The Parable of the Sower
November 17, 2024
(Note - I added some material in the actual sermon which is not in the text below.)
Our scripture tonight is the Parable of the Sower which is found in all three of the synoptic Gospels as well as in the extra-canonical Gospel of Thomas. We’ve likely heard it in read from Matthew 13, Mark 4, and our version tonight from Luke 8. This parable is also well preached on the Christian world over. You know that I have no problem editing and adapting the Bible a little bit to make references to God more inclusive or to make the text a bit more accessible, but I admit I struggle the change the words of Jesus, particularly when Jesus goes out of his way to explain something such as the parable tonight. There’s something about those “words in red” that seem fixed and untouchable. Yet, I want us to look at this parable in a bit of a different way tonight.
Before we talk about the seed and where it falls, we need to talk about the sower. He’s not very good at his job. It’s as if he woke up one morning, threw on some clothes, grabbed a bag of seeds, walked outside, and threw handfuls of seed around until the bad was empty. He doesn’t care where it lands or what happens to it. This is hardly the picture of a well-run agricultural operation or even an organized home garden. The sower is media very broadly defined from 24-hour news to social media to online newspapers and magazines. Yes, almost anyone can contribute and access content, but at what cost? The sower is a complicated figure because his morality is subjective. Inasmuch as he simply puts content out into the world, he’s morally neutral, but if he has some intent behind his dispersion of content then he can be either morally positive or morally negative. In fact, his moral position might change depending on the situation or even the moment.
The seed is the content and that content includes, but isn’t limited to, the word of God. In a world where anyone can create, share, and claim as true any content or information, figuring out what is the word of God and what is the word of humans—to say nothing about what is true, false, or contextual—is substantially more difficult than it ever has been. The seed that falls on the path and is trampled is information that never makes an impression. We’ve all spent time scrolling through social media quickly skipping through content that we don’t want to see. Recently, we’ve probably been skipping news, analyzes of what happened in the election, and the dumb things our Trump-supporting family has to say. None of us consume exactly one type of content. Some days I don’t want to know what everyone is preaching on or what LGBTQIA+ organizations are saying. Some nights I just want to lose myself in the world of college sports or live vicariously through my friends who lead very different lives. If you’ve created content for social media, you also know that content can get minimal or no reactions even though we put time and effort into it. This too is seed which fell on the path and was trampled.
The seed that fell on rocky ground is content which people engage with for a season, but then lose interest. To quote Heidi Klum, “One day you’re in and the next day you’re out.” Again, this content can be morally positive, negative, or neutral, but it doesn’t take root with people. Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes that not a good thing. The important question then is what takes root instead. Content and ideas which don’t stick with a person leave room for other content which may be worse and not life giving.
The seed that fell among thorns is content which helps a person for a season, perhaps even gets them to a new place, but it can’t sustain the person long-term. Theologian and former Roman Catholic priest Brennan Manning once said, “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their life. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Today it may not be atheism, but rather why people leave congregations and search for other options. While we’ve all been there, but media content can push people in strange directions. Yes, it can bring people into progressive churches, but it can also push them further down the rabbit hole of their religious extremism. The thorns came from somewhere and rather than just choking the new plants, the thorns can hold those plants in place. The thorns can be churches and ministries which continue to preach a gospel of hate and fear; where young woman are still instructed in purity culture and young men hear this generation’s version of muscular Christianity. Rather than choke all life out of the believer, the thorns become media content itself and choke the truth of Christianity and the truth of Jesus’ message out of the believer.
There are two more situations we need to think about. Imagine some of the seed falling on ground that will never produce crops. This ground is the people who can’t or don’t want to engage because they’ve been around this block too many times before. Whether politics, the church, religion in general, or something else, some people have just given up. They’ve been lied to and used all while trying their best to fit in and change themselves to conform to stereotypes or the rhetoric of supposed leaders. They’ve been told they’re either too much or not enough. They might have accepted the lies in an attempt to fit in or gain favor. Perhaps it’s better to be a sinner in the circle than a sinner outside the circle. Whoever they are and whatever they have come to accept, our content, our word is not going to get anywhere with them.
Now we have to return to our sower for a moment. We’ve already established that he’s at best indifferent to his job, but what we didn’t know before is that the night before he went out to sow, he had to prepare his bag of seed. He wasn’t paying attention and he accidentally mixed in bad seed. While the seed lands on good ground and the seeds grow together, the bad seed poisons both the good seed and the good ground rendering suitable only for weeds. This is the content based in fear, hate, and violence. Yesterday, a small group of Nazis dressed in all back with red face masks and carrying flags blazoned with swastikas marched through the Short North eliciting the shock and condemnation of the majority of the people who saw and heard them. While Nazis in public are quickly denounced, the same is not true of white supremacists throughout social media, online publications, podcasts, and sermons preached today in other churches by other people who also call themselves Christian and who are compelled by the same words of Jesus Christ. Yet, their rhetoric, their prayers, their worship, and their calls to action sound very different than ours. This is the realm of Christian nationalism which has come up with us and has strangled life out of Jesus’ message replacing the Gospel of Love with a gospel of hate and the Gospel of Peace with a gospel of war. The promise of freedom from sin has been supplanted by submission to an interpretation of the Bible which is only aligned with the ideology churches and pastors rather than God.
As for the good seed that falls on good ground, we can quote Jesus: “…these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with endurance.” We strive to be in this group, but what does that mean practically? It means we do not and cannot turn our backs on the marginalized and the oppressed. It means we cannot return hate for hate. It means we cannot stay silent. It means calling out Nazis—online or in public. It may mean offering an expression of love or saying something comforting. Friends, rather than worry ourselves about the what-ifs and might it happen, let’s begin practicing the basic response: love each other, check-in on each other, and offer comfort when you’re able. Amen.