Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23: Thoughts on Sowing

Lectionary Cycle Year A: Ninth Sunday After Pentecost:
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (Read it on Bible Gateway)
Thoughts on Sowing
This Parable is another of my favorite stories from Christ. First off, it's a tremendously insightful passage, with a perfect analogy which presents a very straightforward, simple image that is at the same time incredibly rich and textured. Of course, part of this may be because I grew up a farmer, but the story of the sower just so beautifully lays out many of the challenges people face in coming to the faith. I also know this passage has held a special place in my heart because of my ministry, as it should hold such a place for anyone in the Gospel ministry, after all, talk to any farmer and they'll tell you, its your responsibility to make sure the seed is getting sown proper. As a result anyone who is a Teacher, Preacher, Mentor, Counselor, Godparent, etc. etc. should work to ensure they are sowing good seed in good soil where it will be nourished, take root and prosper.

It's also nice that the Parable has a follow-up where Christ fully explains it. It's like having all the answers on the back of the test. This is one story we're not left on our own to decipher or sort through, because Jesus filled his disciples in on what exactly he meant.

However, there is a challenge here. This parable, so simple, so straightforward, yet so beautiful can also be a bit deceptive. Sometimes when something is laid out so beautifully we have a tendency to gloss through and over it, without wrestling with it sufficiently to connect with it in the way we most need to. We may read this and say, yeah, it's a nice little story that tells us the different way people receive the Gospel and the things that happen to it and the people hearing it.

While this is true, this is what this parable is about, it has a deeper and more profound purpose. Hopefully it is an invitation to us to ask hard questions of ourselves of which type of soil and seed we are living in at any given time.

Most people I know, and I admit, this includes myself, are more than happy to reflect on our faith when things are going well. When we're the good soil where the seed is multiplying, it's great to share our faith, share our blessing, our experiences and our connections.

However when some people move into the other arenas, they often stop asking the questions and doing the reflecting.

There may come a time that some issue form Scripture is presented in a way we don't understand and thus we ignore it and soon forget it. We may be the shallow layer of soil lying over rock and not even realize it. Is our faith ready to face those challenges, those concerns, those pitfalls, or will it dry up when they come, like tiny shoots burned by the sun because they had no depth to their roots? Likewise, we may find ourselves in a fast growing field of thorns in the form of worries that strangle our faith out before we even see them coming, or slowly over a period of time that we barely recognize it's been happening.

Hopefully none of us think this parable just speaks to our first encounter with faith, but indeed speaks to every encounter we have in our faith. We can be one type during one part of our life, but move into another at a different time. The person whose been good soil for years and years, faced crises, but then faces terminal illness, can suddenly find themselves in shallow soil. The person who has lived a blessed life and grown in faith, but becomes unemployed, or facing divorce, might find themselves surrounded by a much tougher crop of thorns then their previous encounters.

Hopefully we are ever vigilant about our faith and ever exploring and asking ourselves where we fit in the grander scheme. We should not assume because we have faith, or have had faith for years, that we are in rich soil. If we've weathered the worst crises we can imagine, faced numerous worries beyond anything we thought would come, and struggled to understand aspects of Scripture but worked at it until we did, so that we could grow in that knowledge, then we can be pretty sure we're got solid roots. But its always best to help make sure we're doing our part to keep sinking those roots deeper and deeper into the richest soil we can find.

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