Scattering Seeds
Text: Matthew 13:1-9
Today we live in a day and age where the Biblical stories are becoming less and less familiar. Those core stories are no longer part of the “cultural collective,” where even a mere hint of a word brings to mind many images from the Bible. Yet this is not a problem for the storytellers, there are as many Biblical allusions and ideas in modern literature and film as there ever were. One only has to go out and see films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the latest Star Wars film to catch a glimpse of this. The stories are still there, and are still being told in different ways, but fewer and fewer people know that these stories come to us from the Bible.
Yet in light of today’s scripture reading, that is not necessarily a bad thing. The parable of the sower is so well known, literally thousands of sermons have been written on these few short verses in the gospels. Sometimes I think it is possible to be too familiar with a story. We hear the same tale over and over again. We hear it so many times that we think we know what it says, and we tune it out. Been there. Heard that. Next lesson.
But what if being too familiar with a story in the Bible prevented us from hearing what God is saying to us? After all, there is good reason why some say “familiarity breeds contempt.” This is doubly true for parables. These are very short stories with amazing twists and turns. We’re so familiar with them that we don’t even realize what’s happening.
There is a real benefit in hearing a story for the first time. The greatest impact of many stories is the surprises they have in store for us. We read a mystery because we want to find out who did it and how; we watch adventure movies to see if the heroes can overcome the great obstacles. Yet once we’ve seen it once, or think we’ve heard it, it loses its impact. We know the ending, we know how it goes... or do we?
Take the parable of the sower. It’s one of these ones that is much too familiar:
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, because it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty, and sixty and a hundredfold.”
We know this one... Yeah, we’ve heard it... The seed is supposed to be the word of God, planted within us, and it well, grows... kinda sorta... But this is a parable. It has a message on its own. It stands by itself. When Jesus used them he was telling us what the kingdom of God is like... They were meant to be heard by people who were dirt poor, living off the land in Galilee. This story has lost its meaning for us. We’ve even lost what the word parable means. Parable comes from the same word as parabola, that strange mathematical arc that goes in one direction and suddenly hooks around sharply and goes another direction. It means the stories end up in places that we never expect. They lead us in one direction, and then the land in a completely different place, throwing us off balance. We need to be able to hear parables that way...
To our 21st Century, post-industrial, technologically-advanced ears, the fact that a single grain of wheat can produce 30, 60, or 100 times itself is not really a big deal. Yet in Jesus’ time, a single grain of wheat was only expected to produce five grains per seed at most. Plant one seed, get five in return. That’s not a lot, especially when you consider how much one needs to live on.
Let’s do the math: one could expect five seeds in return for each seed planted in good soil. As soon as those seeds are harvested the farmer needs to set aside at least one out of every five to put back into the ground so that next year’s crop will be the same size as this one. This is assuming no disasters happen. The remaining four seeds are divided up between making bread and other food, and making sure the livestock is fed. There is none to sell. This is purely survival. Profit margin is not a factor. There’s no margin of error here either. If something goes wrong and the family has to dip into the stored up seed for planting it means there will be less and less each year.
The seeds are more precious than gold. If so few grains are returned for every one that is nurtured
Now imagine we are in a group of first century farmers who knows this, who are now listening to Jesus.
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. As he sowed some seed fell on the path...”
“Oh come on!” we say, “Fix your bag!! You’re losing seed! Remember you only get five seeds back for each one you put in the ground. You’ve now cut that down to four!! Besides, what kind of aim is that!”
Jesus continues, “Other seed fell on rocky ground...”
Again, the listeners are going nuts. This sower is going out into the field flinging these seeds here and there with no real idea or care where they’re landing. Precious seed is being wasted.
The next handful is flung into the weeds. Nothing’s going to grow there, because weeds are so good at stealing the nutrients from other less hardy plants. The plant that grows will never produce anything. Another seed is wasted.
With our 2005 ears, we miss feeling horror at the sower’s careless attitude, scattering precious seed without a care for where, ensuring that three quarters of the seeds sown will never produce ANYTHING! If a single seed produces 5-6 grains, then the sower
will barely break even, and will more than likely starve since there’s nothing to save for food. Someone who is planting seed cannot afford to be that sloppy! The marvel of the story is that in spite of the carelessness of the sower, the seed that does land in good soil, produces a crop beyond wildest imagination. What if the kingdom of God is like this?
What if the Kingdom of God is where great plenty and growth comes out of seemingly careless abandon? What does that do to our Protestant work ethic? We want to think, “Work hard and be rewarded.” But this is not what Jesus is saying. The joy of the kingdom of God happens despite our best efforts. God is quite capable of producing great abundance even where we would call it a total loss. So how would it be if we tried to put ourselves into the shoes of someone who was dirt poor and hungry in first century Galilee. The joy and wonder of the kingdom of God takes on a whole new meaning. Imagine... The kingdom of God is like a place where no one is hungry and all will be fed... amazing news to someone who is starving!!!
Instead, we don’t know this context, and we miss the point. We want to think of ourselves as good soil in which the word of God is to grow. Again, we want to think, “work hard and be rewarded.” All that’s needed is for us to be good people, right? The seed bounces right on past us.
If we remember nothing else about parables, remember this: Jesus used parables to describe the kingdom of God. Jesus addresses the question, “what is the kingdom of God like?” He doesn’t use words to describe it, he uses stories to take us on an emotional rollercoaster ride. It’s nothing like we know. It is where everything that we come to expect, all those ideas of cause and effect is turned on its ear. A careless action yields amazing results.
For God, all things are possible. Who knows what amazing thing will grow out of scattered seeds? Just rejoice when they do. Amen.
Sermon originally preached Sunday, July 11, 1999;
St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Cornwall; The Rev. John Crowdis
Revised July 10, 2005, Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church, Mississauga.
Today we live in a day and age where the Biblical stories are becoming less and less familiar. Those core stories are no longer part of the “cultural collective,” where even a mere hint of a word brings to mind many images from the Bible. Yet this is not a problem for the storytellers, there are as many Biblical allusions and ideas in modern literature and film as there ever were. One only has to go out and see films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy or the latest Star Wars film to catch a glimpse of this. The stories are still there, and are still being told in different ways, but fewer and fewer people know that these stories come to us from the Bible.
Yet in light of today’s scripture reading, that is not necessarily a bad thing. The parable of the sower is so well known, literally thousands of sermons have been written on these few short verses in the gospels. Sometimes I think it is possible to be too familiar with a story. We hear the same tale over and over again. We hear it so many times that we think we know what it says, and we tune it out. Been there. Heard that. Next lesson.
But what if being too familiar with a story in the Bible prevented us from hearing what God is saying to us? After all, there is good reason why some say “familiarity breeds contempt.” This is doubly true for parables. These are very short stories with amazing twists and turns. We’re so familiar with them that we don’t even realize what’s happening.
There is a real benefit in hearing a story for the first time. The greatest impact of many stories is the surprises they have in store for us. We read a mystery because we want to find out who did it and how; we watch adventure movies to see if the heroes can overcome the great obstacles. Yet once we’ve seen it once, or think we’ve heard it, it loses its impact. We know the ending, we know how it goes... or do we?
Take the parable of the sower. It’s one of these ones that is much too familiar:
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. As he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, because it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty, and sixty and a hundredfold.”
We know this one... Yeah, we’ve heard it... The seed is supposed to be the word of God, planted within us, and it well, grows... kinda sorta... But this is a parable. It has a message on its own. It stands by itself. When Jesus used them he was telling us what the kingdom of God is like... They were meant to be heard by people who were dirt poor, living off the land in Galilee. This story has lost its meaning for us. We’ve even lost what the word parable means. Parable comes from the same word as parabola, that strange mathematical arc that goes in one direction and suddenly hooks around sharply and goes another direction. It means the stories end up in places that we never expect. They lead us in one direction, and then the land in a completely different place, throwing us off balance. We need to be able to hear parables that way...
To our 21st Century, post-industrial, technologically-advanced ears, the fact that a single grain of wheat can produce 30, 60, or 100 times itself is not really a big deal. Yet in Jesus’ time, a single grain of wheat was only expected to produce five grains per seed at most. Plant one seed, get five in return. That’s not a lot, especially when you consider how much one needs to live on.
Let’s do the math: one could expect five seeds in return for each seed planted in good soil. As soon as those seeds are harvested the farmer needs to set aside at least one out of every five to put back into the ground so that next year’s crop will be the same size as this one. This is assuming no disasters happen. The remaining four seeds are divided up between making bread and other food, and making sure the livestock is fed. There is none to sell. This is purely survival. Profit margin is not a factor. There’s no margin of error here either. If something goes wrong and the family has to dip into the stored up seed for planting it means there will be less and less each year.
The seeds are more precious than gold. If so few grains are returned for every one that is nurtured
Now imagine we are in a group of first century farmers who knows this, who are now listening to Jesus.
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. As he sowed some seed fell on the path...”
“Oh come on!” we say, “Fix your bag!! You’re losing seed! Remember you only get five seeds back for each one you put in the ground. You’ve now cut that down to four!! Besides, what kind of aim is that!”
Jesus continues, “Other seed fell on rocky ground...”
Again, the listeners are going nuts. This sower is going out into the field flinging these seeds here and there with no real idea or care where they’re landing. Precious seed is being wasted.
The next handful is flung into the weeds. Nothing’s going to grow there, because weeds are so good at stealing the nutrients from other less hardy plants. The plant that grows will never produce anything. Another seed is wasted.
With our 2005 ears, we miss feeling horror at the sower’s careless attitude, scattering precious seed without a care for where, ensuring that three quarters of the seeds sown will never produce ANYTHING! If a single seed produces 5-6 grains, then the sower
will barely break even, and will more than likely starve since there’s nothing to save for food. Someone who is planting seed cannot afford to be that sloppy! The marvel of the story is that in spite of the carelessness of the sower, the seed that does land in good soil, produces a crop beyond wildest imagination. What if the kingdom of God is like this?
What if the Kingdom of God is where great plenty and growth comes out of seemingly careless abandon? What does that do to our Protestant work ethic? We want to think, “Work hard and be rewarded.” But this is not what Jesus is saying. The joy of the kingdom of God happens despite our best efforts. God is quite capable of producing great abundance even where we would call it a total loss. So how would it be if we tried to put ourselves into the shoes of someone who was dirt poor and hungry in first century Galilee. The joy and wonder of the kingdom of God takes on a whole new meaning. Imagine... The kingdom of God is like a place where no one is hungry and all will be fed... amazing news to someone who is starving!!!
Instead, we don’t know this context, and we miss the point. We want to think of ourselves as good soil in which the word of God is to grow. Again, we want to think, “work hard and be rewarded.” All that’s needed is for us to be good people, right? The seed bounces right on past us.
If we remember nothing else about parables, remember this: Jesus used parables to describe the kingdom of God. Jesus addresses the question, “what is the kingdom of God like?” He doesn’t use words to describe it, he uses stories to take us on an emotional rollercoaster ride. It’s nothing like we know. It is where everything that we come to expect, all those ideas of cause and effect is turned on its ear. A careless action yields amazing results.
For God, all things are possible. Who knows what amazing thing will grow out of scattered seeds? Just rejoice when they do. Amen.
Sermon originally preached Sunday, July 11, 1999;
St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Cornwall; The Rev. John Crowdis
Revised July 10, 2005, Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church, Mississauga.
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