Unlocking the Parable of the Sower

A scientist announces to God one day, “God, we don’t need you anymore!  Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing.  In other words, we can do now what you did in the beginning.  We can take dirt and create a human being.  God says, “That’s interesting, show me!”  The scientist bends down to the earth to scoop up some soil.  God interrupts, “Oh no!  You get your own dirt!”

Jesus tells the parable of the sower and says this parable is the key to unlocking the meaning of all the other parables.  Jesus is saying God is the sower, the Word of God is the seed, and you are the dirt!  Jesus parables surprise, shock and turns our world upside down.  Jewish parables were more concerned about concealing that revealing.  Parables often confounded the listener where we are forced to say things like, “I don’t understand?  Help me Jesus.  Parables force us to look deep within ourselves and to dig up the hidden truth to discover the secrets of God’s mysterious kingdom.

 God takes ordinary dirt, clay vessels and God puts His Spirit in them and makes them into precious vessels that can produce an impossible harvest.  We are the dirt and the dirt reveals the condition of our hearts.  Jesus does not just want you to recognize what kind of heart do you posses?  Jesus wants us to see how at different times, each one of these different soils represents the condition of our hearts at different times.

Hard hearts really don’t hear or understand at all what Jesus is saying.  It is not tuned into spiritual truth.  Rocky hearts hear what Jesus is saying but one’s faith is very shallow.  There are no deep roots so faith in Christ is temporary.  When trouble or difficulty comes, and it will, it simply will not hold in the end.  Thorny hearts receive God’s word with joy at the beginning but when the stress and worries of life hit, it folds under pressure.  Chasing after material things quickly chokes out the life of faith.  The good soil produces and enormous bumper crop.  This harvest is miraculous.  Thirty yield is rare. Sixty yield is impossible.  A hundred fold is miraculous and revolutionary.  This can only happen by the power of God.

Jesus is God’s farmer sowing the seeds of the kingdom into the hearts of all people.  We are the dirt and God wants to plant his word deep into our hearts.  Hear the reading of God’s Word:

Listen!  Behold, a sower went out to sow.  And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it.  Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth.  But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had had no root it withered away.  And some seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up and chocked it, and it yielded no crop.  But other seed fell on the good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.  And he said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!  But when he was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable.  And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that:

Seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them (Isaiah 6:9-10)

And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable?  How then will you understand all the parables?  The sower sows the word.  And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown.  When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.  These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it will gladness; and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time.  Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they stumble.  Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.  But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it and bear fruit; some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred  (Mark 4:3-20).

RECLAIMING DIRT

Jesus warning concerns spiritual soil erosion.  Soil is not the problem.  The problem is what do we do with the soil?  If we misuse and abuse it then we ruin the condition of our hearts with inward poisons, toxins, and our hearts become rocky and hardened.  We like to ask the question today, “What would Jesus do?  Do we really want to ask the question? Jesus often exposes and reveals things in us we would rather not see.  In other words, Jesus would probably make us mad.

I remember some time ago I went to a Christian conference where Clark Pinnock was the featured speaker.  Clark Pinnock was a popular Canadian Bible scholar who was well know for both his great humility and learning as well as not afraid of controversy.  I spent the weekend with Clark and it was a bumpy ride.  There were moments I loved being with him and his generosity filled the air with sweetness.  But there were other times where he seemed to be a magnet for controversy and he simply would never back down.  Those were moments I wanted to run and hide.  Not only did it seem like everyone was mad at Clark Pinnock but they seemed to be  mad at whoever happened to be standing beside him at the time which usually was me.

Why couldn’t Clark just easily fit in with the crowd like everyone else.  Why did Clark have to say the most outrageous things at the most inopportune times?  Why couldn’t Clark back off and not make so many people upset?  We all say we want to be with Jesus but I wonder?  I remember after the conference I wondered why it was so difficult to be around Clark Pinnock?  I suddenly realized Clark was one of the most Christ-like person’s I had ever met or spent time with.  If it was hard being around Clark, it is probably also harder being around Jesus than we think.

 FARMING IS RISKY BUSINESS

Jesus says this parable is the key to unlocking the mystery of God’s kingdom (verse 11).  Why was this parable so important to Jesus?  If Jesus disciples didn’t even understand this parable then how are the rest of us going to do any better? (verse 13).  What this parable teaches us is the heart is the key to spiritual understanding.  Is our heart humble or hard?  Is it stretchable of the fullness of God in us or brittle?  If the heart is an actual muscle and the blood flows and channels through it then this is the place where we get our endurance, our power and our strength.  If our heart is a muscle, like every other muscles, we either use it or lose it.

Jesus Christ would not make a good future Farmers of America.  Did you notice what Jesus did not say?  Jesus never said till the land or plow the field.  Worse, he’s throwing seed everywhere!  What farmer does that?  This is a powerful description of the radical grace of God.  Jesus parables not only show the all sufficient grace of God but they also reveal the radical spiritual revolution Jesus is calling people to join.  A little dab of faith will not do!  A little dab of God’s Spirit won’t sustain us in the end.  We need the all consuming power, grace and love of God flowing like a mighty river in our lives.

People are hungry today for God’s love and presence and word.  People say they are starving for God’s word but when they get it they say, “I’m good for the next six months!”  People say they are looking for the presence of God and when they run smack into the Creator of the universe, they say, “Wow, now I know God is real.  It is time to get back to my normal routine of life.”  What is the normal Christian life?  Michael L. Brown once said,

Our Spiritual temperature has grown so cold that when it comes to what God calls normal, the rest of the church will think they have a fever!  Jesus word is challenging us once again.  Some of us have lost our health for the Devil and we won’t lose our reputation for Jesus.  Some of us were brash for Satan but now we are bashful for Jesus.  Some of us were on fire for Hell and now we are lukewarm for heaven.

 The question this parable confronts us with over and over again is what is the condition of your heart?

SOIL DETECTIVES

If this parable teaches us anything it is the issue is not our ability but God’s generosity.  The point of the parable is not for us to try to use our wisdom and logic and figure out which soil other people are to whether they get to hear the gospel or not.  Who deserves to hear the gospel?  None of us do because of our sin but all of us do because of God’s grace.  Nor is the church’s mission to figure out who is in God’s kingdom and who is out.

Jesus makes people mad in Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and the goats.  Why?  Because those who thought they were sheep and were in found out they were goats and were out.  Those who thought they were out and were goats discovered they were in and were sheep.  Jesus teaches their will be surprises in heaven on who is in and who is out.  Don’t presume about others or even yourself.  It is only by the grace of God that anybody ends up in God’s magnificent kingdom.

Several weeks ago there were people handing our flyers in my neighborhood.  It was a block party for the whole family.  I knew it was a church sponsoring the event so I asked one lady which church was throwing the block party.  She stuttered and stammered and did not want to tell me.  She asked another lady what to say and that lady very hesitantly told me the name of the church.  I thought this is crazy where people today are afraid to tell other people what church they are representing.  Maybe they were afraid of a bad name that church has received and was trying to turn it around or maybe they were simply embarrassed by the denomination they represented?  But I thought it was great that here was a church that was trying to do something for and in their community.  I just found out they had thirty nine baptisms following that community event.   Now that is a church that is impacting their community for God and God’s kingdom.

 The whole point of the parable is sow the seed!  Throw it out to anyone who will listen!  When I was a teen, I worked on a farm.  I knew a guy named Danny who used to mock me for my Christina faith.  I wrote him off as somebody who was outside the grace of God.  When I saw Danny later give his life to Jesus, I realized then that nobody was outside the grace of God.  I also knew a woman who was miraculously healed from cancer and she lived her life for fifteen years for God.  Suddenly, she decided she wanted to live for the world again and I thought that is crazy.  I don’t get it.  Okay, I also know some people don’t get me.

              Sow the seed. Get over your fear and choose faith.

 Sow the seed and get over failure and trust God completely. 

 Sow the seed and get over yourself, see Jesus in all His beauty and glory and

 power.

JESUS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

I am currently teaching a bible study series working through Jaroslav Pelikan book Jesus Through the Centuries (Yale University Press, 1987).  What is fascinating is looking at how every century of history has captured a particular focus or snapshot of Jesus life.  In the first century, it was Jesus the Jewish Rabbi.  In the second century it was Jesus mission to the Gentiles.  In the third and fourth century it was Jesus as King and Lord.  In the twenty first century it is the global Christ over all the nations.

What is interesting is through the fifth through fifteenth centuries was this focus on the mystical Christ and mystical marriage of the soul.  How Jesus brings us into the intimate love that completely captures our heart and soul.  This mystical marriage is what God desires for our lives.  In the parables of Jesus we not only discover  the mystery of God’s kingdom and grace but the mystery and depths of God love.

*We know we are dirt but God is molding and forming us into something more.

*God is forming a holy union where each of us bear great fruitfulness for God’s kingdom.

*Where each one of us fully discovers what it means to be totally engulfed by God’s light and love.