Jeremy L. Berg

“Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.” (Mark 4:3-8)

We’re looking at the parable of the sower. Last time we focused on the sower/farmer. Next time we’ll tackle the different soils. Today we set our thoughts on the seed itself — which is the Word of God. But what exactly do we mean by the “Word of God”?

First, we are certainly not referring to the Bible in general, as we often call the whole of Scripture the “Word of God.”  Second, we must be clear that for the writers of Scripture “the Word” is a personal power that takes on a life of it’s own.  In some cases the Word is Jesus Christ himself (cf. John 1:1). Third, in this parable as in the one that follows it (Mark 4:26-29), the Word that is sown is the faith awakening message of God’s saving activity in and through Jesus’ Kingdom mission (which will culminate in his death and resurrection, but this is beyond the knowledge of Jesus’ original hearers of this parable).

The proclamation of this Word, this sowing and reaping activity, does not just inform people of new spiritual truths like students taking notes in a lecture hall. Jesus is not swapping moral truths at an ethics seminar or waxing eloquent on lofty philosophical ideals. This “seed” is potent with supernatural power and potential to either awaken saving faith and alter one’s life forever, or to provoke hostility, unbelief or indifference in it’s hearers. This Word of the Kingdom is confrontational to the core. But the power is in the content of the message and the one to whom the message points — i.e., Jesus the Messiah. That is, the Living God is at work in supernatural ways producing supernatural results as the seed is scattered about.

This is the reason why the transforming power of the Word is not dependent upon the skillfulness of the messenger as we saw last time.  This is not simply a human-to-human communication exercise.  There is a divine element to this sower –> seed –> soil process that must be taken into consideration if we’re to understand how the seed produces a bountiful crop in this parable.

To illustrate this divine element, the way the seed/Word takes on a life of it’s own, let us look at the next parable of Jesus:

…He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)

This is very similar to the parable of the sower.  However, here Jesus seems to be emphasizing the point that the seed accomplishes it’s goal of sparking Kingdom transformation in human hearts completely on it’s own, without any aid of the man who first scattered it. It doesn’t matter if the man “sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows” and the man has no clue how!  The seed has a life and power of it’s own. God is quietly yet powerfully at work in through the proclamation of the Word — apparently quite independently of the sower/farmer who initially scattered the seed.

Paul seems to have grasped this important truth as he went about scattering the seed of the gospel across the Roman empire: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Cor 3:6-7). Yes, the sower is part of the process, but certainly not the agent of transformation.  Only God makes the seed grow.

But not all soil is able to receive the Word and produce Kingdom fruit. Just as the sower’s seed can produce a harvest, so also it can land on hardened hearts and be rejected. Here’s one instance of this:

On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”…From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. (John 6:60, 66-69)

Yes, there is always a strange tension at work with God’s saving activity. Somehow it is only by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit at work in the message/Word/Seed that one can respond to the Word in faith in order to produce kingdom fruit. And yet we are also free to harden our hearts, reject the Word and, like the disciples above, turn back and no longer follow him.

However, we’ll save the real puzzle for next time when we look at the different kinds of soils: If one’s acceptance or rejection of God’s Word depends largely on the quality of one’s personal soil, then who is responsible for the kinds of soil each of us are?  Does God prepare the soil of our hearts to hear and respond to the Word?  Or, are we ultimately responsible for cultivating the soil of our hearts in order to respond favorably to the message of the Kingdom? Or, is it a combination of these?

Next time we’ll look more closely at the different types of soil and address these questions.