Seaside With Jesus: The Harvest Reveals The Soil - Matthew 13:1-3

How many of your use, or at least are familiar with Facebook?  I think that if Jesus were to tell this parable today, he might do it through a Facebook quiz.  I mean those quizzes are all over the place covering about every field imaginable.  I took several Friday to be able to show you:

1)      Which Marvel Hero Are You?  My result, Captain America (good thing because our entire family for Civil War was Team Cap)…

2)      Which Highwayman Are You?  My result, Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, who else…

3)      Which Misunderstood Animal Are You?  The rat…no comment…and…

4)      Which Member of the Walton Family Are You?  John-Boy Walton…

The quiz that Jesus would have designed would likely have been called, “What Kind Of Soil Are You?”  We’ll get to that quiz in a moment.

To this point in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus had been calling His disciples, teaching and preaching, healing, casting out demons, and finally, as His popularity among the people grew, and things became a little controversial—with performing healings and plucking grain to eat on the Sabbath, and forgiving sins, He had gone head to head with Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, and other self-righteous leaders of the Jewish people.  His own biological mother and siblings even sought to convince Him to be quiet because rumors were passing through the gossip chain that all His talk was the talk of a crazy man or maybe, even, Jesus was demon-possessed (that’s what those self-righteous leaders were trying to spread anyways).

Whether it was for these reasons, or other reasons, Matthew reveals Jesus’ teaching and preaching taking a slight shift.  Rather than being straight forward, like the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus began to teach the people through parables.  He began telling them stories that would convey some aspect of God’s work or the Kingdom of God.  Through the month of August our Seaside with Jesus Series will become Seaside Stories with Jesus as each Sunday this month we are going to consider many of the parables that Jesus told as He “went out of the house and sat beside the sea.”[i]

Jesus began these parables with what has become known as “The Parable of the Sower.”   Hear the story again: “‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 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. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!’”

The disciples were among those who were there listening to Jesus.  What was their reaction to Jesus telling this story?  They were like: “Do what, Jesus?  What are you talking about?  What does a farmer sowing seed have to do with anything much less God?  Why tell stories?  Why not just straight up talk plainly?”

The disciples’ confusion shouldn’t be hard for us to accept or understand…because, we have often had a hard time with the parables…especially this one.  There are times we have placed ourselves as “The Sower” and our opportunity to spread the gospel being our scattering the seed.  At other times, we have wanted to place ourselves as someone who is not in the story, but the “Harvester,” those who will reap what the “Sower” has planted.  I’ve even heard interpretations that would add a third option as to where we would find ourselves, “the tender” or “the caretaker,” those responsible for watering and caring for the plants.  However, when we start trying to place ourselves in any of those roles, we have missed Jesus’ point in this story.  The Sower, the Caretaker, the Harvester, are all one person…they are all God.  We, my brothers and sisters, are not God, so we are not the Sower, Caretaker, or Harvester.  We are the ground, we are the soil.  We, my friends, the ones created as God took His hands and sunk them into the earth…are the dirt—dirt men that God has breathed life into, but we are still dirt nonetheless.

The question is, then, my brothers and sisters, “What kind of soil/What kind of dirt” are we?  Are we the hardened path?  Are we rocky ground?  Are we soil filled with thorny vines?  Or, are we good soil?

How do we know what kind of soil we are?  Let’s take a stab at a pseudo-Facebook quiz.  I’m going to ask six questions (most of Facebook has ten, but for the sake of time, we’re only going to have six.)  If you want to take a pen or pencil and slip of paper to record your answers, I’ll give you a minute to get them together.

1)       How important is Sunday School and/or Bible Study to you?

a.      I already know everything I need to know about God.

b.      Sunday School is for kids, I don’t have time for Bible Study, I can read the Bible and figure it out on my own.

c.      I might attend Sunday School or Bible Study once in a while.

d.      I attend Sunday School and Bible Studies as often as I can.

2)      How important is Worship to you?

a.      I attend worship if I don’t have anything better to do.

b.      I try to get to worship at least a couple of times a month.

c.      I come to worship every Sunday and Wednesday.

d.      I attend worship with others twice a week, and I believe everything else all day long, every day, is an act of worship.

3)      How often do your pray?

a.      I don’t pray.

b.      I say the blessing at mealtime.

c.      I say the blessing over meals and I pray every morning/night.

d.      I practice “praying without ceasing,” by always being ready to pray and praying every opportunity I have.

4)      Is Christian fellowship important?

a.      I’m a loner, I don’t really like being around other people.

b.      Not really, Sunday School and worship is enough time spent with each other.

c.      Yes, because some others in the church might not have anyone else to hang out with so we need to have something for them, but I’m good.

d.      Yes, it is a blessing to spend time with one another, not only for Study and worship, but also for fun.

5)      Are outreach and missions important?

a.      No, everybody should be able to make it through life on their own.  God helps those who help themselves.

b.      No, there are social welfare programs to take care of those people.

c.      Yes, but we should only help other Christians.

d.      Yes, it is an opportunity to be God’s provisional presence in the lives of those who may not know God.

6)      How important is it to tell others about Jesus?

a.      It is not.  My faith is my business, their faith is their business.

b.      We shouldn’t talk about Jesus in public places, we might offend someone.

c.      I’d rather talk about racing and football or shopping and recipes.

d.      I tell everyone what a difference Jesus has made in my life.

So here is how we figure your score.  For every “a” answer, give yourself 1 point; for every “b,” 2 points; for every “c”, you earn 3 points; and for every “d” you get 4 points.  So take a minute or so and add up your score.

If you scored:

0-6, You are the path.  You are closed off to all the seeds that God tries to place in our path.

7-12, You are the rocky soil.  There is no depth to your faith and so when times get tough, you get going.

13-18, You are the soil full of thorny weeds.  You let other things distract you from being who God calls you to be.

19-24, You may very well may be the good soil.  You strive to be faithful in every way you can think of.

Anyone feel good about their score?  Anyone happy with the kind of dirt your score reveals you to be?

Anyone feel challenged by their score?  Anyone thinking, “Hey, I may need to rethink the choices I am making, I don’t like being this kind of dirt.”

Anyone wondering why I said, “You are the path; You are the rocky soil; You are the soil full of thorny weeds;” but when it came to the good soil, I said, “You may very well be the good soil”?  If so, praise God, you are paying attention to the parable that Jesus told.  Whether or not you are good soil cannot be determined by any questionnaire or survey…it cannot be determined by having all the right answers or being in all the right places.

What determines whether we are good soil is whether our lives, our ministry, takes in the nutrients God offers through learning, through worship, through prayer, through service, through fellowship, through witness, and allowing our lives to produce other disciples.  God did not give us the gift of Jesus to keep to ourselves, He gave Jesus to us that we might come into a relationship with Him and in order that we might draw others to worship Jesus too….  If we are being faithful, God will use us to multiply the citizenship of His Kingdom.

Now don’t get me wrong, don’t get Jesus wrong, either.  Jesus isn’t begging us all to be good soil.  He is just stating that among those faced with the Gospel, there are four kinds of soil.  He is inviting us to become good soil, because, as the parable and other passages point out, there WILL BE A HARVEST.  God’s harvest is not dependent upon us…and God has scattered the seed and there will be an amazingly abundant harvest.  God simply invites us to be part of it.  He invites us to be good soil.  He invites us to participate in the variety of ways He takes plain old dirt, breathes life into it, and nourishes it, and enables us to be good soil, God draws a multitude to Himself through us.

And this morning, we are blessed as God invites us to come and be nourished in an amazing way.  We gather this morning at the Table that Christ has prepared for us, we have gathered to receive the bread, receive the cup.  We are invited to allow God to feed us not with simple grain and grapes, but with His very grace being poured into us as we partake of this Holy Meal.  So come…come to the Table…come to the Altar…be fed…be nourished…become good soil…

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[i] Matthew 13:1