Somewhere I saw a long list of wise sayings attributed to farmers. Let me list just a few of these wise sayings for you. Maybe you will relate to one of these:
1. Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance.
2. Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.
3. Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.
4. Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
5. When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
6. And this last bit of advice: Always drink upstream from the herd.
Jesus told lots of stories about farmers. Today’s text is one of those stories. However, the farmer in this story is not particularly gifted at his profession.
A farmer went out to sow seed, said Jesus. As he was scattering the seed, some of it fell along the path. Well, everybody knows you don’t plant seed where people are going to be walking. It’ll never grow. It won’t penetrate the hard-packed soil. So, said Jesus, the birds came and ate the seed that had fallen by the path.
Some of the other seed, said Jesus, fell on rocky places where there was a deficiency of soil. Again, not a very good place to sow. The resulting plants 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, Jesus said, which grew up and choked the plants. So, it didn’t survive either. This farmer is 0 for 3 to this point. Looks like he will have a poor harvest this year.
Finally, however, he got lucky. Some of the seed fell on good soil where it produced a crop a miraculous crop up to a hundred times what was sown. This will not be a bad year after all. Where good seed falls on good soil, amazing things can happen.
It reminds me of something Robert Schuller used to say: “Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.” The greatest things in this world, including the kingdom of God, grow from tiny seeds.
Of course, this story which we normally refer to as the parable of the sower is not about farming at all. And it’s not about a careless farmer, but a generous God a generous God who sows seeds of love and acceptance for all people. But different kinds of people respond in different ways to that love and acceptance. Jesus describes them as different kinds of soil.
Some people he describes as hard soil. This is the seed sown along the path. Now you may think Jesus is talking here about atheists and agnostics. Not necessarily.
Pastor John Huffman tells about a man he knows named Bob. Bob is in his mid-sixties. Bob has gone to church all of his life and thinks of himself as being a very religious man. However he has never let his religion get in the way of his lifestyle. Even though Bob considers himself a churchman, and is probably sitting in church right this very moment listening to a sermon somewhere, he really likes to control his own life. He hears the Gospel every Sunday, but the seed never really penetrates the soil of his heart. Very few of the values that he hears in church are translated into Bob’s everyday life. Bob knows what he wants and very little of it fits the claims of Jesus on his life.
The altar Bob worships at is the altar of Bob. Bob’s problem is that he has committed himself to himself instead of to Jesus Christ. Bob is his own lord. Bob is the king of his own life. He gets turned off by preaching that quotes too much from the Bible. He wants comforting talk about psychology. He wants no mention of sin from the pulpit. According to him, “That went out of style with the middle ages.” Bob gets turned off by anything that might take him out of his comfort zone as a Bob worshipper. You see, for Bob going to church is like an inoculation for a contagious disease he wants just enough religion to keep him from catching the real thing. (1)
Can you see that Bob is just as hardened to the Gospel as the most adamant atheist or agnostic? In fact, maybe Bob is more hopeless than they are since Bob has no apparent awareness of his own need.
Bob reminds me of a soldier that I was reading about recently. This soldier, a sergeant, was a real hard case. The chaplain had been talking to him for weeks about his relationship to God, but wasn’t making much headway. One day the chaplain, the sergeant, and some others got together for a volleyball game. When the sergeant stripped to his waist for the game, the chaplain couldn’t help but notice that the sergeant had the Lord’s Prayer tattooed on his chest every line of it. The chaplain was stunned. There was the Lord’s Prayer, but it was all on the outside. Its message had obviously not sunk in! (2) You can’t always judge by outward appearance who has hardened their heart to God. But this is the seed sown along the path.
There is second group, represented by the rocky soil people who had faith at one time but it was not firmly rooted, and they let it slip away. We can feel great compassion for some of these people.
Tom Sutherland is such a man. At one time Tom was an upstanding Christian, an elder in his home church. But that was before he was held captive in Lebanon for 6 1/2 years. “During his captivity, Sutherland was held in 26 locations. Some of his cells were cold, dark, underground 6x6 holes. After 18 months of captivity, Sutherland was put in a solitary underground cell.” He became so discouraged that he tried to commit suicide three different times by pulling a plastic bag over his head, but each time, he would think of his wife and three daughters and stop short of killing himself.
Tom is a free man today. However, one casualty of his experience in Lebanon is that Tom no longer believes in God. When asked why, Sutherland answered, “I prayed so many times, and so hard, so hard I prayed, and nothing happened.” (3)
We feel compassion for Tom Sutherland. You and I don’t know how we would react to such a terrible experience. However, we do know that there were others who went through the same sort of experience and came home with their faith strengthened, not weakened. Jerry Levin, a Middle East bureau chief for CNN, was taken captive in Lebanon, and he not only held on to his faith, but he even learned to pray for his captors and forgive them. Different people respond to life in different ways. Some of us lead very sheltered lives, but one day we, too, will be tested. We will lose someone we love, or we will fall on hard times ourselves. Is our faith rooted in good soil that will sustain us?
“The seed falling on rocky ground,” said Jesus,” refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes . . . they quickly fall away.”
The seed which fell among thorns, says Jesus, refers to Christians who have let worldly concerns such as material things choke their faith. Jesus could be talking about some of us. We live in a very materialistic society. Some of us believe we can buy our way to happiness. Others of us believe we are somehow superior to those who have less than we have, especially the poor. Indeed, the seed that fell among thorns may be the largest group in our land.
A short time back the pop singer Madonna the Material Girl herself said, “We as Americans are completely obsessed and wrapped up in a lot of the wrong values looking good, having cash in the bank, being perceived as rich, famous and successful . . .” If Madonna is right, and certainly she is for a segment of our society at least, could it be that mammon is America’s real god?
USA Today told of a Pew Research Center poll that asked people what their life goals were. According to this poll 81% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 said that getting rich was their most important (or 2nd most important) goal in life. Does this disturb you that getting rich is the number one or number two goal of our young adults?
Evangelist Billy Graham tells a wonderful story in his autobiography Just as I Am that speaks to this issue. Billy and his wife Ruth were on an island in the Caribbean. One of the wealthiest men in the world had invited them to come to his lavish home for lunch. This wealthy man was 75 years old, and throughout the entire meal he seemed close to tears. “I am the most miserable man in the world,” he said. “Out there is my yacht. I can go anywhere I want to. I have my private plane, my helicopters. I have everything I want to make my life happy, yet I am as miserable as hell.” Billy says that he and Ruth talked to this wealthy man and prayed with him, trying to point him to Christ.
Later they went down the hill to a small cottage where they were staying. That afternoon the pastor of the local Baptist church came to call. He was an Englishman, and he too was 75. He was a widower who spent most of his time taking care of his two invalid sisters. And yet, says Dr. Graham, this Baptist pastor was full of enthusiasm and love for Christ and others. “I don’t have two pounds to my name,” he said with a smile, “but I am the happiest man on this island.”
Billy Graham asked his wife Ruth after he left, which she thought was the richer man the man with the yacht and private plane or the pastor without two pounds to his name? She didn’t have to reply because they both knew the answer. (4)
Some of the seed falls on the path where the soil is hard and it is eaten by the birds; some falls on rocky soil and does not establish firm roots; some falls amid the thorns of worldly concerns like material wealth and is choked out. But some of the seed falls upon good soil, says Jesus. And here is the Good News for the day.
Sometimes the message of the Kingdom falls upon hearts that welcome it. When good seed falls on good soil miracles occur.
Seeds really are miraculous. Consider the potential of one kernel of corn. A kernel of corn buried in the soil will produce one corn stalk. Each stalk then will produce one ear of corn. The average ear of corn has 250 kernels, so that a single kernel of corn, under the right conditions will yield a 250% return on investment.
We need to be reminded sometimes that when good seed falls on good soil in God’s abundant world, wondrous produce can come forth. All it takes is a tiny seed.
Last week we celebrated Independence Day. We celebrated how much our freedom means to us. We have this freedom because some amazing people people like Thomas Jefferson, John Madison, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and many others planted seeds in this new world, seeds of democracy and human rights and from those seeds sprang a nation. That’s how it works. Good seed is sown on good soil, and miracles occur. Of course, since we’re talking about God’s seed, sometimes it will even fall on unpromising soil and will produce abundantly where we would least expect it.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India died as a world-known figure. But who would have ever thought she would have attained such influence when she first began? What did she have to recommend her? A tiny woman, she began with the most meager of resources. Mother Teresa told her superiors, “I have three pennies and a dream from God to build an orphanage.”
“Mother Teresa,” her superiors said, “you can’t build an orphanage with three pennies . . . with three pennies you can’t do anything.”
“I know,” she said, smiling, “but with God and three pennies I can do anything.”
Mother Teresa understood the principle of the seed. It takes very little but very little blessed by God and miracles can occur. This, of course is akin to Jesus’ teaching elsewhere, that faith only the size of a mustard seed can produce an enormous bush (Matthew 17:20). That is a constant law in God’s world.
“In the bulb there is a flower,” wrote Natalie Sleeth, “in the seed, an apple tree
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free.
In the cold and snow of winter, there’s a spring that waits to be
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.”
Natalie Sleeth was a church musician who died in 1992. She wrote those beautiful words as part of an anthem which she dedicated to her husband Ronald, who was a well-known professor of Homiletics. At his request it was sung at his funeral. It is a song of hope and promise. As long as there is a seed, no matter how tiny or unpromising, there is hope.
Of course, in Jesus’ parable, God is the Sower of the seed. We are the soil. This day Jesus would have us look within and ask what kind of soil is there? Have we become so hardened by self-preoccupation like Bob that the seed cannot penetrate our hard hearts? Are there rocks in the soil that keep the roots shallow so that it will not survive in the time of testing? Are there worldly thorns like love of material things which might choke the life out of our spiritual devotion? Or do we have receptive hearts prepared to go where God wants us to go? God wants to plant a seed in your life. Is the soil ready?
“There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.” (5)
1. http://www.preaching.com/sermons/11563705/.
2. Roy O. McClain, This Way Please (Westwood, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co, 1957).
3. 3. Julie Yarborough, http://www.ccsnj.org/Sermons‑2006/060129‑WhenGodSeemsSilent.html.
4. (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).
5. Hymn of Promise © 1986 Hope Publishing Company.