Don’t Be Smug – Matthew 13

A text – Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. ² Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. ³ And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seeds fell on a path, and the birds came and ate them up. ⁵ Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. ⁶ But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. ⁷ Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸ Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹ If you have ears, hear!”

Verses 10-17: The Twelve ask why Jesus speaks in parables and what this parable means.

¹⁸ “Hear, then, the parable of the sower. ¹⁹ When 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. ²⁰ As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, ²¹ yet 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. ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of this age and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. ²³ But 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.”

A reflection:

Perhaps like you, I have spent years hearing this parable one way and then, hearing it one more time, I find myself looking at it anew and maybe backwards. Who are we humans in this story, for example? The seed? The sower? The soil? Yes, probably the soil. But the soil is so inert; don’t we get to bear fruit or something?

And does this parable explain something? Isn’t the key point whether the seed grows and bears fruit or not. And the action seems so random, scattering seed on such varied ground, most of which yields no fruit at all. Is it a macro or a micro view of life?

Recently I read a remark about this parable from a lifelong gardener from a family of lifelong gardeners. Soil is dependent on its background, environment, and nourishment, she said. And soil that has been devotedly tended and fed and turned and cultivated for many seasons – of course it bears fruit. The soil has been grown, developed for a purpose, just like the seeds that will be planted in it. Seeds have little chance of growing and bearing fruit in this world. If you want to give them any chance at all, you nurture the soil way ahead of time, even for several seasons, before you plant things in it.

So, if even if we happen to be the good soil in the parable, we have not become that way ourselves, to our boastful credit. It has taken years of work by the Holy Spirit, parents, teachers, good schools and churches, and reliable friends to make us into even halfway decent soil, capable of nurturing seed that happens to get dropped into us. We’d better not be self-righteous about it. If God, the sower, casts seed about and some lands in our little lives, God is trusting that all the nurturing we’ve been given will now in turn nurture that little plant to feed it into a fruit-bearing organism. Our lives and even the quality of our “soil-ness” is a gift from God to be used for the feeding and caring for God’s beloved world. Being smug gets us nowhere, so let’s cut it out. We’ve been nurtured, so let’s get busy nurturing what God has planted in us.

A prayer:

Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for the parents and elders in the faith who nurtured us, and thank you for the job you graciously give to us to be good soil for the nurture of others. Help us to remember to nurture those God places in our circles and on our paths. You’ve given us food to share with your beloved children. Amen.