Lectionary: Parable of the Sower // Matthew 13 // Sunday, July 12, 2026

Well, good morning and welcome to Trinity.

My name is Mike, and I'm one of the pastors here.

I'm 41 years old, and for all 41 years of my life, I've been a selective listener.

Do you know what I mean by selective listening?

I hear what I want to hear when I want to hear it.

If it's not something I want to hear, well, I tend to miss it and explain it away with a, oh, I'm sorry I didn't hear you.

Mike, I asked you to muddle on.

Oh, I'm sorry I didn't hear you.

Teenage Mike, did you practice your trombone or finish your homework?

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

Of course, I always heard and hear.

Pizza's here, or the game's about to start.

I have selective hearing.

We have selective hearing.

Sometimes it's on purpose, like I heard, but I pretended I didn't hear because I didn't want to respond.

Increasingly, though, I don't hear something because I'm distracted.

Busy on my phone, or I have headphones on, take care of taking care of something else.

It's selective listening all the same.

I ignore what I want to ignore.

I hear what I want to hear.

And I respond when and how I want to respond.

If I'm honest, my selective hearing is at its worst when it comes to God.

I hear what I want to hear when I want to hear it.

I pay attention when it's convenient or when I'm not otherwise too busy or distracted.

More often than not, though, there's just too much noise and busyness in my life to hear well.

And then I wonder why God feels so far away.

I wonder if you can relate to that.

This morning I'd like to invite you to turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, please don't hesitate to hop up and grab one from the back.

You can find Matthew 13.

Oh, I forgot to write the page number.

Page 768.

Thank you, Matt.

He's ready in the church Bibles.

Matthew 13 is a parable about a sower and soils.

It's also a parable about listening.

While you're flipping there, let's pray.

Gracious God, thank you for this morning for the chance to gather.

To hear from your word, to sing, to pray.

God willing to respond to what it is you have to say to us this morning.

I pray that as my words line up with your words, that they would fall on ears and hearts, ready to receive them and respond.

And gracious God, if I say anything that isn't from you, I pray that those words would quickly be forgotten.

I pray these things through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Here's the scene.

Jesus is in a house, and he leaves the home he's staying in, and he heads down to the lakeside.

And a crowd gathers, so Jesus steps into a boat offshore and he begins to teach.

The crowd leans in, and Jesus begins like this.

A sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them.

Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up.

But since they had no depth of soil, the sun rose and they were scorched.

Since they had no root, they withered away.

Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.

Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

It's a parable, a story with an underlying meaning about a sower, some seeds, and four different types of soil.

First, we've got a path.

It's hard, packed in soil.

Second, we've got rocky soil.

Third, thorny soil, and lastly, good soil.

Jesus doesn't yet explain the parable.

Instead, he concludes by saying, He who has ears, let him hear.

And that's it.

The end of the parable.

And he ends with an emphatic, Are you listening?

You should be listening at the end.

The next thing Matthew tells us, and the lectionary skips over this part of the story, Jesus' disciples have approached him with a follow-up question.

They ask, Why do you always speak in parables?

Jesus gives a surprising answer.

He says, the disciples get to understand the secrets of God's kingdom because it's been given to them as a gift to be received by faith.

But for the crowds who are just half listening or don't really want to understand, well, the parables actually keep the meaning hidden from them for now.

And then Jesus lets them in on the meaning of the parable of the sower because they pressed in and asked him.

The crowds don't get the explanation because they didn't follow up with Jesus.

They didn't press in, they didn't ask the question.

Friends, Jesus loves your questions.

He loves your questions, especially when they're addressed to him, and he's looking for you to follow up with him, to pursue, to wrestle.

The disciples, they ask the follow-up question, so Jesus explains the parable to them.

But first, notice his lead-in in verse 18.

This is how he starts.

Hear then the parable of the sower.

If you've got a Bible open in your lap, underline the word hear or listen every time it comes up.

Because here it is again.

He was ears to hear, let him hear.

Now hear the parable of the sower.

So listen to this.

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what's been sown in his heart.

This is what was sown along the path.

First, what is the seed?

According to Matthew, it's the word of the kingdom of God.

It's the good news of God's kingdom, the good news of the king.

That's the seed, the gospel.

And then Jesus explains what hard soil, a path, looks like.

It looks like one who hears but does not understand.

So let's talk briefly about what Matthew might mean by understand.

The Greek word here is sineamy.

We get our English word synthesis from the same root.

It's not speaking, Matthew's not speaking here just to an intellectual understanding, the way that you might understand algebra, which I don't.

Rather, he's uh it's something more like putting it all together, comprehending, synthesizing.

Now, my wife, who studied math in college because she's crazy, would tell me that there are two types of people enough to get to be on a test, right?

Like, like I can plug in the formula and get an answer and show enough work that they'll move me along to the next level.

But then there are people like my wife, high school math for years, who would say algebra is the foundation for understanding all math.

And you can understand it like, and honestly, I couldn't really care less, which is how many of us apply the word of God, science school or whatever.

And then there's the way my listen to the larger thing, how it applies to our life and calculus, amazing, and math is the understanding.

Not the way that those just raised their hands understand it, but that it touches Matthew, talks about hearing and understanding.

He's talking about hearing, that's what those who study the math blocks that lets you put the rest of it together, right?

That's right, right?

Pearl agrees.

There are some whose hearts are like a hardened path, who hear the word of God, but it doesn't click.

They don't put it all together in their lives.

And when that's true, the evil one feasts.

Perhaps this describes the crowds to whom Jesus initially told the parable.

They hear it, but they don't understand it.

They don't comprehend it, synthesize it, they don't do anything with it.

They fail to put what they hear together in a way that has any impact on their lives at all.

It's selective listening.

Now we get to rocky soil.

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

They hear it, they receive it, they respond with joy.

But they don't ever grow roots, Jesus says.

Verse 21 He has no root in himself, but endures for a while.

And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

Their faith is unable to stand up under the challenge of persecution or suffering.

The person responds immediately, but abandons the faith just as quickly when things get hard.

They've received the good news of Jesus, but they don't grow deep roots.

This is the person that got an A in algebra in eighth or ninth grade.

But then when they got to calculus, they failed to ask the follow-up questions.

They've received the good news of Jesus, but they don't grow deep roots.

What Matthew seems to be saying here is that it's not how we start that matters, but how we continue.

And ultimately, how we finish.

And so we ought to pray for deep roots, roots that can withstand the storms of this life.

Now, I don't normally do this if you go to the next slide, Matt.

Normally, like I'm not the type that does, like, you know, the B stands for this and the C stands for this.

And I'm gonna give you, what are those called?

Acronyms, but I've made a poem.

Rocky soil spoils the root.

Thorny soil spoils the fruit.

Look at this, verse 22.

Thank you very much.

I'll be here for eight more days and then I'm going on vacation again.

Verse 22, as for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

This soil does a little bit better still.

It hears, receives, even begins to grow, but it is then distracted by life's anxieties and cares and the distraction of wealth, and it's cut off.

I read somewhere this past week that if persecution or suffering is the enemy of the second soil, the prosperity is the enemy of the third.

And I think this soil is a particular warning to us today.

Our modern technological life is not designed for the kind of quiet or patient attentiveness that listening requires.

We're so distracted that we struggle to listen and put it all together on a regular basis.

We've got work, our mortgages and activities.

And the average person checks their phone over 200 times a day, and those slack notifications won't answer themselves.

And before you know it, we may have roots, but distractions are keeping us from fruit.

Which brings us to the good soil.

Jesus is delightfully straightforward.

As for what is sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it.

It's that simple.

Good soil is the heart that hears the good news and puts it all together, synthesizes it.

Head, heart, hands.

It's all that's necessary.

You don't need some optimized, perfect Christian morning routine, despite what the algorithm might tell you.

You don't need to know Greek or Hebrew or fulfill six steps to a life with Christ.

No.

You just need to listen and then begin to put it together.

Listen, stand up under it.

I spent 10 summers at a Christian boys' camp called Deerfoot Lodge.

It's maybe my favorite place in the whole world.

All three of my boys just finished up two weeks there yesterday.

Anyway, I'll never forget something the old camp director said probably 25 years ago, after decades of working with college-age young men.

Here's what he told me.

He said, Mike, I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with young men approaching graduation who are frozen in inaction when it comes to their lives.

They say things like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do next or what I'm supposed to do with my life.

I'm just waiting on the Lord, which sounds all well and good and spiritual, except it then kept them frozen in inactivity.

And it overcomplicated what a fruitful life looks like.

And if that was true 25 years ago, it's even more true today.

When we like optimize our lives for optionality, right?

To try to keep as many options open for as long as possible.

The came director continued, I started telling these young men to stop overthinking their spiritual life.

Instead, keep it simple.

Read the Bible and do what it says.

And he used to say, if you read the Bible and do what it says, you're not likely to miss God's will for your life.

And even when you do, if you read the Bible and do what it says, you're gonna recognize, oh, I missed the mark here, maybe I should change directions and walk this way.

I will never forget that.

Because it is so easy to overcomplicate a life with God, isn't it?

When Jesus seems to be keeping it awfully simple here, good soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who listens and then begins to put it together, who reads the Bible and does what it says.

Indeed, Jesus says right here, he bears fruit and yields.

The word yield here actually has a much simpler translation in the Greek.

It's a version of the verb to do.

In other words, if you hear the word of God and put it all together, you'll bear fruit and do stuff.

That's basically the translation.

Now, don't get the ordering twisted, okay?

We don't start by trying really hard to bear fruit.

Anyone who's ever gardened knows that that doesn't work, right?

You're just gonna overwater it anyway.

You don't start by doing stuff.

When we do that, we end up just sort of running around like a chicken with our heads cut off.

Rather, we listen first.

We listen, we receive, we hear, we pay attention, and then in response to God's word for us, we begin to put it together, to synthesize in our own lives and our life together what we hear.

This is what faith looks like.

And it's then and only then that we bear fruit, which is a passive action, by the way.

And it's only then that we begin to do stuff.

The doing flows from the hearing and the receiving.

And when the soil is good, that's the result bearing fruit.

Verse 23 says, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, in another thirty.

Now I'd like to finish here with two final observations and one last question.

First, not all soil bears fruit.

You notice that?

In fact, three out of four don't.

New Testament scholar Dale Bruner wrote: perhaps the greatest scandal in Christianity, not the least for Christians themselves, is that comparatively few of us live as such.

Ouch! And generally that's used as a condemnation of Christians, and perhaps sometimes rightfully so, but this fact doesn't seem to surprise Jesus.

He's not surprised by that.

In fact, in this very parable, Jesus predicted this reality that many would hear and never bear fruit.

It's not that the Christian life doesn't work, it's that it's so rarely really applied.

And it doesn't surprise Jesus.

But may it not be so for me.

May it not be so for us.

Second, Jesus doesn't explain the necessary steps to be a hundredfold fruit producer.

Do you notice that?

Every time I sign online, it seems like somebody is telling me, these are the five steps to being a hundredfold producer.

Whether it's like business or finances or parenting or school or the spiritual life, but Jesus doesn't actually lay out any steps at all.

None of them.

He just says the yield looks different from person to person, some 30, some 60, some 100.

Brunner again notes the differing yields are expressed but not explained, as if to say, how much is God's business?

Our business is standing under the word.

Let me say that again.

The differing yields are expressed but unexplained, as if to say, how much is God's business?

Our business is standing under the word.

So hear this don't worry about how much fruit you're yielding.

Instead, consider whether you're really listening to the word of God and creating the necessary conditions to listen well and putting it together in your life.

We so often get that backwards.

We look at our lives and we're like, well, where's the fruit?

How come I'm not a hundredfold producer?

Perhaps we would be better off if we asked the question, am I listening well?

I'm putting it together in my life.

Which brings me to my final question.

I must admit, I really wanted to finish by asking the question this text begs to ask, and maybe you've heard preached before, which is, what sort of soil are you?

How many of you have heard that somewhere?

And it's a good application.

It's a good question.

And I think it's a question we ought to consider.

It's good to know whether you're distracted by suffering or persecution, the cares of the world or riches, but there's another related question in the text.

And it's the question I think God is asking me.

I've been deeply convicted by it over the last couple days.

I think it's the question he may be asking us, which is the same one he asked in the text.

Do you have ears to hear?

Or to put it another way, are you listening?

And how are you listening?

Are you listening in such a way that you're putting it all together in your life?

Because whether or not you listen and really listen affects everything else.

So let me ask you, when was the last time you heard God speak?

When was the last time you opened your Bible and really listened to it?

Didn't read it to understand something the way that I understood algebra in eighth grade, but opened it up and listened to it that you might understand it.

The way that it forces you to reorganize your life, put it together a different way.

When was the last time you maybe didn't just leave it on your nightstand or open the Bible app, skim the verses, check the box, keep the streak alive, and listen to it?

Alright, that's what my kids do.

They have the Bible app, they've got a streak, number of days in a row.

They were just at a camp for two weeks with no technology, zero streak, they're back to their paper Bibles today.

But I wonder how might your life look different?

If you opened your Bible and listened to it to understand it that way.

How we listen and put it all together speaks to the soil and it leads to the fruit, 30, 60, 100fold.

And that's the difference between good soil and the hard path, or the thorny soil, or the rocky soil.

It's the way we grow deep roots.

Good soil listens to the word of God and then seeks to put it all together.

That's what causes deep roots to grow.

Listening and seeking understanding, asking the follow-up question of God and others.

Okay, so how do I do this?

First, and this has been my advice to myself, is to get off the screen.

Put your phone or your laptop away.

Ask God to speak and then sit there.

Shut up for a few minutes.

Put away the distractions.

Open a paper Bible with actual pages.

If you don't have one, there's a stack of them in the back.

Not just church Bibles, but like, you know, the kind that have space in the margins for you to write something, you're listening your hearing.

Take one.

It's for you to read and mark and inwardly divest your questions.

Ask God how you might put it all together in your life.

How to repent, how to walk differently with patterns and habits and space.

Put it all together in real life listening.

Go on a walk and ask God to help you pay attention without a phone or headphones.

We do this together.

That's why we do this together.

Pray while you nurse the baby, and once the scrolls are in bed.

Turn your attention to God and invite other disciples, plural.

So get or perhaps even more simply, how did you hear the word of God?

Or how did you hear the word of God?

What did he have to say to that?

When you're paying attention to God, open hands, trust that he will speak, that he's doing something and will do something in you that's fruitful.

Look, I don't think Jesus is saying you just need a more optimized Christian life.

That's not what I'm trying to say here.

In fact, the opposite.

Trying to break it down to the studs.

How can we create some space in our lives, right?

Some weeks we'll miss it.

Might be months or years.

But God is gracious.

He's so good.

His mercies are new every morning.

So the invitation to us today is to be a people who pay attention to God.

And when we miss it and miss him, which we inevitably will, the invitation is to change directions and commit to paying attention to him again, putting away selective, distracted listening, and we might be the sort of soil that grows deep roots and stands the test of time.

Will you stand and pray with me?

Gracious God, thank you for your gentleness with us, your patience, your grace.

And I do pray, God, that you would help us to pay attention.

You would help us to listen.

Put it all together.

Would you form us to be that sort of people?

It's through Jesus Christ that we pray.

Amen.

You know, uh