parables. Jesus would use images from nature or common life to teach.  And when he was done those who heard the parable were often wondering about what he was saying.  It was almost like Jesus was teasing people’s minds with what he could be talking about.

Sometimes the meaning was fairly clear, but sometimes people were left in doubt. I mean, “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”   That’s it.  That is the entire parable and explanation. Is that really clear to you?  We can just see the disciples looking at one another with raised eyebrows, furled foreheads, looking at each other in awkward silence with expressions that say, “is anyone tracking with the Lord here?”

Sometimes Jesus seemed to teach in parables for the shock value. Often, if not always, he was speaking about the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God was the sum of Jesus’ whole message.  “Repent for the kingdom of God is near” was what he went around proclaiming. Meaning “Change your life because God is powerful and active, and the world is in process of a transformation because God has broken into history in a new way.”[1]  Jesus said that the kingdom of God was about unforgivable debts being met with unlimited forgiveness; that those who have been rebellious are now accepted; that the outsider is now the insider; that all the preconceived notions about how God works have been turned upside down.[2]

The parables are to help us see and understand the kingdom and reign of God. They are to help us see how God works and is working.  They are to help us get what God values.  And again, they take some real listening.

One person has said, “The parable is a question waiting for an answer, an invitation waiting for a response.”[3] You gotta think about them.

The Gospels record Jesus speaking about forty or so parables.  Eugene Peterson said that parables are subversive.  They are subversive in that they seem very ordinary and harmless as they are about seeds, dinners, coins, sheep, merchants.  Only a couple of them even mention the name of God. People would hear these, figure there was nothing threatening about them, walking away somewhat perplexed, subtly wondering what they meant, “and then, like a time bomb, they would explode in their unprotected hearts…[Jesus] was talking about God; they had been invaded!”[4]

Parables don’t necessarily make things easier; they may be harder because we have to use our imaginations and think hard about the meanings. It’s like Jesus wanted to see who was really listening. Jesus taught on an as-you-can-understand basis. It says he used parables as they were able to understand. (4:33) Spiritual understanding comes over time as Jesus gives it to us.

In fact, Jesus said everything is said in parables to those on the outside. There are those on the inside and those on the outside. When the disciples ask him about this parable that we heard today Jesus explained by using a quote from the prophet Isaiah,

            So that, “they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,

and ever hearing but never understanding;

otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!”

This sounds strange to us.  Does Jesus not want people to understand and come to God?  It might mean the parables bewilder those who are hardened toward Jesus.

Jesus is going to take some thought, some engagement and investment. “There is no easy gospel, no cheap grace, no good word that gives assurances to those who drop by hoping for a quick and comfortable deal.”[5] Jesus was not into negotiating quick and comfortable deals.  He told parables because they required an investment.  He didn’t strive to make things easier or more simple for the crowds.  His concern was not to make them more comfortable. He told parables to separate the curious from the serious, and those who merely want religious entertainment from those who want God. Jesus taught in parables because God can’t be packaged in a list of ten succinct principles.

Well, this morning we begin with the parable of the sower.  We could call it the parable of the soils. Or the parable of those with ears.  We begin here because after telling this parable, Jesus says to his disciples, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you” and if they didn’t understand this parable how will they understand any parable? So, this one is important.

The word “parable” literally means “a throwing alongside.”  And in this parable a farmer throws seed all over the place, along all kinds of soil.  He doesn’t seem to be careful.  Seed is just thrown everywhere.

Some falls on hard ground and is eaten by the birds.  It never grows.  Some goes into other soil but it never takes root.  Some goes into rocks and has no room to grow.  And some of the seed falls into good soil and bears a huge harvest.

The disciples hear this and apparently it isn’t apparent to them what Jesus means so they ask him. We learn that this seed represents the word of God. The different types of soil represent people’s hearts.  The parable is about our attitude toward the message of Jesus –or “the word” – which is represented by the seed. In fact, it is about Jesus who is the secret to the kingdom of God.

The seed is received by hearing. Notice how many times Jesus speaks of listening or hearing.  Notice how many times he uses the term “the word”.  The parable begins with “Listen!” Jesus ends it with “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

The various types of soil all receive the word.  But three of the types of soil fail to actually accept it.  The seed dies out and never grows. Only the fourth soil is good soil, allowing the seed to grow and produce a crop.

When the disciples ask for an interpretation of what Jesus was getting at Jesus says that the secret of the kingdom of God has been given to them.  This parable, and others, say something about how God works. Get this one and you get a lot.

Jesus also says these four types of dirt are like people.

The first type of soil is so hard, like a well-beaten path that when they hear words of God the seed just lays there and Satan comes and takes it away. The seed doesn’t get into the dirt because it is so hard.  Hearts can grow hard with resentment, bitterness, or pride.  And when Jesus comes to those people they just push him away.

Jesus said the second type of soil is like someone who receives the word with joy.  But it never takes root.  When the initial high goes away and trials come, they quickly fall away.   Jesus and his words and ways never take root in their lives.

And the third type of soil is those who have so many worries, desires, wealth, and things filling their lives that Jesus’ word gets choked out. Sometimes I wonder if we are just too busy.  Do we have so much comfort, so many things, such a big to-do list to the point we can’t hear God? We can’t receive him?

But there is one type of soil that hears the word, accepts it and produces a crop. This is a person who receives Jesus, embraces what he is and what he wants to do, and grows.

Anytime and anyway Jesus comes to us can our hearts receive him? He may speak in something we read in the Bible.  He may come to us in something we hear in a sermon.  He may come to us in something someone says to us.  He may come to us in a song, in the actions of another person, in a passage from a book, or in a time of prayer.

If we are going to be good soil, then when Jesus lands on our heart we let him in.

A person who is good soil hears Jesus, “love one another” and does that with family, friends and neighbors.  A person who is good soil hears Jesus say “forgive” and they don’t hold grudges or resentments.  A person who is good soil hears Jesus’ call to make disciples and teach what he is about and they do that. A person who is good soil receives Jesus’ and follows his way of touching those in need, healing the sick, and taking the role of a servant.

The parable of the sower is about receiving and responding to Christ.  It is about being a seed that will respond to Jesus and grow and produce fruit for him.

It's interesting that Jesus uses dirt to speak about growth with God. If we are going to grow sometimes we have to feel like dirt.  God humbles the hardness, shallowness and preoccupation out of us. The Spirit attacks our self-centeredness. If I am so proud that I don’t think I have anything to learn or know I can’t receive.  My receptivity is shot.

There is a saying in Jewish rabbinical teaching.  The question is how does the word of God grow in us?  The answer is only after our heart is broken.  Then the word can fall in like a seed and truly grow. Some of the hardest, heart-breaking experiences are the ones that bring God’s fruit in our lives.  It’s like God has to plow up the hard ground and rototill our hearts so that he can get into us and grow. You ever feel like that?

In this parable the good soil is the one that produces growth. Growth does not mean it is always an upward, smooth path. Someone once said to me that Jesus is like a farmer who comes and cleans up the field which is our lives. He removes the rocks of sin, the weeds of greed, and the roots of fear.  And it really can be unpleasant.  Even if we are good soil he comes and dumps a bunch of manure on us.  Sometimes things have to stink before we can grow.

Our hearts need work. Some places are hard and need softening.  Other places are too shallow.  Other places are too crowded.  The words of God have a way of raking, pulling, watering, and nourishing. If you haven’t already, I hope you have the experience of deep and rich hearing God through the Bible. It is life transforming.

Good soil is rich humus.  Good dirt is often made up of decaying and dying stuff.  It is often made up of all the decaying and dying parts of us.  The beauty of God’s work is that he can take what is painful, broken, or the failures in our lives and compost them into something where he can sprout and grow.

Growth in Christ is often a path downward.  We often think of growth as upward but first there has to be growth downward. Think of the seed of a plant. The roots have be formed and struggle down into the dirt before the sprouts, the plant, and the harvest can come.

Our word for “humility” comes from the Latin word “humus” which means ground, soil, dirt.  The word humiliation came from a word meaning “nearness to the ground”. For a seed to grow it has to die.  Christian faith is about dying to ourselves and living to Christ Jesus. And as this happens we go deeper in him.  Sometimes it is out of the mere fact we have to hold on to him in ways we don’t do when all is well. The deeper we go the more we grow.

Remember Jesus said that this parable is about the secret of the kingdom of God.

We don’t live in a kingdom.  Probably most if not all never have or will.  What do we know about kingdoms?

A kingdom is not a democracy.  In a kingdom everything happens according to who is king.

The kingdom of God is where the things God wants to happen are actually happening. It takes place in lives.  In hearts.

One of the things Jesus taught us to pray is for the kingdom to come.

In this parable the harvest is his kingdom. The kingdom is where God is in charge.  When people are living in response to God’s grace the kingdom is here. God’s kingdom and reality are not apparent to this world.  There is no Facebook page.  No web site.  God doesn’t have a television show or bestselling book about this.  But to those who have the secret of the kingdom of God, who I believe is Jesus, they begin to see it.

Again, in this parable, Jesus is not only the sower of the word but the word itself.  And if you want to get the secret of the kingdom you have to get him.

If the kingdom of God isn’t a place then how do we live in it? I know we have this world and day to day existence.  We live in the world of political battles, school shootings, major athletic events, bad air quality, academics, wars, and family dynamics.  But is that all there is?  Is something else happening? We need to be reminded that amidst all we see in our lives and world, the good and the bad, God’s kingdom is coming and growing.

The kingdom of God is where Jesus reigns. It is the in-breaking of what God is doing in the world. It is where those who understand that Jesus is the true king are living. When people gather to worship God the kingdom is there.  When people walk in humility the kingdom is there.  When people pray with and for one another the kingdom is there.  When people serve others with self-sacrificial love the kingdom is there.  When people forgive the kingdom is there. Where Jesus is honored the kingdom of God is there.

Even though Jesus says there is a three-fourths rate of failure of the seed to grow, a huge harvest does come at the end.  A tenfold yield was considered a good harvest.  In Jesus’ teaching the seed on good soil brings thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold. Harvest is sometimes used in the Bible as a metaphor for the breaking in of God. 

With this parable Jesus is assuring his disciples and us that what God has begun in his ministry, despite apparent failure, will have ultimate success.[6]  Though Jesus was rejected, opposed, eventually arrested and crucified, a bumper crop and great harvest has come. Look at what is happening in Jesus’ name today!

Maybe the point of Jesus’ parables are to keep us from thinking too superficially about Jesus, thinking we’ve got him all figured-out, so that we forget about him. Maybe the parables want to expose us to the adventure that comes not by our getting Jesus, but by him getting us.[7]

Can we accept him?  Let his word do its work in our life?  Move us?  Change us? Can we be good soil?

I come from California which is earthquake country.  Earthquakes don’t just happen.  They are the result of things that have long been existing and building up underneath the surface: rifts, pressure, fault lines. They are subversive.  And then, boom!  They come.

The kingdom of God, the reality and presence of Jesus, is like an earthquake. Jesus said the kingdom has come and is coming. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

Prayer: Our Father, whose name is holy, your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  And let your kingdom come in us. Help us to be good soil, receptive to you in all the ways you come.  Amen.

[1] John R. Donahue, The Gospel in Parable, p.10

[2] P.17

[3] P.19

[4] The Contemplative Pastor, p.42

[5] Brueggemann, commentary on Isaiah, p. 63

[6] Donahue, p.33

[7] Will Willimon, Why Jesus?  P. 29