The Parable of the Sower
Colin Bird
Matthew 13; 1-9, 18-23
The parable of the Sower is one that would be familiar to most of us and in this chapter of Matthew not only do we have the parable itself, but further down the verses we are given the explanation. However, there is more to this scripture than would appear at first glance. Mathew chapter 13 is an important turning point in the ministry of Jesus. In the beginning we find him teaching in the synagogues but now there has been a change of mood. As he enters the synagogues now, it would not only be to find a crowd of eager listeners; it would also be to find a bleak eyed company of Scribes, Pharisees and elders weighting and sifting through his every word to find a charge against him and watching every action in order to turn it into a condemnation or an accusation. As to doors of the synagogue were closing against him, he took to the Temple of the Open air, and taught people in the village streets, on the road, by the lake side and in their homes and anywhere he could get people to listen to his message. And it is now that he starts in earnest to teach in parables. Up to this point he had used similes to make a point eg. Salt and light- you are the salt of the earth but what use are you if you lose your saltiness? You are the light of the world, don’t put your light under a bowl. The pictures of the birds not sowing or reaping yet God provides for their every need, and the lilies that do not labour or spin and are more beautiful than the splendour of Solomon, yet they are here today and gone tomorrow. And so on. These are referred to as truth pictures. Now Jesus moves on to delivering his message using parables, or short stories and Jesus was the master of the short story. It is helpful and important to understand why he used parables. Firstly, we must take cognisance of Jesus audience. Whilst they were not ignorant, they would have been simple folk and very few would have grasped and understood abstract ideas; most people think in pictures. Trying to explain beauty would be hard enough but pointing out and saying “that is a beautiful person or that is a beautiful blossom “then no more description is needed. We might try for long enough to define goodness, but everyone recognises a good person or a good deed when they see one. The first great quality of a parable is that it makes truth into a picture which everyone can see and understand. Next it is said that ‘all great teachings begin from the here and now, in order to get us to the there and then’. If you want to teach someone about things they do not understand, you must start with things they do understand. A parable begins with material which every person understands, because it is within their own experience, and from that it leads them on to open their eyes to the things they have failed to see. A parable opens a person’s mind and eyes by beginning from where are and leading them on to where they should be. Thirdly the teaching virtue of a parable is that it compels interest. The surest way to interest people is to tell them a story. People will not listen, and their attention cannot be retained unless they are interested in your story. I bet you have all had to endure some excruciating sermons. But not today! Isn’t that the truth! Parables also compel us to discover the truth for ourself. Here is a story, what is the truth in it, what does it mean for me. Unless we discover truth for ourselves it remains second hand. ( Repeat) By compelling a person to draw his or her own conclusions and to do their own thinking, at one and the same time makes truth real and fixes it in their memory. If I tell you something I believe to be true, you have to take my word for it. But if you find it for yourself, it will have more meaning and it will be fixed in your memory. One final thing that must be remember of Jesus’ parables is that they were spoken; they were not read. Its impact had to be immediate, not the result of study with commentaries and other people’s interpretations. It intended to make truth flash upon the listener as lightning suddenly illuminated a pitch-black night. In general, the parables of Jesus will only have one point. A wow moment. A parable is not an allegory; an allegory is a story in which every possible detail has an inner meaning; an allegory must be read and studied: a parable is heard. It has been suggested that we should take care not to make allegories of the parables, but to remember that they were designed to make one stabbing truth flash out at us the moment we hear it. So, the story that Jesus is telling in todays reading is a picture which everyone in Palestine would have understood. Jesus is using the here and now to get to the there and then. Jesus may very well have seen a man in his field off in the distance from where he was in the boat, sowing seed which prompted him to use that real life example as the foundation of his story. In those days there were two ways of sowing seed. One was to take the seed in your hand and scatter it as you walked up the field, the second was to put the sack of seed on the back of an ass, cut a hole in the corner of the sack, then walk the animal up and down the field as the seed spilled out. Everyone listening would have understood that using either of these methods would have its downfalls. Some seed falling on the path that ran along the side of and between the fields. Some landing amongst rocky places, not every field is made up of deep rich soils. There would be areas where there were more stones than soil, as many of the farmers here can attest to. Thorns and weeds would compete with the seed and that there would be losses. But despite all these obstacles most of the seed would fall on the good ground, germinate, grow up and produce a crop to sustain the life of himself and his family. So, the here and now is straight forward and easy to visualise and understand. But what about the there and then? This parable has a double impact as it is aimed at two sets of people. One set are the hearers of the word. It is thought that the interpretation of the parable given in verses 18-23 was not given by Jesus at the time because of the depth of detail, but rather by preachers of the early church later. If we take this parable as a warning to hearers, it means that the word of God and the fruit it produces depends on the heart of those who accept it. The fate of any spoken word depends on the hearer. As has been said “a joke or a jest’s prosperity lies not in the tongue of him who tells it, but in the ear of him who hears it”. A jest will succeed when told to someone with a sense of humour but will fail when told to a humourless individual. Who then are the hearers described and warned in this parable? (a) There is the hearer with the closed mind into whose mind the word has no more chance of gaining an entry than the seed falling on the pathway which has been beaten hard by many feet. The unteachable spirit can erect a barrier which cannot easily be broken down. Many a person refuses to listen or to recognise the truth which condemns him, for there are none so blind as those who deliberately will not see. (b) The hearer whose mind is like shallow ground. They are the people who are at the mercy of every new craze. They take a thing up quickly and just as quickly drop it. Some people’s lives are littered with things begun and never finished. A person can be like that with the word. When they hear it, they can be swept off their feet with an emotional reaction; but no one can live on an emotion. A sudden enthusiasm can so quickly become a dying fire. (c) The hearer who has so many interests in life that certain things, and often the most important things, get crowed out. A characteristic of today’s modern life. Too preoccupied to have any time for God, giving opportunity for the weeds to take over. Second best is always the worst enemy of the best. (d) The person who hears is like the good ground and receives the word in 4 stages. With an open mind always willing to learn, prepared to hear, never too proud or busy to listen. With understanding, by thinking things through and knowing what it means to them and prepared to accept it. And finally translates their hearing into action. They produce the good fruit of the good seed. The second set of people impacted by this parable are those who preach the word. Not only was it meant to say something to the listening crowd; it was also meant to say something to the inner circle of disciples. And perhaps it was them that this parable was truly meant for. It should also be remembered that we are all included in the inner circle of disciples. To them Jesus was everything, the wisest and most wonderful of all. But humanly speaking he was having little success, the synagogues were closing to him, the leaders of the orthodox religion were his bitterest critics and were obviously out to destroy him. And whist there were the crowds, there were so few who were being changed. They were there to reap the benefit of his healing power, who when they had received it went away and forgot. Remember when Jesus healed numerous people, very few came back to give thanks. It is not surprising if in the hearts of the disciples there was sometimes deep discouragement and disappointment. What then does this parable say to them? For them the lesson is in the climax of the parable, in the picture of the seed of the word which brought forth abundant fruit. Some seed may fall by the wayside and be snatched up by the birds; some seed may fall on shallow ground and never come to maturity; some seed may fall among the thorns and the weeds and be choked to death; but in spite of all that, the harvest does come, the harvest is sure. No farmer ever expects every seed he sows to germinate and bring forth fruit. He knows quite well that some will be blown away by the wind, and some will fall where it cannot grow, but that does not stop him sowing and that does not make him give up hope in the harvest. The farmer sows in the confidence that, even if some of the seed is wasted, none the less, the harvest will certainly come. So, then this parable is a parable of encouragement to those who sow the seed of the word. When a person sows the seed, they cannot, and they must not look for quick results. There is never any haste in natures growth. It takes a long time before an acorn becomes an oak; and it may take a long time before the seed germinated in a person’s heart. But often a word dropped in a person’s heart as a child may lay dormant and asleep until some day it awakens and saves them from some great temptation and preserves their soul from death. We live in an age that looks for quick results but in the sowing of the seed we must sow in patience and sow in hope, and sometimes we must leave the harvest to the years. The lightning strike ‘truth moment’ from this parable could be that we need to exercise patience and perseverance when we sow the seed, understanding that there will be losses. But the assurance is that there will be the hope of a harvest to look forward to.
Amen