The Sower Who Never Stops Sowing

The Holy Gospel according to Matthew, the thirteenth chapter.

Glory to you, O Lord.

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.

Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there

while the whole crowd stood on the beach.

And he told them many things in parables, saying,

Listen, a sower went out to sow.

And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up.

Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil,

and they sprang up quickly since they had no depth of soil.

But when the sun rose, 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 brought forth grain,

some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

If you have ears, hear.

Hear then the parable of the sower, Jesus said.

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it,

the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart.

This is what was sown on the path.

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word

and immediately receives it with joy.

Yet such a person has no root but endures only for a while,

and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word,

that person immediately falls away.

As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word,

but the cares of this age and the lure of wealth choke the word,

and it yields nothing.

But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word

and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold,

in another sixty, and in another thirty.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Let us pray.

Gracious and loving God, you are the sower who never ceases

to scatter seeds of grace, hope, and truth.

As we hear the stories of Jesus again, open our ears to listen

and our hearts to receive what you would plant within us today.

Quiet the distractions that compete for our attention.

Soften whatever has grown hard within us.

Give us the courage to enter this story with curiosity and faith,

trusting that your spirit is at work among us.

May the words we hear draw us closer to you and to the life of your kingdom.

We pray in the name of Jesus, the living word.

Amen.

As a child, I had a very active imagination.

I could probably keep your attention for quite a while with stories my friends

and I created and reenacted over and over again,

keeping in mind that I grew up in the 60s.

Some of you may identify with this.

We played games like The Martians Were Coming and L-O-V-E, Love,

inspired by the song made famous by Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.

Believe it or not, we even played funeral.

Now, that's a dinner story.

Perhaps that imagination is one reason I am drawn to the stories of Jesus

found in the Gospels.

For the next three weeks, we will be listening to some of Jesus'

most familiar stories, the parables.

They are stories about ordinary things like seeds, soil, weeds, treasure,

pearls, and fishing nets.

Parables are often read as allegories where every person, object,

or event corresponds to something else.

Yet parables are not simply illustrations designed to make a point easier

to understand.

They do something more.

Parables create a world and invite listeners to enter it.

They provoke imagination.

Rather than answer questions, they raise them.

Jesus' stories are filled with surprises, and it is often within those surprises

that meaning begins to emerge.

Parables challenge assumptions, unsettle expectations,

and open our eyes to the surprising way God's kingdom is at work among us.

New Testament scholar Amy Jill Levine writes that parables are intended

to provoke conversation and reflection.

They are not riddles with a single answer so much as stories that continue

to work on us long after we have heard them.

Jesus does not tell stories merely for entertainment.

We hear this in the way today's parable begins.

Listen.

That word is an invitation.

It draws people in and asks for more than just casual attention.

Today, we begin with the parable of the sower.

The farmer scatters seed that lands on different kinds of ground

and produces different results.

Most modern readers focus on the soils.

But I invite you to consider another possibility.

Perhaps this parable is not primarily about the soil at all.

Perhaps it is about the sower.

The sower is extravagant, persistent, and reckless.

Seed falls on a pass, among rocks, into thorns, and onto good soil.

Much of it appears wasted.

Seed was valuable, yet the sower keeps scattering it everywhere.

And despite such apparent wastefulness, the story ends with an abundant

and astonishing harvest.

In many ways, Jesus is a sower too.

He scatters stories everywhere, stories about farmers and merchants,

fathers and sons, strangers and Samaritans.

Some listeners dismiss them.

Some are intrigued for a moment.

Then they move on.

Others become distracted.

Still others carry those stories with them for years until one day

nothing begins to grow.

One of the remarkable things about parables is that they rarely yield

their meaning immediately.

The disciples often did not understand them.

Neither did the crowds.

So if a parable does not make sense to you right away, you are in good company.

A seed does not become a harvest overnight, and a parable often works

the same way.

You hear it when you're 20 and think one thing.

You hear it again at age 50 or 70 or 90 and hear something entirely different.

The story remains the same, but you have changed.

The seed continues to grow.

Jesus did not simply teach truth.

Jesus planted stories.

Like seeds, those stories take root within us.

They challenge us, unsettle us, surprise us, and sometimes comfort us.

Over time, they shape how we see God, how we see our neighbors,

and how we see ourselves.

This parable gives us a glimpse of the kingdom Jesus proclaims.

It is a kingdom where God's love and God's word are scattered with abandon

without first calculating who is worthy or who is likely to respond.

God keeps sowing grace and mercy and hope because grace is never exhausted

and love is never wasted.

Maybe that is why Jesus begins this collection of parables with a story

about seeds because before teaching us what the kingdom is like,

he teaches us how kingdom stories work.

What if the point of this parable is not identifying which soil we are at any given moment

but marveling at the sower who never stops sowing?

What if this story is ultimately about divine generosity, persistence, and hope?

When Jesus' story becomes our story, our perspective changes.

We begin to see a world where grace is scattered extravagantly,

even in people and places where success seems unlikely.

The sower does not calculate where the seed is most likely to succeed.

The sower simply sows.

God.

God sows grace into imperfect lives.

God sows hope into difficult circumstances.

God sows love into resistant hearts and possibility where others see only failure.

The harvest comes not through the sower's control but through the mysterious work of growth.

If that is how God acts toward the world, what might it mean for us who follow Jesus

to sow in the same way?

The parable suggests that sowing and growing are different tasks.

We sow encouragement, kindness, justice, mercy, truth, and faith.

God brings the growth.

That may be one of the most freeing truths in this parable.

Faithful sowers are not measured by visible results.

We tend to calculate.

We decide who is worth our time, who is likely to respond, who deserves another chance.

The sower does none of that.

Many of the seeds that shaped our lives were planted years before we recognized their value.

Most of us are the harvest of seeds planted by others.

In the same way, we may never know the impact of a conversation, a prayer, a kindness, a

word of encouragement, or an act of mercy.

Every act that reflects God's kingdom is a seed.

Sow, dear friends.

Sow compassion in a harsh world.

Sow reconciliation in divided communities.

Sow generosity in a culture of scarcity.

Sow hope in moments of despair.

The good news of this parable is not that we must wait until we become perfect soil.

Remember, God sows grace into imperfect lives.

The good news is God never stops sowing.

And because God never stops sowing into us, we are free to keep sowing into the lives of others

generously and hopefully without fear.

We may never see where every seed lands.

We may never witness every harvest.

But the God who scatters seed with abandon is still bringing life from places we least expect.

So over now the next two weeks as we continue our journey through Jesus' parables, I'll leave you

with some questions you might carry.

Are we ready to receive these stories?

Are we ready to let them take root in us?

Are we ready to be changed?

Listen, the sower is still sowing.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.