Several weeks ago, my granddaughters and I went to San Luis Obispo to check out Cal Poly. Our drive down Highway 101 took us through some of the richest farmland in the world. We saw mile after mile of carefully tended crops—seedlings shielded from the sun, growing plants fed with the precise amount of fertilizer to ensure the highest yield at the lowest cost, weeds and varmints banished from any toehold in the precious soil by applications of herbicides and pesticides—again carefully calculated for highest yield at the lowest cost. As I reflected on today’s gospel, my mind went back to the images of those pristine fields, and I thought about the men and women who work that soil. I imagined what their response might be to Jesus’ words describing what happens to seeds that are sowed in various kinds of soil. I came to the conclusion fairly quickly that their response would most likely be a loud and unanimous “D-uh!”
Jesus’ disciples may have had a similar response when they heard this parable. In fact, the concept seemed so straightforward to them that they ask Jesus why he speaks to the people with a parable. That bit of the gospel passage was snipped out of our reading for today. My best guess is that the folks who put together the lectionary didn’t think the question really needed to be asked or answered for the disciples and for us to get the message. Jesus answers the disciples with a convoluted set of sentences describing the people as those who don’t understand as the disciples do. Then Matthew has Jesus going on to tell the disciples how the parable fits their lives—or perhaps a later editor’s idea of what the parable is meant to say has been inserted.
I lean to this second explanation because Jesus wasn’t much for clarifying things that he’d just said. He let his parables stand as they were and left the people—and us—trying to sort out exactly what he meant.
And how do we sort it out? We begin by remembering that this is a parable we’re talking about. Parables are tricky. Most of them look straightforward, neat and simple. But parables are tricky. What we see—or think we see—isn’t necessarily what we’re meant to see. I wonder if Jesus didn’t have a bit of irony in his tone when he was responding to the disciples’ question. The disciples asked why Jesus “spoke to the people in parables.” They don’t seem to notice that Jesus was also speaking to them—as well as to us and the rest of the people.
But how do we sort out this parable? It seems so straightforward, and it certainly seems to match with our understanding of the world. We know, just as every farmer who ever lived knows, that things don’t go well with seeds if the conditions for planting and growth and nurture aren’t right. Many of us look back on our faith journeys and see the times when the seeds of God’s goodness have been planted in us, but our own conditions made it difficult for those seeds of faith to mature and grow. Certainly, my own faith journey reflects this interpretation of the parable. As most of you know, I was away from the church for many years, beginning within a couple of years of my confirmation as an adult. When I returned some 25 years later, my faith grew stronger with every day. What happened there? It seems obvious to me that God didn’t change in the intervening years. But the years changed me. I was ready to hear and to listen, ready to see and perceive, hoping to understand.
So, this interpretation of the parable easily fits my understanding of the way the soil of my heart needed to be prepared to let the seeds of God’s goodness grow to maturity and bear fruit in my soul. This parable reminds me to keep on my toes and not let my soil get so rocky and dry that nothing can grow, and I probably need that reminder fairly often. But this is a parable, defined as a short, metaphorical story with a double meaning. So we ask, is the double meaning in this story simply related to the metaphor about soil and our souls? Or is there yet another meaning? What happens if we turn this parable upside down? What happens when we look at it from the underside? What happens to this story if we focus not on the soil but on the seed?
In the Palestine of Jesus’ time, farmers sowed their seeds by broadcasting them on the fields. After all the field had been seeded, the farmer would return to plow the seeds into the ground. This parable doesn’t mention plowing. It does speak of seed being sown on the path, on rocky areas and into thorns. It speaks of seed being sown in places where a frugal farmer, living on the edge of subsistence, taking care to get maximum yield from the costly seed, would never dream of sowing seed. A farmer would never sow seed in places where there would seem to be no possibility of return. But the abundance of God’s grace knows no limits—knows no bounds. God’s love—like the rain and sun that fall equally on the good and the evil, the righteous and the unrighteous—is given freely—extravagantly—with open hands—on both promising and unpromising soil.
The Good News, my friends, is that nothing we can do for our souls is as important as what God is doing for us—day after day after day after day.
Thanks be to God.