Posted:10/05/07
Explore the Bible Series for October 14
Be patient with others
• Matthew 13:1-53
Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene
Our family recently moved into a new home out in the country. We have almost completely settled into our new address. Most of the moving boxes have been unpacked, several of our favorite pictures are hung and window treatments are on the way.
Whereas the inside of our house has started to come together, outside landscaping is another matter. We currently have no grass on our acre lot. Yesterday, I worked in our front yard about three hours. As I write, my back is aching, my arms are sore, and my hands are blistered. It has been some time since I’ve attempted a significant landscaping project, and the work I have done hardly shows. As a matter of fact, if you were to look at my yard, you could not really tell I had done anything at all.
I spent all my time with a steel rake, manually plowing up about half an acre of unforgiving West Texas clay soil. I imagine I looked ridiculous. A life-long suburbanite, now living in the country, bent over with rake in hand, trying to prepare the earth to receive a mixture of fertilizer and winter rye seed. Most of my new neighbors have tractors to do this sort of work. Nevertheless, I have learned my lesson. Today I am planning on going to a local gardening store to buy both fertilizer and seed so I can sow this afternoon. While I am there, I will take a look at few riding lawn mowers!
The parable of the sower
In Matthew 13:3-8, Jesus recites the parable of the sower. Most of us are familiar with this story. A farmer goes out to sow. Some of his seed falls along a path, some on rocky places, some among thorns and some on good soil. Only the good soil produces a crop. Jesus concludes the account with, “He who has ears, let him hear.”
Most of Jesus’ teaching in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) comes by way of parables. Why didn’t Jesus just say what he wanted to say without creating any ambiguity? Wouldn’t it have been easier to teach in a more direct manner? Parables are difficult to understand. They require readers to pay attention, to work at understanding their meaning. You cannot read a parable quickly and make much sense of it. They invite the reader to ponder, to reflect and to draw analogies.
“Why do you speak to the people in parables?” the disciples asked Jesus. He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them” (Matthew 13:11).
Jesus’ response to the disciples seemed straightforward enough. They were privy to interpretations and explanations the crowds were not. Nevertheless, the secret was more than a trite compact answer. The secret was a person. Jesus was the secret. He was the key to understanding the parables and the key to understanding the kingdom of heaven.
That kingdom was inherently connected to the life and ministry of Jesus. As a domain, it involved more than heavenly matters; it was equally concerned with God’s reign on earth. Jesus taught his disciples to pray about the kingdom of heaven on earth: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10). In this way, Jesus brought heaven to earth.
Again, he was the secret. The disciples had direct access to him; others did not. The seeds in the parable represented much more than sharing the gospel with the lost; the parable was more about how the seed had power to transform lives.
When we live out the good news, we live the life of the Secret; that is, we live out the life of Christ. We become the Word. We become servants. We love others more than ourselves. We find the compassion to forgive those who have wronged us and the humility to ask forgiveness from those we’ve wronged. In essence, we die to ourselves. We become good soil for the seed to take root. And, as I learned, preparing soil for seeding is not easy. It requires much work, and so do we.
Don’t neglect the soil
I once heard an African-American pastor deliver a powerful sermon from this passage. He believed Christians focus too much on the seed and neglect the soil. He directed attention to the farmer. The sower scattered seed indiscriminately; not knowing where the seed might fall. He was not instructed to work solely on the good soil. The farmer must sow everywhere. According to this parable, success was not very promising—a 75 percent failure rate. Failure was to be expected.
The pastor ended his sermon, bellowing loudly in a deep, scratchy voice: “So go on now! Go on, I say! Sow the seed, farmers, sow seed.” The audience thought this was a rhetorical device he employed to conclude his message. After a long silence, we soon learned that his directives were instead his benediction, for he repeated: “I said go on, get out of here and go on! Go on! I’m not playing around. There’s work to be done on you and on your neighbors. So get on out of this house of the Lord, and work the soil, you farmers!”
As we were leaving, he told us, “Remember that the tiniest seed has the potential to harness enough energy to grow in the most unlikely places. Once rooted, something so small, with enough light and just a little water, can break up the hardest dirt and turn up even the roughest asphalt. So don’t worry about the seed; just sow.”
Go on, now!
Discussion questions
• What does it mean for the kingdom of heaven to be here on earth?
• Why do you think Jesus taught primarily in parable?
• Can you think of examples where the seed has transformed lives?
• Jesus evidently sowed the seed, yet people turned away from his message. How is this fact reflected in the parable of the sower?
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