The Sower and the Seed

Parable of the sower and the seed: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23.










Many of us have read the parable of the sower and seed so many times it becomes old hat. For me, the seed is often over looked in the story. I usually focus on myself as the soil, or Jesus as the sower. But the seeds are missed in the story. In life too, seeds are overlooked because they are small and seem insignificant. Seeds are miraculous though. Each one has a storehouse of power and potential that can feed, fuel or shade a nation if nourished. Huge plants can be produced from tiny kernels. Conisder the following for some perspective on this parable of the sower and seeds.

The General Sherman sequoia tree in California is the largest tree in the world, the stats on this monster can give you vertigo:

--The tree is 275' tall
-- 36' diameter at base
-- 103' circumference
-- Weighs 2,100 tons (just the trunk, not including "branches" that are bigger than most trees and even a few NFL players)
-- About 2700 years old! That's back when Internet was still dial up! And when you didn't have to click something to friend somebody.
-- The trunk is 52,000 cubic feet of wood in volume. You could make 1.9 billion tooth picks from the tree! Or 2,100,000 baseball bats!

The astonishing thing is that this mammoth tree started out from a seed about the size of Roosevelt's nose on a dime.










Seeds are miraculous, but start small and are often neglected. Keep this in mind when you read about Jesus and the parable about the sower and his seed in Matthew 13:1-9

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

Context:
Before jumping too quickly into the parable, it is interesting to check out the setting. This parable was spoken the SAME DAY that the Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah by committing the unpardonable sin (attributing Jesus' power to Satan, Mtt 12:22-45). This is very important context. He must have been crushed in spirit, so disheartened that His own people rejected Him. He came for the world in general (Jn 3:16) but also the Jews in particular as the promised Messiah and heir to King David's throne. The parable was also followed by the beheading of John the Baptist! The one who Jesus called the greatest among those ever born among men! The bookends to the parable are intense! This is why in vs 1 of Chp 13 he goes to the lake by himself to sit down. He is crushed. He has been rejected. His message of the kingdom and his fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant was just trampled under foot and snatched away by birds like seed fallen on a rush-hour pavement.


The Sower
Vs 4: Is the sower sloppy with his seed? Accidentally spilling some on the path and rocky ground? No, I think he is generous. He is a rich farmer, with seed to spare! Seeds were very valuable and if you were a poor farmer you place each seed individually in good soil. But Jesus is rich with his valuable seed, generously casting his seed out by the handfuls! By the bucketful!


The Seed
The seed is the Word of God (vs 19, technically the "message about the Kingdom"). What do we know about seeds? They are small, so small that by looking at it you'd think that nothing much would come from it. How many people overlook the message of kingdom, or consider God's word to be of little value, a collection of some good teaching but little else? They might even have a Bible, but it sits on a shelf, collects dust. Some people don't realize that the message of the kingdom is nothing short of miraculous and would transform their lives. Even many Christians (and me!!) often overlook the Word of God and it gets shoved near the bottom of the To Do List. And then left off of the list altogether. [Confession: it once took me 6 years to complete my "Bible In One Year" reading plan. Awesome. And not because I was super methodical in my study. It was probably the hay days of The Office, 24, Heroes, and Survivor.]


In order to grow, a seed needs soil, nutrients, water, sun. Seeds are a picture of transformation. They are an image of big things growing out of what seems to be insignificant. They sprout roots, send up a shoot, then branches, then flower, then fruit that contains more seeds. Seeds are a step in generations of fruit, nourishment that gives life. Seeds appear to be dead but they are living. An acorn looks nothing like the oak.

So too with the message of the Kingdom. It appears to be just words, just a book, but those words planted in the right place can grow to be huge, transformational and bearing much fruit! When placed in the right soil, with the right conditions the Word of God can grow and radically change your life. Nobody looking at a sequoia seed can imagine the massive transformation and growth potential. But this is fully within the character of God to use the weak, small and insignificant to accomplish mighty deeds for His kingdom and glory.

Jesus calls the message of the kingdom a secret (Matt 13:11-18). Something that generations of prophets yearned to discover. But in Jesus' day and ours it is a secret out in plain sight. A seed sitting on the soil. Seeds are secrets, unless you have good soil, you'll never know what the seed can fully mean.


The Soil
Jesus says that the soil where the seed falls is the human heart. The heart is the very center of our being, it is our inner most soul. When you love something with your heart you adore it with everything you have. There's nothing you wouldn't do for the sake of the one you love. If you're making a vow, you say, "Cross my heart, hope to die, I swear!". You're saying that all of your honor and integrity is riding on your vow. You've sworn with all your heart.

Our hearts can be in different conditions:
--Beaten and trodden down, hard packed like a road trampled and travelled by thousands of people. Nothing grows on a path, nothing sinks in.
--A rocky place, with some shallow soil but no room for roots to grow deep. Seeds can grow in the crack of a concrete road, but the plant easily withers in tough times.
--Weed choked. With competing invasive plants that steal nutrients, light and water. Blackberry thorns will take over anything in its way and can swallow entire houses if left unchecked.
--Rich, loamy fertile soil. Seeds planted here flourish, grow with deep roots, have no choking weeds, produce lush plants and make a fruitful crops with returns up to 100 fold!

What condition is your heart in? Is it ready to receive the seed and be productive?

There might be thorns that are choking the seed. The worries of this life, the deceitfulness of riches and desire for things are toxic to the message of the kingdom. These things take over the seed, grow very fast and suck the nourishment from the soil. How many times have I had a fantastic worship experience on Sunday, been blessed by the Word of God preached in a sermon, then completely forgotten it all by Thursday because the worries of life choked it out?

Hosea 10:12 Puts a great perspective on the condition of the soil in our hearts:

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up the unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.

There is an absolute direct connection between the quality of my relationship with Jesus and how much time I spend in the Bible. Not out of work or a sense of duty, but because the Holy Spirit prepares my heart, makes it fertile ground for the message of the kingdom to take deep root and bear fruit. A tenfold crop is amazing, but God can make a 100-fold crop, bear so much more fruit than we can ask or think, if we receive the simple, small seemingly insignificant Word of God, such a tiny seed, and have our hearts prepared. Never overlook the awesome power hidden inside the message of the kingdom.

Double Tap (Numbers 20:1-13)

In Numbers chapter 20 Moses is about 120 years old. His life has had three major phases:

1) 40 years living in luxury in Egypt, basking in the wealth and wisdom of the Pharaoh's house, growing in stature and prestige.
2) 40 years in the desert as a shepherd leading up to the Exodus.
3) 40 years post-Exodus wandering the desert with the Israelites, fighting their rebellions, putting up with whining, mediating between holy God and a sinful people.

I like that there are three groups of 40, because it makes plain the sovereign hand of the Lord on his life. Since I'm a geek with math stuff, I smile thinking that God loves numbers (since He made them!) and sometimes (always?) arranges the fabric of history to make events fall into a pattern like some grand, repeating MC Escher painting:





















At the beginning of Numbers Chp 20 Moses must feel like one of the guys on this stairway. Or maybe Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day because he's faced with the Israelites' rebellion yet again, and complaints about water again and moaning about food again!

This is the car load of whiny kids, complaining because the window won't roll down far enough, and Billy ate Timmy's french fry, and Susie won't stop touching Jenny's shoe laces. Every 2 minutes somebody cries out, "When are we going to get there?" But there is no "there" to get to because the car is on a merry-go-round! Often the people are called the "children of Israel", and often the description hits the mark. But as soon as I get on my high horse about how childish they were I notice that the horse I'm riding is on the same merry-go-round and my life seems to have some of the same struggles they had.


The Grass Isn't Greener on the Other Side
In vs 4 the people were pining for the "good ol' days in Egypt.". They were wishing for those "glory years" back when they were slaves to Pharaoh, the most powerful tyrant on earth. When there was no voice of God thundering from the mountain above, instead they had the crack of the whip snapping over their heads. In Egypt they had water aplenty but no freedom to worship the Lord. They had meat, potatoes and leeks, but no animals to sacrifice in offering to their loving God. When they had to daily collect straw to make bricks instead of gathering daily manna from heaven. They had a permanent roof over their heads, a warm home, but no home for the presence of God.

The human condition is to want what we don't have. And when we get what we want, it looses value faster than a state room on the sinking Titanic. I often struggle to be grateful for what I have, rather than pouting about what I lack. I'm garuanteed to be miserable if I long more for what I don't have, rather than praise God for what I do. Because no matter how much stuff I cram into my mouth, house, garage and head there will always be far more stuff I don't have in the world.

Psalm 37:16 hits the nail on the head:

Better the little the righteous have, than the wealth of many wicked.

Double Tap
Not only were the people of Israel frustrated and rebellious with their long journey in the desert, but Moses was frustrated as well. And what follows in Numbers 20 is a passage that I struggle with in many ways. When Moses double tapped the rock with his staff to get water he was disqualified from entering the promised land because he did not "trust God enough to honor as holy". Immediately my hackles get raised because Moses served God 40 long years in the desert. This seems way too harsh, unfair, and on the surface rather ticky-tacky. Shouldn't God cut Moses some slack here?

Deuteronomy 34:10-12 enshrined Moses as the greatest prophet and servant of God for all time, but that is still not enough!!! Read this and ponder that Moses still failed to enter the promised land:

Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

But this reflects a sad truth of our fallen, sinful condition: our mighty power and awesome deeds aren't enough to merit entrance into the eternal promised land of God's kingdom. The awful potency of our least sin, is enough to taint the full body of our best work. Or, as the saying goes, it only takes one tiny spider leg to spoil a perfectly good soup.

The details of the "double tap" are revealing and help explain what's happening in this episode.

After the Israelites gathered (again!) to complain (again!) about the lack of water (again!), Moses and Aaron sought the Lord (again!) to get instruction. Vs 6 says that Moses left the assembly to go to the Tent of Meeting. Bearing in mind that Moses showed a lack of trust and honor for the Lord, I picture him storming away from the assembly. Stomping his feet to the Tent of Meeting. Yes, he fell facedown before the Lord, but I imagine that Moses' fists were balled up tight, teeth clenched, small puffs of steam popping out his ears. Moses had every legitimate right to be angry. But this anger did not subside, even in vs 6 where the "glory of the Lord appeared."

In vs 8, the Lord told Moses to "speak to the rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water."

Sometimes God brings us back to the same place of suffering time and time again because we don't learn to trust Him, or honor Him as holy, or obey Him. Sometimes we bring ourselves to the same place for the same reasons. God puts us on Escher's staircase to bring us back to a familiar place of suffering so we can learn an important lesson we missed the first time (or second, or third).

But even when soaking in the glory of the Lord at the Tent of Meeting, Moses is still just ticked off. So in anger he grabs the staff from the presence of the Lord (vs 9). This is big mistake #1. This wasn't any old staff, some random stick. It was THE staff. Moses took the staff that God made miraculously sprout almonds to prove that the line of Aaron was chosen for the priesthood (Numbers 17). This staff was holy, set aside in God's presence, special. I imagine Moses yanking it from the Tent of Meeting like it was some billy club and stomping out to crack skulls. This is like using the Stanley Cup trophy for a punch bowl at the 8th grade dance. Or using the Shroud of Turin as a quicker picker upper for spilled pork chop grease. God instructed Moses to take the staff, but I believe that Moses was seeing red at the time.

Moses gathered the Israelites after leaving God's presence, and I picture him holding the staff white knuckled, smacking his hand a few times, wishing he could smack somebody in the crowd. Mo had the fire in the belly after 40 years wandering the desert. And when the Israelites assembled, I imagine he had to yell above the murmuring complaints. He probably saw their eyes roll. They were camping at Kadesh and, like Escher's staircase, they had been there before. The last recorded time was when the people rebelled against Moses and almost killed Caleb and Joshua son of Nun for delivering a good report about the promised land. Was he hitting his hand with the staff, remembering the rebellion? I think so. The Bible says in vs 10-11:

He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

Again, God told Moses to speak to the rock, but instead he goes Chuck Norris with the sacred staff and whacks the rock two times!! This is like stealing Babe Ruth's bat from the Hall of Fame to pound fence posts for the new dog run in your back yard.

Moses did not honor God as holy. He used an opportunity to serve and miraculously provide for the chosen people to exercise his fierce anger. This might have been a scene instead where Moses could point to the holy, living God then speak to the rock and glorify God for His provision. But when he uses God's power as a moment to poke the people in the eyes God cancelled Moses' ticket to the promised land.

I still struggle with this, but that likely means that I still don't fully appreciate what it means to honor God as holy. It shows I devalue the currency of trusting God. My pride still cries out that if I do a bunch of great stuff for God, then I'm entitled to all of the promises. Yet this negates the grace of God which qualifies me for the full blessing of the kingdom based on faith. Moses failed to enter the promised land on the basis of the Mosaic Law when he violated the third commandment and profaned the name and character of God in a sense by his anger. So if Moses can't fully obey the Mosaic law, then who can? Nobody.

And maybe that is exactly the point. It drives us to the saving grace of Jesus and makes us cling to the cross tighter than Moses clung to the staff that he used to hit the rock.

40 days: Jesus follows Moses' fast

During Jesus' 40 day fast in the wilderness he was constantly tempted by Satan (MT 4:1-11, Lk 4:1-13, Mk 1:12-13)

He rebukes Satan's temptations by quoting from Deuteronomy.

1) Man does not live on bread alone. Deut 8:3
2) Worship the Lord your God and serve him only. Deut 6:3
3) Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Deut 6:16

I'm intrigued to think of the hours Jesus spent studying scripture before his ministry began. Likely there were only a few copies of the Torah in Nazareth, and it wasn't sitting on his bedside or on his iPhone. Likely he needed to go to the tabernacle for his study. After a long day's work in his carpentry shop, dirty and sweaty from the labor. Or early in the morning, tired and sore from yesterday's toil. Because Jesus emptied himself of his divine power in becoming a man (in a sense) he had to learn Scripture the same way we do: years of study, meditation, memorization, prayer, and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness. Did Jesus know he would be there 40 days?! The parallels between Jesus and Moses are striking and not coincidental. In Deut 9: 18-29 Moses describes his 40 day fast before the Lord on the mountain interceding for Israel so God wouldn't destroy them because of their rebellion and sin. While the proverbial ink was still drying on the 10 commandments God wrote with his own hand (Deut 9:10) Israel was crafting and worshipping a golden calf idol. God's anger was enough to bring Him to the brink of blotting out their names from under heaven (Deut 9:14).

But Moses put himself between the people and the wrath of God, pleading, mediating, interceding for 40 days and 40 nights for them to be spared. And they were. The work of one mediator saved a whole nation.

Jesus' life, death and resurrection served the same role. The work of one man made salvation possible for the whole world. He stood between God's wrath and the sins of all people, everywhere for all time.

I think that Jesus' 40 day fasting in the wilderness must have included truckloads of intercession for a fallen world, as Moses interceded 40 days for the rebellious, fallen nation of Israel.

And because Jesus mediated between God and Man, we have the sure hope of heaven.

Applications:

1) How often do I labor in prayer for the fallen people around me? My friends, family and co-workers? How much have I fasted on their behalf, pleading with the Father for mercy? Right now, praying even 40 minutes for the eternal soul for somebody I love is a stretch. If I'm honest, most prayers last closer to 40 seconds. On a "good day". And prayers for my enemies would mostly be clocked under 40 milliseconds.

2) In my hour of temptation, I need to have the Word of God firmly planted in my mind and heart. Like Jesus, I need to feast on the Word each day as a store of energy for the times when I'm starving in the wilderness.