This morning we are picking back up in the Gospel account from Matthew. Go ahead and turn in your Bible to Matthew 13 and we are going to start with verse one. Matthew 13 is a highly packed and dense chapter filled with7 parables, 7 brief Stories that outline for the disciples what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
The Kingdom of heaven is a term Matthew likes to use when describing Jesus’ work among us; instead of giving a profound theological lecture on what the Kingdom of heaven is like, Jesus uses storytelling to get his point across. Aristotle, the great philosopher, taught his students that before you teach, give a speech, or engage in discourse, the speaker must know his or her audience and speak to them in ways that they will understand. Well, this is precisely what Jesus is doing in Matthew 13. He uses parables, brief sayings whose content is quickly relatable to the common person. Jesus is telling Stories about farming and nature itself that his audience could connect with. Yet, parables are funny things. Sometimes they are easy to understand while at other times, they cause the listener to give a doggie head tilt and force them to dig deeper than the prima facia meaning of the text. In a parable, the Story always points to something deeper than what is seen at face value. Listen to the Word of the Lord!
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
13.1That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.2Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow.4And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil.6But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9Let anyone with ears listen!” —
18“Hear then the parable of the sower. 19When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”[1]
As far as parables go, Jesus really begins with a softball. We do not have to dig too hard to learn that Jesus describes four different ways people respond to the Kingdom of heaven. First, there are those whose lives are too busy or full to even hear the Stories; all their cares, the little birds of their life, come down like pigeons who walk around at their feet snatching up anything that happens to fall to the ground.
Second, there are those rocky people who hear about the Kingdom of heaven but have no interior root system that helps interpret for them what Jesus and the Kingdom are like. To put it another way, these are the people I call Chreasters, those people who come to Church on Christmas and Easter. They do not try to grow their faith whatsoever but simply come to church as part of a social expectation placed upon them by their family or culture “that it’s the right thing to do.” These are the parents who make promises at their children’s baptisms to raise their kids up in the church and teach them the doctrines of faith in order to help them learn about Jesus but then never show up to church again after their kid’s baptism.
Next, there are those people who receive the seed, but the Good News about Jesus and the whimsical Kingdom of heaven gets choked out by the cares of the world. Instead of pushing roots down and out to find nourishment, these people succumb to the pressures of the day, the job, the kids, the finances, or their neighbors, and their faith is choked out like a fighter in the ring for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Fourth and finally, there are those who receive the seed, make room for the seed to take root and grow, care for the seed, and watch it produce an incredible harvest. The seed gets the opportunity to do what it was designed to do and that is multiply and yield new life! Jesus reminds us that these are the people who hear and understand the message and put it into practice.
Let’s pause a moment. The way we typically hear this parable is to personally identify with one of the soils in the Story. We hear the parable read and start clicking off in our head, “OK, I’m not the hard-pack road; I’m not rocky and have depth; I turn to God when I’m in a scrape and don’t let the cares of life choke my faith; and, lastly, by god, I’m in church this morning listening to a sermon, so I obviously have good soil and demonstrate faith to others!” I always find it funny how people hear this Story and for the most part, identify and place themselves in the “good soil” category simply because they are doing churchy things. I have to chuckle because that is exactly what the Pharisees and scribes and all the uptight religious folk thought in Matthew 12 preceding our text this morning. The churchy-folk were put off when they found out Jesus was really talking about them and as we read in Matthew 12:14, “But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.”
This morning, I invite us to hear this parable from a different perspective. Instead of hearing it and applying it to ourselves individually, let’s hear it as I think Matthew originally intended. Remember, Matthew was writing his Gospel for members of the early Christian church. It’s a Story meant to tell second-generation Christians who Jesus was and what he came to do as well as to paint the picture of how the Church is to keep the Story alive and growing in the community. The First Nation’s Version of the New Testament captures this beautifully in verse 19; it’s a translation that was written by the Indigenous peoples of our country. It reads, “The seed in this story is the message from the Great Spirit about his Good Road.”[2] Our indigenous brothers and sisters call the “Kingdom of heaven” in a way that cuts through all theological double-talk. The Kingdom of heaven Jesus speaks of is called the “good road.” The seed in the Story is the message, the Word, from God about living and moving upon the Good Road now, and it’s written to and for the Church!
Church, how well are we walking, living, and moving along the good road? What type of dent in the world are we knocking out for the Kingdom of heaven right here in Broward County and beyond? Church, how well are we abiding by Jesus’ first word in today’s Story?
The very first word Jesus utters is this: Hey! Pay attention! Listen! (13.3) He then repeats in verse 18, “Listen up!” Church, he’s talking to us. Dale Bruner, a retired professor from Whitworth University in Washington, says today’s parable about the seed and the soil gives the moral imperative that the church’s primary responsibility in life is, “to listen with one’s life to the Seed of the Word of God.”[3]
Church, are we listening? Are we giving room for the seed of the Kingdom, the Good Road, to find root and nourishment? Have American Christians become so dull to a living faith they ceased being Church at all? Church, have we become too rocky and impenetrable that we are reticent to give up “the way we always did it” and allow new seeds to be planted and grow? Church, have we become too focused on how many butts are in the pews and what our financial condition is that we are choking out God’s exciting, winsome plans for planting the Good Road through us? Church, are we collectively and are you individually as a part of the community, cultivating deep into your spiritual soil so that when the Seed of Christ’s Word lands in your heart and life it will find the conditions to grow and multiply?
Bruner sardonically reminds us, “Matthew’s Jesus is aware that probably the major scandal in Christianity, not least for Christians themselves, is that comparatively few live as such.” In other words, our Story reminds us that only 25% of us who comprise the Church even get it.[4] As another commentator writes, “A seed contains forces of life and transformation. It encapsulates potential; but as potential, its actual future is open.”[5] Church, what open future shall we grow?
Church, forget the soil. Let’s focus on the seed, the gospel of Jesus that promises we can live on God’s Good Road right now. Church, let’s put ourselves in the character of the sower in our Story. How well are we with all reckless abandon throwing seed of the Kingdom upon every inch of ground we see leaving its growth to God’s Spirit? That, Church, is what we are called to hear. That’s what Jesus is demanding we listen to and act upon.
Back in the 1980s, scientists in Norway began storing seeds endemic to Norway in an abandoned coal mine on the island of Spitsbergen. Since that time, it has evolved to become the Svalbard Global Seed Vault where seeds from around the world are kept safe in order to protect the world’s global food supply.[6] Beloved, for too long, the Church has behaved as though we are a spiritual version of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, keeping the winsome seed of the Gospel, the Kingdom of heaven, the way of the Good Road, hidden and locked away for safekeeping. Beloved, our world is literally dying; the ocean temperature off our beach hit 98 degrees! Sea life cannot survive that long term. Our world is dying from wars and acts of hate and violence. Beloved, we need to open the doors and spread the Story of Jesus as winsomely, enthusiastically, and purposefully as possible! Oh, how the world needs Jesus!
And all of God’s sweet children say, Amen!
© 2023 Patrick H. Wrisley, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, 401 SE 15th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL. 33301. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and may not be altered, re-purposed, published, or preached without permission. All rights reserved.
[1] New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] First Nation’s Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021). See the article at https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2021/september/first-nations-version-indigenous-bible-ivp-translation-wild.html.
[3] Dale Frederick Bruner, Matthew: A Commentary. Vol. II: The Churchbook, Matthew 13-28 (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), 8.
[4] Ibid., 19.
[5] Feasting on the Gospels–Matthew, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary by Cynthia A. Jarvis, E. Elizabeth Johnson. See https://a.co/aUrHlrX.
[6]See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault. Accessed July 16, 2023.
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