Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
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Luke 8:4-15
The Parable of the Sower
4 While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5 “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6 Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture.7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
9 His disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10 He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
“‘though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand.’
11 “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”
According to some of the New Testament scholars and historians of the early church, this parable might have been one of the best-known parables of Jesus during his earthly ministry. It’s included in all three of the ‘synoptic gospels’ – Matthew, Mark and Luke – and also in some of the other early Christian writings that were not incorporated into the Bible as we have it (like the Gospel of Thomas).
The way this parable is usually taught and preached about is that Jesus was using it to call us to be like the good soil. In other words, we are to let the Word take root in us, not to embrace it only shallowly or to let ourselves to be distracted from growing in the faith by the things of the world. According to this traditional interpretation, if we are like the good soil, we will embrace the Word and “produce a crop” for the kingdom of God.
That makes sense, of course, and it’s likely that Jesus wanted this parable to communicate that point. But maybe not only that point. A different interpretation of this parable has recently been put forward by some New Testament scholars. They say that Jesus told this parable to make a different point to his most committed disciples.
According to this newer interpretation, the parable of the soils was meant to offer encouragement to Jesus’ disciples as they struggled with a major frustration their shared ministry. Big crowds of people would show up to hear Jesus – sometimes thousands at a time – but then go back to their lives without making any commitment to live by his teachings. The disciples had given up everything to follow Jesus, so it makes sense that they would find it discouraging to watch people come and go with no apparent change in their way of life.
The new generation of scholars suggests that Jesus wanted to tell the disciples that this is just the nature of things – some people will embrace the gospel message, but lots of people won’t. And others will embrace it for a while, but then walk away when persecution arose or life got too busy. So maybe Jesus wanted to tell the disciples not to be discouraged when some people seemed to turn their back on the new life he was offering them. Those who were genuinely committed to following Jesus should just keep – ‘scattering seed’ – spreading the good news about what God was doing in him. They could trust that it will take root in some people’s hearts.
There’s another note of encouragement in the parable, one that’s easy for us to miss from our 21st century perspective. Jesus says sometimes, the word will take root and yield an enormous return – even a hundredfold return. That really is a staggering return in the context of first-century agriculture, where a good return would have been six or seven times the amount of seed that was planted.
Jesus might have preached this parable knowing that it would be heard differently by casual listeners and by committed disciples. So maybe Jesus had in mind that it would have a message for both groups – to the masses to ‘be good soil’ and to the disciples not to despair about those who don’t commit their lives to follow Jesus.
In recent years, I’ve come to wonder if there might not be a third way to hear and apply it. Maybe the different soils can be understood to represent the various ‘seasons’ of our lives.
For most people, it seems to me, when we first hear the gospel message, it doesn’t lead to a transformation of our lives. Maybe we hear it for years and it just goes in one ear and out the other. But then at some point we kind of get interested. Something about the story and teachings of Jesus kind of intrigues us. We see how messed up the world is and think Jesus might be worth a try. But then we get to the part about needing to really get serious about study and prayer and service, or somebody mocks our faith, and we drift away. And maybe some time later we run into the gospel again, and this time we go a little deeper, until the other things in our lives distract us. Work. Raising a family. Running a business.
But in some people, at a certain point the Word really does take root, and produces a craving to live in a way that bears fruit for the kingdom Jesus came to announce.
You might remember me warning in the past that I might be all wrong about this third possible interpretation. I’ve never read it in any of the real scholars’ commentaries, so I might be. But it seems to me that lots of us who really find ourselves following Jesus in a serious way have had some ‘false starts’ first. And maybe there’s a word of encouragement in the idea that even if we might have failed to be ‘good soil’ in the earlier seasons of our life, God will keep throwing the Word at us, and at some point we might really start yielding a good crop for the God who refuses to give up on us.
Let’s pray. Lord, we pray that you will prepare our hearts to be welcoming soil that receives your word and bears fruit for you. For those of us who are genuinely committed to your way, guard us against being discouraged that not everyone shares our faith. And for those of us who have not yet turned our hearts to follow Jesus, please keep casting the Word until at last it takes root. Amen.
Have a great weekend,
and worship God joyfully on Sunday!
Henry
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