And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable,
5 “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.
6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.
7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it.
8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”9
And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10
he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’
11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.
14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
This is the first time in Luke that we are expressly told WHY Jesus taught in stories. You may have noticed
that while the Lord uses parables over and over again, no other New Testament writer ever uses them. The Lord tells us quite bluntly that he used this form of teaching to both make the truth known in a colorful and profound way, but also to hide it from those
who had not been granted faith. The Lord has as His purpose to hide the kingdom from some as we see at the end of verse 10. I realize that this cuts against the grain of the way most people, even most Christian people think, but it is the teaching of the Bible
from cover to cover. The Kingdom is revealed to whom the Lord chooses to reveal it and parables serve both to enlighten some and keep others in the dark.
The parable that we are looking at was told to a very large crowd; “And when a great multitude had gathered…” When
Jesus gets to the part about explaining “why” parables and what the precise meaning of this particular one was, the explanation was NOT to the multitude, rather it is explained to his disciples only. This is all quite interesting. To know the Kingdom
is to know something that not everyone knows. It is to know a mystery, something unexpected and not discerned naturally.
The title that is set in most Bibles, “The Parable of the Sower” is probably not a very good one.
The parable is not about the sower at all, he is not identified, in fact he is not even mentioned other than to say that a sower went to sow seed. This is not about him. Others have suggested this parable be titled, “The Parable of the Soils”. The parable
is about four different responses to the gospel using the analogy of soil. All four soils receive the seed, receive the gospel, but they differ profoundly in HOW they receive that word and what it produces, what fruit springs up, or fails to spring up. In
the first three soils we see how it is that men will take the message of the gospel with some kind of excitement and acknowledgement into their life, only to fail to persevere and lose what they had professed to embrace. The problem is never said to be the
message, the Word that is sown, but rather the quality of the ground, the true condition of the heart. We have hard packed soil where the seed just sits on top, not a rejection of the Word, not a disdain for the word in any outward sense, just set it there…add
it to life…an appendage to everything else I am doing. Of course, that is stolen away without much of a fight, before one can even truly wrap his or her arms around it.
But the next two soils, although having the same conclusion, are quite different. Seed falls among the
rocks and these are said to receive the Word with joy, they actually are quite thrilled about the message of Christ! They believe it, embrace it, but only for a while and then when temptation comes, being that it has no root, they fall away and are lost. There
was an outward embracing and excitement and to the degree that those around them would have never known that there was a problem. The text says they believed…they made a start and were quite happy and excited to do so! But they did not persevere in their
belief and soon gave in and were given over to the temptations that attack faith. They could not and did not stand.
Then there was the seed falling on the thorny ground. They too received the word, believed the word. But
the pull of the world, the pleasures of life here, riches and the allure of the flesh was simply too much, and faith was abandoned for what could be seen, for temporary pleasures. And then of course there is the good soil, that which received it deep into
the heart. These kept it, in contrast to the others who had it, but did not keep it. And in keeping it they bear fruit.
Over the years I have heard, as I am sure you have, many sermons or lessons about this parable, it is after
all, the only one that is in all four gospels. Most of the time the lesson is about making sure that we are NOT one of the first three soils. Warnings are given, a call to examine oneself is issued, and some even discuss the difference between saying “I have
faith”, and a “persevering faith”. Those are good warnings and considerations for us to contemplate to be sure. However, I would like to spend a bit of time discussing verse 10. “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God…”
This parable is particularly a message for those who are being described by the last, the good soil. This
is a parable that Jesus tells to instruct the church and to instruct us about His Kingdom. The parable tells us about how the Kingdom comes…so that we who persevere, might know exactly what this we are to expect and joyfully embrace. The gospel
writer presses it upon us over and over again, that the Kingdom of God does not come in the ways that men expected; we have to know this, and even expect the unexpected. In other words, these parables were not meant to be cute little stories
nor were they meant to be like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which end with a nice little moral to live by. These stories tell of the mystery of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and how it comes to this world and how it conquers
this world.
What were the people who waited for the Kingdom expecting? What would they have expected Jesus to say as
he explains the kingdom? The kingdom of heaven is like……Fill in the blank. What would they have said? “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a warrior riding in vengeance upon his enemies…The Kingdom of Heaven is like the earth, shaking in violence and swallowing
up the enemies of God and Israel…The Kingdom of Heaven to those who were waiting for it had a history, but it was a history of armies defeated, Pharaohs destroyed and armies drowned.” What do you think they were hoping Jesus would say as he begins to explain
the mysteries of the kingdom?
Jesus begins teaching them about the glorious Kingdom of Heaven by saying that the kingdom is like a…. “sower
who sows his seed…” You have to be able to see and to feel the great disappointment that would have been felt in the hearing of those words. And so disappointed that they didn’t get it! The disciples had to have it explained to them…and the crowds, for
all the simplicity of the Parable, missed the point and were left thinking it to be nothing but a nice little story.
We all have expectations of what God should do, the way God should work, the way God must bring his kingdom
to prominence. We have discussed that at length. Jesus says, the glorious Kingdom of God is going to advance by the Word of God…by preaching about Jesus…by the sowing of the sower and it will not necessarily be spread evenly or in the way we might think.
In other words, in the Kingdom’s coming there will be all kinds of things happening that are unsettling,
disappointing and if we do not see correctly, could discourage us and convince us to stop; And it begins here with this, sowing seed, preaching the Word, bringing the good news of Jesus to the world, no swords, no armies, no political boycotting…the foolishness
of the Word of God.
There were many things that confused Christ’s disciples and would have confused us as well. For instance,
the more well-known Jesus became, the more the opposition to him increased. And when they did seem to be making progress, people flocking out to him, Jesus would say something, so radical that the folks would leave him and follow him no more! Things like, “I
say to you that unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you.” And the movers and shakers of the culture, the Pharisees and Elders, were not just skeptical but positively belligerent to everything Jesus did. Also,
haven’t you wondered what they were thinking in the Garden when they saw Judas, one of the 12 betray him and then the soldiers carried him away and the next thing you know he is a bloody mess, hanging on a Roman Cross! The Kingdom is coming? The glorious Kingdom
that has been anticipated is supposed to be seen in this? Can’t you imagine their confusion, and why their discouragement would grow as they struggle to see, struggle to understand?
Even Jesus himself sowed seed in the shallow ground…even Jesus cast seed into the thorn bushes.
Did they understand, do we understand, that the victory, the Kingdom, continues to advance in the same way that Jesus taught us and modeled for us? As soon as the disciples started preaching the Kingdom after the resurrection, there were multitudes of people
flocking to the church so maybe NOW it would be as expected. However, don’t you think it was odd to them that not all of those who seemed to get so excited and join with them would continue to follow? Some, not many, lost interest, became dull and returned
to what they knew before.
If we get caught looking at only what is produced in the first three kinds of soil…if we are taken by the
difficulty and how at times the kingdom is advancing so slowly that it doesn’t appear to be advancing at all…if we are discouraged by the shallow, empty professions of faith that are all around, by those who believe for a while, but who do not last, or those
who only pretend in the first place, because their hearts are rock hard…Then we haven’t been listening. This is what Jesus is teaching us. This is the way it will be. It was this way for Jesus Himself!
I want to draw our attention to the last phrase of the text; We read that those sown in the good soil, bear
fruit with patience, or the word could be with endurance. We cannot see but the tiniest part of this fruit. But our Savior has told us to water it, and to expect it to grow. However slowly, even imperceptibly, the kingdom of God advances before
our eyes. He tells us to expect that at the harvest, that seed, which so quietly and uneventfully was sown, will become that which will take our breath away! You will face the same temptations, the same problems the same real attacks that those who have gone
before you have faced, even those whose faith was destroyed…but you are to look to the end….keep the faith, and fruit WILL be borne…but it must be done with patience. We can’t SEE the harvest; we can’t see it in the world and we can’t always see it in our
own lives…But Jesus says that if you are looking to Him…He will see it…and eventually, you will see it…He promises you this. But we are not to stare at fruit, we are to water, nourish, tend and care for the seed that has been planted…we are to keep the Word,
obey the word, love the word…and with patience, endurance your life will be filled with the fruit of righteousness!
Prayer: Father, help me that I would be focused on abiding in Christ Jesus, staying close to Him, listening
intently to Him and wanting for nothing but to walk in obedience to Him. Then my life will be pleasing to You and useful for the Kingdom. Give me a willing heart and an obedient mind that I may be useful to my King and Savior, through Jesus Christ my Lord,
Amen.
Hymn: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross