The Parable of the Sower
Dr. James Smith
Matthew 13:1-23
10 August 2003
Jesus was a master story-teller and it is clear from the synoptic gospels (1st 3 gospels), that Jesus’ preferred method of teaching and preaching was the parable.
In fact, did you know that 1/3 of all of Jesus’ spiritual teachings that we have, have come to us in the form of parables?
A parable is a “picture story” and its literal meaning in Greek is to “place alongside of something.” What a parable does is take something from ordinary and everyday life to help explain deep spiritual truths.
Or in other words, a parable uses something that is physically known in order to explain or reveal something that is spiritually unknown.
Now of the 4 gospel writers, Matthew and Luke most extensively record the parables of Jesus and scatter them in different places throughout their gospels.
The Book of Matthew is unique in that the author structures his book by carefully collecting the gospel material and then arranging it into 5 sermons or discourses of Jesus.
- The Beatitudes (5-7)
- Missionary Discourse (10)
- Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven (13)
- Community Discourse (18)
- End Times Discourse (24)
Over the next 7 weeks we will be studying the 3rd Discourse in Matthew that is concerned with Jesus’ parabolic teaching on the Kingdom of Heaven.
Here in Matthew 13, a number of Jesus’ parables are recorded and reveal an astonishing vision of God’s Kingdom by employing everyday images and ideas from Jesus’ world.
In Matthew 13:1-23, we find the unforgettable Parable of the Sower. It’s an image straight from Galilee that any person of Jesus’ day could have easily understand if not identify with.
Farming sure has come a long way and particularly in the last 100-150 years. Techniques have become so efficient that only 2% of the U.S. population is employed in farming today.
No wonder all these country and agricultural things that Jesus talks about are so easily lost upon modern and especially, urban people.
After all, much to my shame, when my son Joshua found out that those funny looking birds at the county fair were the nuggets he was eating at McDonalds, he was shocked.
And I was left shaking my head as a guy who raised hundreds and hundreds of chickens when I was a kid.
Like Jesus, agriculture, seeds and growing seasons were part of my youth, though now I must frequently explain them to my urban kids.
In Jesus’ day, there was no advanced system of cultivation and farmers did not plow and then “disk” the soil breaking up all the clumps.
They typically would fill sacks, bags or simply their cloaks with seed and walk up and down the fields “flicking” those seeds across the earth in a “broadcast” method.
These seeds would inevitably land in a variety of places. Some would fall on the paths, some rocky areas, some among thorns and some on the well-plowed areas.
Then, they would turn over the soil with crude wooden plows pulled by draft animals.
The strange and mysterious process of growth was not missed by either first century farmers or peasants, unlike people today.
And while the best crops in Israel were from Galilee in the north, poor harvests due to drought, flooding, insects or birds could easily leave everyone tightening their belts and praying “Lord give us this day, our daily bread” with a new urgency and fervency.
The parables of the sower and weeds are unique in that they are among the very, very few parables that Jesus ever bothered explaining.
In verses 11-17, Jesus explains that parables are not going to be understood by every single person, but rather by those spiritually hungry and discerning individuals who have “eyes that see” and “ears that hear.”
Now to the spiritually honest and democratically minded person living in the 21st century Western world, it doesn’t seem quite “fair” that some who have spiritual hunger and discernment should be given more while others who have less will somehow have these gospel seeds plucked away.
For Christians who prefer doctrinal preaching and expository teaching, Jesus’ parables often become frustrating. Such individuals prefer to dine with the Apostle Paul it would seem, though I seriously wonder if such people truly understand the incredible spiritual vision of the great apostle to the Gentiles.
Jesus, then, seemed perfectly content to make individuals chew, swallow and digest these truths for themselves without summarizing them in main 3 points.
But I can’t help but feel that even though Jesus “explains” the parable of the sower for us in verses 18-23, I believe that He only “primed the pump” as farmers used to say.
In other words, He gave His disciples the basic spiritual explanation in order that they might “chew” on these deep spiritual truths for themselves over course of their lives and ministries.
Parables, then, are like “spiritual time bombs” that seem at first to be so common as to be unspiritual, but as they lodge in their hearers hearts and minds it is frequently a matter of time before their spiritual meaning explodes everywhere.
This parable of the sower has also rightly been called the “parable of the soils” or the “parable of the heart” as well. For in Jesus’ explanation, we also receive greater insight into the purpose of parables as found in verses 11-17.
Parables can and should be re-cast into contemporary life today. After all, how many times have you attempted to spread the seed of God’s word in the lives of people here in Hyde Park only to feel a certain frustration.
Hyde Park then, is field where we can observe the truths of Jesus’ parable of the sower for ourselves.
Remember, every “field” has different kinds of soils and conditions that affect the growing process. Some fields are naturally prone to bumper crops. For example, the corn and soybean fields of down state Illinois produce millions of tons of food each year.
There the soil is rich and black. It’s great for growing things!
But here in Hyde Park, the soil is rather sandy with only a small layer of topsoil available for any growth. To add to the problem, we’ve laid sidewalks and streets all over the ground creating impenetrable paths.
We’ve placed large buildings made of brick and stone all over the surface, creating a rocky landscape.
And we find that many people of the neighborhood have neither the interest nor inclination to remove the weeds and trash that choke the soil from being productive.
And yet this is the field that God has been pleased to place you and I. Oh, to be sure, it’s easy to complain how poor the soil is. I for one complain about the inability to get strong and healthy tomato plants to grow in the churchyard, like my father’s in Michigan.
Or more significantly how difficult it is to convince people in Hyde Park of their need for Jesus Christ and how that He is the vine and we are only the branches.
Folks, one of the mysteries that can be spiritually discerned from the Parable of the Sower, is that not everyone is going to accept the seed of God’s word in the same way.
The soil of everyone’s heart is necessarily different. And many people do not tend to their fields or are so lazy that they actually think that paving their hearts with a parking lot is the way to go.
We cannot know what is going on in everyone’s heart, no more can the farmer be 100% sure of where all of his precious seed will grow.
But we can know what the soil is like in our own fields. And Jesus calls us to first tend to the soil of our own hearts. Farmers knew that unless they tended to their own fields, they would starve. Why is it then, that we so frequently lack such good common sense?
We are spiritual farmers and as we tend to our own soil, then we are to attend to those adjoining fields of others.
A lot of people are going to starve at the end of the harvest and while there still is daylight, we are called to be good neighbors and help them to remove the stones and weeds from their fields and to help them plant a crop.
When I grew up, I remember the farmer’s asking one another, “How are your fields doing?”
I ask you that question, since there are only a couple of months left before the harvest. “How are your fields doing?”
After all, Jesus said in verses 11-12, “The knowledge of the secrets of heaven have been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has, will be given more. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”
So, those who have eyes let them see, and those who have ears, let them hear.
Let’s Pray
