So today we have the Parable of the Sower. It is very familiar to us. All three of the synoptic Gospel writers—Matthew, Mark and Luke—tell this story, and they tell it pretty much the same way.

It also has the distinction of being one of the few that Jesus himself explains the meaning of. Maybe. Perhaps I shouldn’t spoil that by telling you that some scholars who have studied the New Testament extensively actually don’t think Jesus said those words. They think those words are an early church understanding that some scribe added later to make sure they became the dominant meaning!

Who knows? Jesus certainly was not in the habit of explaining himself and translating the meaning of his parables. On the other hand, even though we are no longer the agrarian community Jesus was preaching to, the explanation makes sense. Soils and growing conditions differ, and that has everything to do with what grows. That is obvious.

But there’s something that is not so obvious, I think, when we turn from soils to humans, when we look for the relevance of this parable to our lives today. It’s this.

We humans have a strong tendency to look at the growing conditions in the parable as representations of different humans and groups of humans. It’s just how we think. As humans, we are deeply invested in the classification of human beings, as in yankees vs. southerners and conservatives vs. liberals, insiders vs. outsiders. We look for neighborhoods, social and civic organizations, clubs and churches where the other people there are enough “like me” that I “fit in.”

When we use that very human mentality to look at this parable, we pious Christians come out pretty good. Here we are at church on Sunday morning and most Sunday mornings, pretty much the same group is here! We must be the fertile soil on which the seeds fell, germinated, took root and thrive, right?

And we can probably name other people—individuals and groups—who are like the other soil types: Right here in front of us is the hardened path of the nonbelievers, the ones who worship God of another name or who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Lord. And over there is the thistle patch, the ones who might say they believe but whose first priority is making money or having fun, who are too busy to be at church on Sunday morning. Then there’s the rocky soil of the ones who find God in a big, dramatic mountaintop experience but who walk away the minute the magic wears off and all of life’s messiness remains.

I’m sure we can all think of individual people and groups we would put into each of those soil classifications. And it’s kind of fun and interesting to play that game! Especially since we are most likely putting ourselves first in the classification of fertile soil. Because, again, here we are at church on Sunday morning and not just this Sunday but most Sundays.

So I want to challenge you this morning with a somewhat different understanding of this parable. I want us to contemplate the possibility that these types of soil do not represent different kinds of people. I want us to consider the possibility that we, each and every one of us, are all of these things.., all of these different types of soil, and often all at the same time.

Here’s what I mean. Jesus spent a lot of time teaching and showing us about God’s love for us. We could call those the “Jesus-loves-me” teachings. It’s no accident that one of the first worship songs most of us learned was “Jesus Loves Me.”

So here’s my question: Is your heart fertile ground for the “Jesus-love-me” teachings? Mine is! When Holy Scripture is talking about how God loves us and how we can never be separated from the love of God, or when I am proclaiming the Gospel at a funeral and it is that most popular of all Gospel passages for funerals about Jesus going to prepare a place for us and coming to take us there to be with him forever…. Oh, yes! My fertile-ground heart rejoices and overflows with love and joy for God, myself and my neighbors.

But… then there’s those challenging teachings of Jesus, like the one about the workers who all get paid the same even though some of them worked all day and others just an hour. “How’s that fair?” the hard ground of my heart screams.

There’s those neighbors who are so very unlovable, who believe the darndest things, who share memes on social media that make me cringe, who are just so wrong about everything… and Jesus says to love them, too. Those teachings of Jesus tend to fall into the thistle patch of my heart, the place in my heart that is so full of thistles of pride and self-righteousness and arrogance that those seeds of Jesus’ teachings don’t have a chance.

My point is that what kind of soil our heart is.. depends a great deal on which teachings of Jesus are being cast our way. We are fertile ground for some, especially those that reinforce our place in the world and make us feel comfortable, secure, and loved. But our hearts can be—at one and the same time—hardened against those teachings that question our most cherished values, that call us out of our comfort zone in our relationships with other people, and that challenge us to rethink our priorities.

I’m suggesting that each and every one of us is a mix of the different soil types described in this parable. We are indeed fertile ground. But right there in the midst of the fertile ground is a patch of thistles. Between the two runs a path of hard, hard ground where we’ve paced back and forth in times of anxiety and distrust and fear. And maybe we’ve built a rock wall around one corner of our heart, as if to keep it hidden from the prying eyes of God! Who knows what we’re trying to hide back there!

Friends, my invitation today is that we use this parable of the sower and the soils to do some serious introspection. I think we can each learn a lot about ourselves by reflecting on which teachings of Jesus are warmly welcomed by the fertile soil of our hearts. But what about the thistle patch? What are the thistles in your heart that get in the way and crowd out the teachings of Jesus? Who or what have you hardened your heart against? And what have you stuffed behind that rock wall in the corner of your heart? What resentments, hurts, angers are you nursing back there that rob you of your joy and keep you from spreading the love of God in the world?

I am reminded of one of my favorite statements of Franciscan friar and RC priest Richard Rohr. He says, “It’s a lot easier to go to church on Sunday than it is to follow Jesus.”

And that points me to my final word. You see, we are not merely soil for the teachings of Jesus, we are called to be sowers as well. We are not merely to be believers; we are the “sent ones,” the ones who have been sent out to share the love of God in a hurting world. The purpose of introspection is not merely a better life for you and me. It’s not merely more piety and better church attendance (although that is a good thing).

It IS to know what kind of seeds you, me, every one of us is sowing in the world. Because as long as we are alive, as long as we are out there mucking around in the world, interacting with others, doing whatever it is we do... we are sowing seeds. What kind of seeds are we sowing? That is the question.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN

This sermon was preached at Grace Episcopal Church, Monroe, LA. The illustration on this blog post is "The Sower" by Vincent Van Gogh.