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The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Today’s gospel—the parable of the sower—is a familiar story. For those of us who grew up going to Sunday school, it’s one of the stories we perhaps acted out, or drew pictures of—or perhaps we planted seeds in cups of fertile soil and took them home to watch them sprout and grow. Even if you didn’t grow up in Sunday school, this story may be familiar because it’s oft told; comparatively speaking, it’s one of Jesus’ “easy” stories. The meaning of the story is relatively clear for modern hearers, and if there are any lingering doubts about what is being conveyed, Jesus provides us with an explanation. But I wonder if this story’s very familiarity, its seemingly obvious meaning doesn’t work against us taking it seriously. I wonder if we risk missing something when we don’t challenge ourselves to look more deeply into this parable, to ask ourselves why Jesus is telling this story—what purpose it might have served in its original context and what it might have to say to us now. And so I’d like us to spend a little while exploring both of those questions. The gospel of Matthew is a teaching gospel and it is constructed with large bodies of Jesus’ teaching—five discourses—interspersed with stories about his actions, the healings, the exorcisms, the run-ins with authorities, the Pharisees and the scribes. The whole of chapter 13—where we find ourselves this week and for the next two weeks—comprises the third of those 5 discourses and it consists of a series of parables Jesus tells to the crowds around him and then separately discusses with his disciples. We’re so used to thinking of parables as helpful little stories that it is sometimes hard for us to grasp that the parables were often opaque to Jesus’ audience. In fact, Jesus acknowledges this in a piece of the gospel that was omitted from today’s reading. After hearing the parable of the sower, Jesus’ disciples ask him why he teaches in parables and he replies, "Because to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, more will be given, but whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken away from them.” This is a hard thing to hear—does Jesus mean that his message is purposely hidden from some? And if that is so, why bother teaching to the crowds at all? Here is a place where understanding the context is essential for grasping Jesus’ meaning. As we’ve read in previous weeks, Jesus has been preaching and teaching and healing through out the region of Galilee, and his reception has been mixed—he as encountered great faith but he has also encountered skepticism and in a few cases, outright hostility. His answer to this question about why he teaches in parables is in part a response to the way he has been received. What he seems to be saying is not that he is hiding his message purposely, but rather that it is harder for some people than others to really hear the message; parables, it seems are helpful for those who already “get it” – for them parables provide new insights, a glimpse at a deeper meaning. But for those who are still in the dark—who for whatever reason have not yet come to accept Jesus and his message, who are not yet disciples, the parables are not clear; their message is perplexing. For the 12, his closest followers, Jesus provides extra explanation, ensuring that what he is trying to get across to them is not missed. That’s what we hear in the last half of today’s gospel: an explanation given not to the crowds, but to the 12 alone. The theme of each of the parables that comprise this discourse is the kingdom of God—and that phrase is linked to each one of them in some way, usually “the kingdom of God is like ...” In this first parable, the parable of the sower, Jesus uses an agricultural metaphor, one that should resonate with his audience, peasants, many of whom eked out a meager living farming on small plots for themselves or as laborers for large landowners. The seed, of course, represents the word of God, the message Jesus was teaching, and the soil represents the crowds themselves—some resistant to Jesus’ preaching and teaching, some initially receptive but easily swayed, not ready or able to make a full commitment, and some open and with ears to hear, eager and full of faith—a bountiful harvest, as it were. For the disciples then, this parable serves both to explain why Jesus’ teaching has earned such a varied response so far and to alert them to how things will be in the future. People, like the soil, vary in their willingness and readiness to hear the word, abundant though it may be in God’s kingdom. Nonetheless, the harvest is plentiful—even the smallest yield is more than we might expect. Which brings us to our own response to this parable. We are both the recipients of that bountiful harvest, heirs of the kingdom of God and at the same time, a part of it. Like the 12, we come to this passage presumably at least with some readiness, with ears to hear what it says to us. We, even more than the 12, know who Jesus is, we know the rest of the story, yet, like the crowds around Jesus we sometimes struggle with what it all means. So I invite you to ponder this with me in the coming week: Just where do we find ourselves in the story? Are we the sower, working as the body of Christ in the world, spreading Christ’s word abundantly with no concern that it always fall in the “right” place, but trusting that the harvest will be bountiful? Or are we the rocky soil, unable to accept or to nourish the seeds of Christ’s word, Christ’s love and grace when they come our way? Perhaps we are in the thorny patch where our faith risks being choked out by the weeds of everyday aggravations, the weeds of an increasingly materialistic but always alluring culture. In the best of all worlds we’ll find ourselves as fertile soil, ready to receive God’s love, ready to live into the faith and the new way of life that Jesus calls us to. But even when we are in that fertile place where the harvest is abundant, we must ask ourselves: are we ready to take the seeds of that harvest and spread them even further, knowing that God’s abundant love and grace are there for everyone. Are we doing all we can to make the soil here at Saint Mary’s a fertile place so that visitors and newcomers in our midst might be warmly welcomed, so that we can share the abundance of God’s love with all we encounter? Just like people in Jesus’ day, we vary in our ability and willingness to hear God’s word. And chances are that at different times in our lives we can find ourselves at each and every one of these points in our story. The really good news is that God, the original sower, is not stingy with the seed. God sows that seed of love and grace so extravagantly so that wherever we are we can find it. And God returns to us over and over again so that if we are stuck in a rocky place the first time—or the second, or the third—there are more chances—there are no limits on God’s love for us—all of us. When we open ourselves to that love, here and in the world, the harvest will be more than we could ask or imagine and we will be living fully in God’s kingdom. AMEN
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