Becoming good soil
Text: Matthew 13:18–23
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Parable of the Sower is one of the most well-known parables, but potentially one of the most misunderstood. Of course, we all want to be good soil and like to think that’s what we are when we hear God’s Word, but there’s always a bit more to it.
Parables are meant to divide.
Whenever Jesus tells a parable, He is doing two main things. Firstly, He distinguishes between different categories or types of people. In this one, Jesus is describing how different people hear and respond to God’s Word. Three out of the four soil types end up rejecting it in some way, but the good soil “hears the word and understands it.”
Think about some other well-known parables.
The Good Samaritan distinguishes between those who we expect to help others and those that actually do.
The Prodigal Son (or The Two Sons) distinguishes between people who are very bad or very good, and the one who ends up in a good relationship with the father surprises us.
If you think about any other parable that Jesus tells, you can pick up the types of people He is describing for us. So, the first thing parables do is distinguish people. That leads to the second thing all parables do—they pose a question: which category do I belong to?
What soil type am I? Am I more like the Levite who walks on by, or the Samaritan who helps when he doesn’t need to? Am I more like the younger, rebellious son, or the older, obedient son?
These are helpful questions to ask, but the end goal of parables is not to help us to put ourselves or each other into boxes. Ultimately, by distinguishing people and then making them self-reflect, Jesus is really just bringing division.
We heard a few weeks ago that Jesus came “not to bring peace, but a sword.” His end goal is unity since He Himself is in unity with the Father and the Spirit, and He wants us to be a part of that community. However, to get there, Jesus tests us and forces us into division first.
Our gospel reading skips a few verses in the middle to neatly tell the parable and then explain it without interruption, but those verses are helpful for us to understand the purpose of parables and why He explains the meaning of this particular parable to His disciples.
Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
Matthew 13:10–13 (ESV)
Jesus said last week that the Father keeps things hidden from the wise and understanding, but reveals them to little children (Mt. 11:25). He later says to the disciples that unless they “turn and become like children, [they] will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:3).
Jesus told the Parable of the Sower to a whole crowd of people, but very few would have understood what it meant. Even the disciples had to have it explained to them. And even when it’s explained, we still grapple with what it really says about us, about God, and about the word of the kingdom.
The parable itself shows how people can hear the Word of God but never understand it. For some, it can go in one ear and out the other. For others, it can be heard and even received with joy and enthusiasm, but it fades away as soon as it gets tested. For still others, the Word can be heard but the worries of the world quickly take precedence and the Word gets left behind.
Those who are like the good soil hear the Word and understand it. That’s it. How do we get to that point? How do we make ourselves good soil?
The problem is identified in that question.
Only God can make us good soil.
Understanding God’s Word is the Father’s gift to His children. He reveals His truth to those who have simple, child-like faith rather than those who think they can grasp it and bring about growth in themselves (Mt. 11:25).
How does He do this? How does He help us to receive His Word and understand it?
As He is leaving His disciples on the night of His betrayal, Jesus promises that they don’t understand what’s going on right now, but they will.
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
John 14:26
Understanding the Word of God is not intellectual or theoretical. It certainly can be—theologians spend their days sitting in libraries nutting out all kinds of concepts to describe how God works. But true understanding, the kind Jesus is talking about, is simply about receiving it with faith.
Our New Testament reading from Romans 8 describes how God has done what we can’t do for ourselves. We can’t make ourselves understand God’s Word. We can grasp it and figure it out ourselves.
An example: Jesus’ real presence in the bread and wine at Holy Communion. We believe the bread is His body and the wine is His blood simply because that’s literally what He said: “This is my body… This is my blood… for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt. 26:26–28; Mk. 14:22–25; Lk. 22:18–20; 1 Co. 11:23–25).
We can’t explain exactly when it becomes Jesus’ body and blood, other than that we know Jesus’ words do what they say. We don’t know when they stop being Jesus’ body and blood. We can’t explain how the bread and wine change. We can’t grasp it—we simply believe it.
That’s how God wants us to receive His Word—with child-like faith. We can’t explain it. We can’t fully understand it. We simply believe it.
It’s not easy for us to put our reason and logic aside—after all, God has gifted us with brains that think that way. It’s good for us to nut out our theology and know what we believe as a church, but at the end of the day, the good soil is good and produces a yield only because of that faith.
We also don’t make ourselves into good soil by being generally good people. We tend to think that the more we come to church, the more we put in the offering on Sunday, the more kind things we do for other people, the better Christians we are being. We have it backwards.
Remember that we are simply soil. We don’t produce fruit and then make ourselves good soil. When God grants us faith through His Holy Spirit and makes us good soil, then we produce fruit.
So, pray that God will continue to grant you faith so that you will produce fruit for Him.
God’s will is always done.
Three out of the four soil types were failures. Only the good soil produces any fruit. Does that mean God’s Word fails to do its job three-quarters of the time?
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.Isaiah 55:10, 11
We said back at the beginning that Jesus tells parables in order to divide and test us. Sometimes, God intends for His Word to produce fruit in us and even cause miracles to happen. On other occasions, though, it can seem to have only a negative effect.
If God’s Word accomplishes what He sends it for, and most of the soil types ended up rejecting it, maybe God meant for that to happen. God’s Word is just as capable of dividing as it is unifying.
We can never fully know or understand God’s will. All we know is that His will is always done, even if it seems like a failure to us. He is always in control. He will always have His way in the end.
His Son on the cross could not be more of a failure in our eyes. Here is the great miracle-worker and teacher who is sentenced to public humiliation and excruciating death. But, as Easter Christians, we know that His death on the cross was not the end of Jesus, but the end of sin and death.
God takes losses and turns them into victories. He takes suffering and turns it into joy. He takes stress and turns it into peace.
When all seems lost, you can trust that God has a greater purpose in mind. His will is always done.
In the Small Catechism section on the Lord’s Prayer, Luther says: In fact, God’s good and gracious will comes about without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come about in and among us.
So, when we pray, “Your will be done,” we are asking God to make us into good soil. We are asking Him to create faith in us to receive His Word and understand it so that it produces a yield in our lives.
May that Word also give you His peace, which, like His Word at times, is also beyond our understanding. But may it keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.
