“The Parable of the Sower”
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost—July 13, 2014

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

About one-third of the teachings of Jesus which are preserved for us in the Gospels is in the form of parables.  The British humorist P.J. Wodehouse explains that, “a parable is one of those stories in the Bible which sounds like a pleasant yarn but keeps something up its sleeve which pops up and leaves you flat.”

Jesus so often spoke in parables because he is the Master Teacher of all time, and parables are a wonderful teaching tool.  It gets your attention, it sticks in your mind, and most of all a parable always makes you ask yourself a question: “What does that mean; and how does it apply to me?”

Today’s Gospel Reading is probably the very first parable Jesus ever told, the Parable of the Sower: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

The best preachers and teachers take their illustrations from everyday life, things that people can really relate to.  As Jesus preaches from a boat on the Sea of Galilee, he paints a picture in this parable that was very familiar to the farmers and country folk gathered on the shore.  But a parable is much more than just an interesting story, a “pleasant yarn.”  At the end of the parable, Jesus says “He who has ears, let him hear.”  That’s another way of saying: “There’s a deeper meaning to what I have just told you.  don’t hear this story only with your ears; hear also the deeper meaning, with your heart.”

A parable is “An earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”  So, what’s the heavenly meaning of the Parable of the Sower, and how does it apply to you?  Jesus explains: the seed is the Word of God, and the four different kinds of soil in which the seed is planted represent four different responses to God’s Word.  “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:  When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

“Which one am I?”  Jesus tells this parable to prompt you to ask, “Which one am I?”  Are you the soil of the path, where the seed did not take root, or the rocky soil, where the seed withered and died, or the weeds, where the seed was choked out; or are you the good soil, where the seed produced a good crop?  The answer is “Yes.”

For the bad news is, by nature we are all like the first three.  God the Holy Spirit did not find in your heart one single bit of fertile ground.  Paul says in Romans, “Are we any better ? Not at all! We . . . are all alike under sin.  As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away.” 

The bad news is, you are the soil of the path, where the seed snatched away by the Devil; you are the rocky soil, where the seed withered and died because of trouble and persecution; you are the weeds, where the seed was choked out by worries and the deceitfulness of wealth.  And because you are the bad soil, producing the thorns and thistles of sin, you deserve the judgment proclaimed by John the Baptizer: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

But the Good News is, you are also the good soil, where the seed produced a good crop.  For, although God the Holy Spirit did not find one bit of fertile ground in your heart, God’s marvelous, miraculous seed of the Gospel has a power no natural seed has: the power to CREATE fertile ground where it is cast, even in sinners like you and me.  The Lord describes this inherent power of his Word in today’s Old Testament Reading: “It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Peter says, “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.”  Paul explains to the Corinthians, “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God gave the increase.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”  Paul puts it this way in Romans: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. . .  Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

That is the point of this parable: hear the Word, it is your only hope.  Through the seed of his Word, God the Holy Spirit grows faith in your heart, faith in the Good News, “That God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not counting men’s sins against them”; “[He] loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood”; “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross”; “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification”; “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”; “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.”  Through the seed of his Word, God the Holy Spirit grows that faith in your heart, and the fruits of faith in your life: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

The Parable of the Sower isn’t about someone else: it’s about you.  It’s about the struggle going on in your heart, like the man who cried to Jesus, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”  And it’s about the struggle going on in your life, as Paul wrote about himself, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. . .  What a wretched man I am!”

Hear the Word, it is your only hope.  The Word of God is the one thing the Devil wants to keep away from you, and he has all sorts of schemes and tricks to keep God’s Word from being effective in your life. 

Like the birds who eat up the seed along the path, maybe the Devil can prevent you even from hearing God’s Word.  I think that’s what’s behind most of the squabbles in Christian congregations and Christian families.  When people stop coming to church because of some fracas in the congregation or their family, that’s the evil one snatching away the Word before it can even be planted, like the birds eating up the seed on the path.

Or like the seed that withers and dies on the rocky places, maybe the Devil can turn you away from your faith and God’s Word with trouble, sorrow, disappointment, hardship.  It is a great, harmful fallacy, common among Christians, that when a person becomes a Christian he should expect never again experience the misfortunes of life.  But Jesus says, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  The promise is not that your life as a Christian will be free from trouble; the promise is that, despite the troubles of this world, you will overcome.  As Paul says in today’s Epistle Reading, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.”

Or, if the Devil cannot cause you to stumble with misfortune, then he’ll go to the other extreme, and try to ensnare you with the bait of a fortune.  Like the seed that fell among the thorns, preoccupation with the things of this world chokes out concern for the next world.  As Paul tells Timothy, “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. . .  Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

The Parable of the Sower isn’t about someone else: it’s about you.  Through the seed of his Word, God the Holy Spirit grows faith in your heart and the fruits of faith in your life.  Hear the Word by attending worship, Sunday School and Bible class; hear the Word by personal Bible reading and study; hear the Word which also comes to us embodied in the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.