The Parable of the Sower

1 The Most Influential Person Who Never (Ever) Lived Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 Think about it, who do you think was the most influential person who never lived? There are a lot of famous people who never lived — Sherlock Holmes. Tom Sawyer. Superman… There's a well-known person in this text, too. But let’s ask the other question on the flip side. Who do you think is the most significant person who ever lived? Who is Numero Uno in all of human history? When TIME magazine tackled this question, they used a computer to summarize all the millions of traces of opinions on the web. The top results were not terribly surprising: 1. Jesus. 2. Napoleon. 3. Muhammad. 4. William Shakespeare. 5. Abraham Lincoln. Going down the list, things got a bit more controversial. For example, Ronald Reagan (32) beat out Paul the Apostle (34), and they both crushed Saint Peter (65). All of these folks are real people, of course. Back to our original question now: Who would be among the 100 most influential people who never lived? People who never took a breath except in the pages of fiction? TIME produced a book about these folks as well. Some of them are better known to us than actual historical figures: Wonder Woman, Ebenezer Scrooge, Betty Crocker, Don Quixote, Rosie the Riveter, Captain Ahab, Mary Poppins, Indiana Jones, Romeo and Juliet… you get the picture. All influential. All very significant. But none of them had a life. They only got a fictional life because someone created them. They are purely fiction. You know their impact: Without such figures, we couldn't have comic books and heroes and villains, we wouldn’t ever have had a Christmas classic about conversion and heart, or a love for eternity, or a woman who brought a country together to help win a war. We wouldn’t have a Cinderella or Dr. Frankenstein's Monster. Our lives are much richer because of these people who never lived. Today we have a simple farmer who went forth to sow seeds. The Bible contains quite a few of these characters as well. The Prodigal Son comes to mind. But the Sower is another fictional character created by 2 Jesus. He is one of the most significant figures from his wide-ranging collection of parables. And, unlike a cultural character such as the Marlboro Man, the Sower has spiritual depth. No one else comes close, except for perhaps the Good Samaritan and the father of the Prodigal Son. (Side note: Do you know what prodigal means? I don’t know if I have ever used it in common conversation. It means, as the story goes, wasteful, reckless, and immoral and out of control. That was indeed the father’s son…) So today, Jesus faces such a crowd of admirers by the Sea of Galilee that He has to teach from a boat, while the people stand on the beach. Matthew tells us that Jesus tells them "many things in parables." Such stories do more than communicate information -- they engage people, sometimes delight and move them, and always force them to dig beneath the surface, to understand what is being said. “Listen!" says Jesus. "A sower went out to sow." Can you see the Sower in the field? As we do, our imaginations are sparked. We see him walking the path, reaching into his bag of seeds and casting them with the wave of his hand. "And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up." Notice that the Sower is just tossing seed, not digging holes or rows and then covering the seeds with dirt. When some seeds hit the path and are gobbled up by birds, he just keeps sowing. "Other seeds fell on rocky ground," says Jesus, "where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away." The Sower does not seem to care where the seed goes; he’s just throwing it everywhere, even on completely inhospitable rocky ground. Not surprisingly, these seeds scorch and die. But the Sower keeps moving along, and Jesus says that "other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and (finally) brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!" Finally, a few of the seeds hit good soil and voila -- they bring forth grain in enormous quantities! What strikes you immediately about the character of the Sower? He seems a bit careless, doesn't he? The farmer in our story is not overly cautious. He just throws seed everywhere, apparently confident there will be a harvest in spite of the losses. He simply keeps sowing his seed, believing that growth will come. 3 So what does the Sower tell you about Jesus? This influential person who never lived has something to teach us about the most significant person who ever lived. Jesus is not cautious about where He preaches and on whom He invests his time, Jesus simply keeps sowing the word of the kingdom of God, even though it lands on religious people who wonder if He is possessed, or on disciples who struggle to understand Him, and on at least one young rich man who cannot part with his possessions in order to follow Jesus. The Sower keeps sowing and Jesus keeps spreading the Word. In many ways, Jesus is like Atticus Finch, one of the top fictional characters in history. Do you remember who he is? He is the hero in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. His daughter Scout, in the opening pages of the book, says that she and her brother Jem "found our father satisfactory." Not much of an endorsement there. In fact, he was much more than satisfactory; he was wise, patient, forgiving and brave. One commentator says that Atticus "is the man who will do what's right when the world is saying he's wrong." Atticus is a white lawyer who defends a black man in a racist Southern town. As a character in the novel says, "There are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us." Atticus stands up for justice when it would be much easier to let the standards of the community prevail, and yet he isn't alienated from his neighbors. He loves his backward, racist, fearful community even as his heart breaks over its shortcomings. Wise, patient, forgiving and brave. A man born to do our unpleasant jobs for us, and who loves us completely -- even as his heart breaks over our shortcomings. That's so Atticus. Does he remind you of anyone else? I wonder if the author had Jesus in mind when he wrote the book… The Parable of the Sower teaches us that Jesus throws good seed everywhere, knowing that most of it is going to be destroyed. As followers of Jesus, we should be doing ministry and missions in the very same way. Perhaps the same careless abandon should characterize the church's ministry, speaking gracious words without having to calculate the potential for success. This means welcoming others as Jesus has welcomed us, and preaching a message of unconditional love and unlimited grace. After all, Jesus calls us to be faithful to Him and to the kingdom of God, not to be successful in a worldly sense. 4 But there's more to this parable. When Jesus explains the meaning of the story to His disciples, the focus suddenly shifts from the Sower - to the Soil. In fact, you could even call it "The Parable of the Four Kinds of Soil." When the emphasis is on the Soil, the message is that we should all be good soil - people who hear the word of the kingdom of God, have it planted deep within our hearts and understand it. Jesus promises that the person who does so "bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty." So here are some warnings and a blessing. When you hear the Word of the kingdom, don't be like the path which is susceptible to the evil one who "comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart." Don't be the rocky ground in which a plant "has no root, but endures only for a while." And don't be thorny soil, in which "the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the Word, and it yields nothing." In other words, don't have your faith be a fiction. But here is the problem with the "Parable of the Four Kinds of Soil" - soil is completely passive. It simply sits and receives the seed. It cannot choose to be good or choose to be bad. It is what it is. If you saw a farmer hollering at his field to be good soil, you would think that he was a little off his rocker. So what is it that Jesus commands us to do? In a word: "Listen!" and therein comes the blessing. That's what Jesus says at the beginning of the parable, and it's certainly something that we can do as active, rather than passive, disciples. Listen to the story of the Sower, and learn that Jesus is incredibly generous in the way that He shares the Word of the kingdom with all the people of the world. Listen and learn that God's Word is incredibly fruitful, and that a great harvest is guaranteed. Listen and learn that the coming of the kingdom of God isn't something that we can control. Instead, hear the message that everything depends on what God will do. He just needs us to be faithful to His call and service. The Sower reveals to us that Jesus is in charge, spreading the Word of the kingdom. Our job is to trust what He is doing, and share His message with joy and generosity. If we do, we'll be feeling the influence of a person who never lived, the Sower, knowing this influential person has something to teach us about the most significant person who ever lived, Jesus Christ our Lord. That lesson is to simply keep sowing His seed, keep sharing the Word, keep caring for the needy, showing grace, being peaceful, believing that growth will come.