The Sower and the Soil
Sermon — July 12, 2026
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings
In my sermons this Sunday and the next we’ll be leaving the story of Abraham behind and taking a brief break from our reflections on Paul’s letter to the Romans to turn to the parables; we’ll hear two stories on two Sundays about sowing seeds. Anyone who’s ever seen me in a garden knows that I am not at all qualified to speak about seeds, although I’m very good at killing houseplants. But then again, Jesus was a carpenter and his disciples were mostly fishermen. And let’s be honest: it’s another warm summer day, and the Parable of the Sower doesn’t really need much explanation, does it?
It’s a famous parable, one that’s well-known (and tame) enough that it even appears in our Sunday School curricula. And it’s a pretty simple story. A sower goes out to sow seeds. Some fall on the path, where the birds eat them up. Some fall on rocky ground, and spring up quickly, but they don’t last. Some are choked out by the weeds. But some fall on good soil and bring forth grain. (Matthew 13:1-9)
The story is straightforward enough. But as with any parable, the meaning isn’t obvious. And in fact, this is part of the point. You might notice that our reading stops at verse 9 and then picks up at verse 18. In between, in the portion we skipped, the disciples ask Jesus, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” (Matt. 13:10) Jesus tells his disciples that he uses parables to make it hard for people to understand. But he gives his disciples the interpretation that he did not give the crowd. And what Jesus gives his disciples is the familiar, allegorical understanding of the parable. The birds who eat the seeds on the path are the evil one, who snatches away what was sown in the heart. The rocky soil is the people whose faith is like a flash in the pan: who convert to a new religion and immediately become its most devout members, only to burn out in a couple years. The seed sown among thorns are like most of us, for whom the many cares and anxieties of the world crowd out our ability to deepen our own faith. And the good soil is the good Christian, who hears the word and understands, and bears fruit, thirty- or sixty- or a hundred-fold.
So may we all be good soil; may we who hear the word of God today understand it, and learn from it, so that we may bear good fruit in our own lives. Amen. […]
Okay, but it’s not that hot in here today. Is it okay if I go on for another minute or two?
Because here’s the thing: I don’t mean to take issue with Jesus’ interpretation of his own parable. But it doesn’t really leave us with much to work with. It’s better to be good soil than to be rocky or weedy or paved. Fair enough! But Jesus doesn’t really tell us what it means to be good soil. Is that kind of receptivity some innate quality you’re born with? Is it a matter of carefully preparing yourself in some way to receive God’s word? Is good soil what you become when you’ve lived long enough to have to deal with a whole lot of manure?
As soon as we try to apply Jesus’ words to our own lives, these kinds of questions push the parable past its breaking point. We’re used to listening for what Jesus is teaching us about how to be better or calmer or more loving people. But the parable isn’t about how to become better soil. And that makes sense, because soil can’t improve itself. There’s no square foot of earth that can decide whether to be rocky soil or to be good. There is no self-weeding dirt, as far as I know. So if we are the soil in this story, it’s not entirely clear what we should do.
And in fact, I have to admit that if God is the Sower, then the story’s much stranger than it seems at first. If God is the Sower, then God’s gardening abilities really aren’t much better than mine.
Imagine following along with this Sower when he goes to sow. He walks into the field with his bag full of seeds and he scoops up a handful and he throws them, and the seeds are scattered over the earth. Wonderful. He keeps walking along, and he scoops up another big handful and tosses them as well. Wait—that was a road. They’re not going to grow there… He scoops up some more seeds and throws them onto a patch that’s already overrun with weeds. Are you… going to come back and weed that? But no, he’s already moved on. He’s walking over a rocky field, dipping down again and again into the bag without a care in the world. Now, this is New England. We know that you can plant things in rocky soil, but first you have to dig out the rocks and build nice little scenic walls out of them.
But not this Gardener. Who made the path? The farmer did! (or maybe his cows.) Whose job is it to weed? Who was supposed to dig out all those rocks? He was! Even if this Sower is just a hired hand, and it’s not his job to pave the paths or clear the stones or weed the fields, it is his job to sow his seeds where they belong. But here he is, scattering seed over good soil and bad without a care in the world.
Jesus’ words to his disciples decode the allegory: he tells them which things represent what. But that’s not quite the same as telling us what the story means. Jesus told us that the good soil represents the one who hears the word and understands it, and so on; but he didn’t actually conclude, “so be good soil.” That was me.
The titles we give the parables are all a little arbitrary. But there’s wisdom in the fact that we traditionally call this one the parable of the Sower, and not the parable of the soil. It reminds us that the parables are primarily not about us, but about God. It forces us to ask: Is this parable about how you can become better soil? Or is it about the reckless grace of a God who scatters blessings through the world, on good soil and on bad alike? What does it mean to say that God is like this Sower? What does it mean to say that God sows grace and love among us, whether we’re ready to receive them or not?
Surely, this is what Paul means when he says that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” (Romans 8:1) (I know I said we weren’t going to talk about Paul. I lied.) Paul’s whole point is that the law can’t make us good. To put it in concrete terms: being told to “be good soil” doesn’t give us the power to bear good fruit. But God, Paul says, has done “what the law…could not do.” (Romans 8:3) The law can command and the law can condemn; but only the grace of God can set us free from condemnation. Only those seeds of love, scattered so abundantly by God, can grow to bear fruit.
I don’t think of myself as being much like dirt. I hope I have a little more power over my own life than that. I’d like to think that there are ways that we can all prepare the soil of our hearts to receive God’s love, and to love one another in turn. Maybe I’m too optimistic about that; maybe people don’t change as much as I’d like to think.
But there’s one thing that we know for sure. When God sees the rocky soil of our lives, God doesn’t condemn us. God doesn’t write us off. God sows the seeds of grace among us anyway. God sends the Spirit of God herself to dwell in us; to strengthen us throughout our lives, to help us to grow and bear fruit, and to raise us up, in the end, to live forever with God.
