The Seed, The Soil, And The Sower

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Our Gospel reading this week is the Parable of the Sower. This is one of the most well known parables that Jesus told His disciples, and should be familiar to most of us.  Let’s take a new look at this together, and see if there isn’t something new that we can learn from it.

In the first half of our passage we see the sower going out spreading the seed forth hoping for a good harvest.  We read that there were four different destinations for the seed that he was spreading out.  Some of the seed fell by the wayside (vs. 4).  The wayside was the edges of the field by the path.  This ground would have been hard, having been beaten down by foot traffic, and also baked hard by the sun.  Not a good place for seed to land.  These seeds don’t even germinate.

The second group of seed fell in shallow soil (vs. 5).  This ground would have looked good at first glance, but with closer investigation, we would have seen that looks were deceptive.  The soil was only an inch or two deep, and then hard bedrock.  With no place for the roots to grow, this too was bad soil for seed to be planted on.  Plants are quick to start, but just as quickly die for lack of space for the roots.

The third group of seeds fell in among the weeds (vs. 7).  Any of you who do any gardening know how careful you must be to keep the weeds out of the garden.  Why is that?  Weeds will quickly take over, crowding out the good plants, greedily grabbing all the water and sunlight.  In such conditions the poor little plant will often die off or be terribly stunted because of the weeds.  Even when weeds might be pulled up once, they have a nasty habit of coming right back.

The final group of seeds are those who fell on the good soil (vs. 8).  They had the prime conditions, good, deep, rich soil.  There were no weeds so they had ample water and sunlight.  These seeds produced a good crop.

The disciples later asked Jesus what His story meant.  Was He just giving them a quick gardening lesson?  They didn’t think so, and wished to know the real meaning of His story.  Jesus told them that the seed represents the Word of God, the sower is the one bringing the Word, and the soil is the people who hear his message.  The first group is the seed that feel by the wayside (vs. 19).  The Gospel message never penetrates them.  It falls upon deaf ears, so, like a bird, Satan snatches the message away.

The second group, the ones with the shallow soil, are those who make a superficial salvation gesture (vs. 20-21).  It is not real, though, only just for show.  They remain in church, playing Christian, until there is a sacrifice to pay.  When any sort of persecution comes, then they abandon Christ because their salvation was not real.

The third group is the seed that fell in among the weeds (vs. 22).  These are another very superficial group with no true faith.  Christianity initially sounds good to them, but their love of money and love of the world draws them away from Christ and any true faith.  There are many people in our churches today who may verbally agree with Jesus, but they have no intention of obeying or changing their ways.  The world is still their master.

The final group of seeds were the ones that fell on good soil (vs. 23).  Jesus says that some bring forth fruit a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.  All true believers will bear fruit, but not all are equally fruitful.  We who are part of that good seed need to hear, understand, and put God’s Word into practice in our life.  Like the plant that the sower was seeking to grow, we need to cultivate God’s Word in our life like a precious plant.

God needs more spiritual sowers (vs. 8).  Those of us who are stepping up to faithfully sow the seed of His Word should not be discouraged.  The seed is good seed, but as Jesus stated in this parable, not all of the seed sprouted or remained until harvest.  Just continue to faithfully spread the Word.  Keep faithfully sowing the seed.  We never know when even one seed will bring forth a bountiful harvest in someone’s life.