“On the Road”

Luke 8: 4-15

4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: 5 "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. 8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold." As he said these things, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." 9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10 he said, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that 'seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.'
11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

Parable of the Sower

One of the hardest things about being a Christian is putting two things together which remain in tension. One is the universality of God’s love and call to salvation in Jesus Christ. We get it: God is good, God loves us and has acted through Christ to effect our salvation. It’s free for everyone and wonderful news. Everyone ought to be included.

The second thing is that so many people do not believe. The Church has sought to bring the good news to all people for 2000 years, and for the first time in all that history, the west—that part of the world grown from Rome, Europe, and America—appears to be becoming less Christian in its heart.

Over the next four weeks we’re going to look at this parable and consider the different kinds of soil. Our hope is that we will emerge with a better understanding of the challenge of bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to a world that can be rocky and thorny even as we seek good ground.

Crazy Farming

Jesus begins: “a sower went out to sow his seed, some fell on the path, some in the thorns, some on the rocks,” etc. This may sound unremarkable to us, but you need to know that this is funny farming. It would be like saying today, “One day, Farmer Johnson spent the morning tuning up his beautiful, green and yellow, top of the line, John Deere tractor and attached the planter trailer. He filled the seed bins with several bags of hybrid, weed-resistant seed, and climbed into the cab and started her up. He turned on the onboard computer, the air-conditioning, and his favorite mix of Toby Keith tunes. Then he started driving. As he opened up the seed vaults on the planter trailer, he drove from the barn across the parking area and onto the front lawn of the house. The seed was spreading fine. He then continued to drive up and across the asphalt rode before swerving into the ditch thick with weeds. The specialized, hybrid seed was flowing nicely as he steered back up onto the road and headed down to where there was an entrance through the fence into one of his fields. . . .

What Jesus describes is some funny farming. First of all, seed was precious and painstakingly gathered.They couldn’t go down to the store and buy big bags of seed. Farmers likely picked through every handful to make sure it was quality seed.

Secondly, farmers worked land that likely had passed down to them from their fathers and fathers’ fathers. Land was precious. They knew every foot of their land and knew where the good soil was. They knew where seeds were likely to grow and where not to even attempt to plant—they wouldn’t waste seeds!

Middle Eastern farming is very precise, so what are we to make of the Sower in Jesus’ parable, who flings seed indiscriminately over good ground and bad?

Firstly, I suspect that Jesus was being intentionally humorous, bringing a smile to listeners’ faces as he opened their ears to hear his parable. Certainly any farmers in the crowd would have laughed. Secondly, I think Jesus reveals a mystery about God. We get the picture of a Sower who, if not nuts, is unreasonably generous, insanely hopeful that even the least and last seed might find its way into arable land. It is as though God is a sower who thinks, yes, even among the rocks and thorns, some fruit may be born.

Parable’s Meaning

One of the advantages that we have is that like the Disciples, we have Jesus’ own the explanation of the parable. The seed is the Word of God and the grounds are what we could call different spiritual orientations.

We may tend to think of these different grounds as different kinds of individuals, but we may also apply this to different communities and nations. Remember, Jesus launched the gospel into a world that was either Jewish or entirely pagan. The gospel would be received in different ways as it made its way out from Judea to Greece, Rome and beyond.

It may strike you as a bit disturbing that 75% of all sowing attempts fail! The path, the rocks, the thorns—all represent spiritual orientations of non-response to the gospel and non-growth. Jesus makes it very clear that there will be some who do not hear. Some will have eyes but not see, some will receive the gospel but to no effect.

In our first case of failed sowing, the gospel does not take effect because it is sown on the road where one of two things happen—they are either trampled underfoot or stolen by birds.

Road Hazards

I’d ask you to imagine the path from a seed’s point of view. Or better than a path, think of that seed’s perspective from a New York City sidewalk’s point of view. The seed doesn’t have a chance because a sea of legs and shoes is whizzing by when not crunching you into the concrete. This is one of the ways that I miss the gospel—I get so focused or so rushed on my own agenda that I march past it or trod upon it. The trampling crowd does not value that seed of the gospel. The world is filled with people advancing on their own course, mindless of everything but their personal goals and the compelling surge of peers all around doing the same. When not trampled, that little seed of the gospel is ignored.

Jesus would have us know that we are missing out on a world tremendous possibility right under our feet. We want to feel like we’re the proponents of Jesus’ good news, but we are as often as not fellow tramplers, mindlessly committed to our own, present direction and viewing any distractions as undesirable or even evil. In my own heart, I grieve how the speed at which we move in our self-important bubbles can blind us to seeds on the path. I pray that my own sense of wonder and discovery should be awakened every week and each day in order that I not miss that seed!

Secondly, the seeds on the path can be stolen by birds. Because the seed is out on the road and exposed, the birds can get it. The disturbing thing about this is Jesus’ own interpretation: he tells us that the Devil can come in and steal the word from one’s heart. Now isn’t that fairly terrifying? But what exactly does this mean in our practical experience?

It isn’t hard to imagine. One hears the good news and is quickened by the prospect of eternal life and salvation, when immediately other voices begin to chime in:

•[Doubt]: “Aw, come on—in can’t be that simple!”

•[Fear]: “You family will think you’re crazy and abandon you. You will lose your precious position in the world.”

•[Abuse]: “There you go again—looking for any chance you can find to give in to your weak, gullible self—you can’t get away from the warmth of the herd, can you?”

•[“Reason”]: “Enough of this mumbo-jumbo—come on—you gotta stay focused on the real world: politics, history, economics. Don’t surrender your good mind.”

These same voices can equally keep us followers of Jesus from acting in faith when a seed of possibility is presented to us along our path.

Common Ground

The seed is the Word of God. The Word of God is Jesus Christ himself. The Bible, as such, is not the Word itself, but the Sower—the seed planter/trailer that we hook up behind the John Deere. The seeds are God the Father’s own proclamation of himself and his witness to his only Son—the things that make Scripture Scripture.

The ground is the heart of the hearer or hearers, either individuals or communities. We might go on to say that the Holy Spirit represents  all the mechanics of germination and seed growth, but any parable breaks down under too much analysis.

One of the things we definitely get out of this parable is that God does not seem interested in sparing seed. Unlike a normal farmer who fastidiously stewards his seeds, our Lord is revealed as a Sower who wants to take every chance for a seed to flourish.

You and I continue to live in the tension between celebrating the gospel and desiring that others share in it as well. We are those in whom the seed has planted and taken root, so we also want to be that stalk of wheat that can indeed bear a hundredfold. We know the grace of Christ and we worship the Lord with deep gratitude. The truth of the gospel is so clear and apparent to us, we sometimes marvel that people can disbelieve or believe in anything else. If our hearts are in the right place, we truly desire that all people should be included and brought into the same harvest of richness and completion.

Plant and Pray

While Jesus’ parable—and the gospels in general—make it clear that some will not see, hear or receive, we are not to rest too easily there. We are not to use such knowledge to justify complacency—to throw up our hands and say, “Oh, well—the Bible says some won’t be saved!” Since we know that such is not the heart of God, it should not be present in our hearts, either.

As to our evangelical efforts—our own attempts to share the good news with those we know who are beyond belief—we need to embody the same persistent and generous hand that we see in the sower. This doesn’t mean recklessly flinging gospel pamphlets in the faces of strangers, but cultivating relationships and a winsome witness.

These relationships are not strategic. We don’t engage others simply in order to close the deal on a sinners’ prayer moment. Such relationships seem invariably manipulative and in service more of the evangelist’s need for success than the good of the other person. No, the relationships we build are to be built in genuine, agapé love. We are to really care and really love others—especially the hard-hearted disbelievers and faith naysayers.

Our witness comes through when—and only when—something in us reflects the true nature of our Lord.

We need to remember to pray for the seeds on the path. We must pray for hardened hearts—for those too skeptical or worldly to care. We must pray for those who have fallen away—for those raised in the faith who have questioned or otherwise abandoned the faith. We should never rest easy with their departure. Finally, we should regularly pray for new opportunities—new chances to stand alongside the sower’s heart and help a seed come to fruition.

We walk a daily path with seeds strewn upon it. As we pray for the opportunity to take part in what God is doing, we will be awakened to those seeds and we—unlike they who trample them—will know their full value.

May we all aspire to the same generosity and hope that we see in the sower in this parable! †