The Sower Who Sows in Every Kind of Soil (7-16-2023)
July 16, 2023
Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Isaiah 55:10-15; Psalm 65:9-13; Romans 8:1-2; Matthew 13:1-23
There are two passages from the prophet Isaiah in our readings today, one of them comforting and reassuring, the other confusing and perhaps a little scary. Yet they are both true, and in their own way they are both good news for us.
The first passage from Isaiah is the one that Reagan just read for us today. Just as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have accomplished their purpose – until they have made the earth fruitful, lush and green, until they have given seed to the sower and bread to the eater – so it is with the Word of God. The Word of God does not return empty-handed back to God. The Word of God always accomplishes its purpose. God, who created the entire universe with a word, Let there be light, Let there be plants and animals, Let us make human beings in our image – this Word of God can do anything, even the impossible, even call existence into being out of nothing. This Word is powerful and it will accomplish what it has set out to do.
And so, Isaiah says to the exiles returning from Babylon to the ruins left behind by a previous generation: When God said you will be my people and I will be your God, you can know that the Word of God will not fail to achieve its purpose. It may not feel like it right now, Isaiah tells a fearful and grieving people, but the mountains and the hills are ready to erupt in song, the trees are ready to clap their hands with joy, at the amazing things God’s Word will accomplish and is accomplishing among you. God has said it, God’s Word always accomplishes its purpose, so you can believe it.
That’s the comforting word we are given today from the book of the prophet Isaiah. But there is another passage of Isaiah that Jesus quotes in today’s gospel reading, and it’s much less comforting. This passage comes much earlier in the book, right after Isaiah accepts the call to become a prophet. You probably remember the story. Isaiah is praying in the Temple in Jerusalem in the year King Uzziah died, and Isaiah sees a vision of God seated on the throne in heaven. Surrounded by angels and the whole host of heaven caught up in worship and praise, singing (as we do in our own liturgy each Sunday) “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of your glory.” One of the angels takes a coal from the altar and touches Isaiah’s lips, to purify them. And the Lord says, “Whom shall I send?” and Isaish responds, “Here I am, Lord, send me!”
And we usually stop the reading there, because what comes after is the disturbing part. Because what God says is: OK, I will send you. I will send you to speak to the people. But you should know beforehand that they will not listen to you. Go and say to this people, “Listen but do not comprehend, look but do not understand. Close your ears, close your eyes, so that you will not hear or see or understand, and turn and be healed.” And Isaiah says, For how long, O Lord? How long will I speak and they will not listen? And the Lord says, Until the cities are devastated and abandoned, until the people are sent far away and the land is empty. Until then you will speak and they will not listen, and they will not understand.
And this is the passage of Isaiah that Jesus quotes when his disciples ask him why he teaches in parables. Jesus does not say, I’m teaching in parables because I’m trying to use some real-life examples to help people understand what I’m getting at. Jesus does not say, the people I’m talking to are farmers, so let me use some farming stories to make the message more comprehensible. No, Jesus says, Remember when the Lord told Isaiah, you will speak and the people will not understand? That’s why I’m speaking in parables.
The parables are not illustrations to make the message of Jesus more easily comprehensible to even the dullest and densest listeners. Jesus teaches in parables, like the parable of the sower, so that we need to actively listen and think about the parable, to wrestle with it, to question it from every side. The purpose of parables is not to answer our questions but to provoke our questions. And if we’re not interested in asking questions of the parable, if we don’t have ears to hear or eyes to see what the parable is trying to say to us, it’s just a story that will sail comfortably right over our heads. Well, that was a curious story. Anyway, can you believe how hot it was this week?
Two passages of Isaiah. One telling us that the Word of God always accomplishes its purpose. And one telling us that the Word of God made flesh deliberately taught in a way that confused people as often as it enlightened them. So which is it? Which one of these passages is true? Can they both be true?
Well, as Jesus might have said, Hear the parable of the sower. A sower went out to sow, and some of the seed landed on the path and was eaten by the birds. Some of the seed landed on poor soil, sprouted quickly, but were burned up by the sun or choked off by thorns. Some of the seed landed on good soil, and yielded a rich harvest – thirtyfold, or sixtyfold, or a hundredfold. If you have ears, hear!
So what does that mean? Does Jesus mean that the farmer doesn’t mind if some of the seed doesn’t produce any yield at all, because the seed that does happen to fall on good soil produces such a great yield that, overall, sowing the seed is still a productive investment? Is God like a venture capitalist, willing to invest in a bunch of companies that go bankrupt on the chance that one of those investments turns out to be the next Microsoft or Apple and makes him rich beyond imagination?
Maybe. Maybe God is OK with a few failures along the way, as long as the successes outweigh the failures. But that’s not the God I see in the other Isaiah passage, the God whose Word creates out of nothing and does the impossible, whose Word is trustworthy and promises only our good. And so what does it mean if this is the God who is sowing the Word among us in the parable Jesus tells? Can it be that the sower can sow the seed in good soil just as readily as well as in bad soil, because the sower knows that all of the seed will produce exactly the result the sower wants?
Yes, some of the seed falls on the path and is eaten by the birds before it can take root. But at least the birds get fed! Yes, some of the seed falls in shallow soil or among the thorns, they bloom for a time but then they are defeated. You could say the same thing about the ministry of Jesus himself – for a short time he was very popular, but then it all turned against him very quickly, his own disciples didn’t understand him very well and quickly started squabbling among themselves. And Jesus got himself killed after just a couple of years. You could call that a failure, and from one perspective perhaps Jesus was. But it is a failure he wears like a crown – a crown of thorns, perhaps, but the One who sows the Word can do the impossible, even raise the dead, and God can work with failure just as much as God can work with success.
The parable of the sower paints a picture of a God who is different from what we imagine God to be, and that’s the point of all the parables of Jesus. It’s much easier for us to imagine a God who is looking for good soil, a God who is looking for the best yields, a God who calls us to be good soil that yields a hundredfold. Sometimes we look back on our efforts and we can see the good effects of the seed we have sown – and sometimes we feel like we’ve accomplished nothing more lasting than to feed the birds. Jesus tells us that the sower doesn’t care whether the soil is good or not – Jesus tells us about a sower who is willing to sow the seed on good soil and bad soil alike, because this sower is always able to accomplish the purpose of the sowing.