The Good Earth

The Good Earth (July 14, 2002)

"Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty." Matthew 13:8

This parable is known as the parable of the Sower. It is really a parable not of the sower but of the soil. There are four kinds of soil, but only is the good soil and gladdens the heart of the sower. The other three are a disappointment.

Before we look at the other three, let us remember that it is the same pure seed which is sown by the sower everywhere. The seed itself is the best - it is the Word of God. And it has brought life and immortality and borne fruit in many times and places. Sometimes one hears the scoffers of Christianity deride the faith for one reason or another, and over 2000 years Christianity has given many good reasons for doing so. But this doesn't mean the seed itself is to blame.

Jesus probably told this parable out in a field as the disciples watched a sower at work. It is a parable drawn from real life. In the parable Jesus himself is the sower. The gospel record is clear that some people were attracted to his message, others turned away. It is the same message, the same good seed of the Word, but it doesn't all produce fruit. But those who do produce fruit, produce a remarkable amount.

A parable like this is so clear it doesn't need an interpretation. One is supplied by Matthew and perhaps it is from Jesus or from one of his disciples later on when persecution of the church was rampant. But the parable can stand by itself and does not need the interpretation.

Why, the disciples probably asked, is it that some people stay with us for a while, then turn away, some respond with joy immediately but lose enthusiasm when things get tough or they go off and busy themselves with something else? Why doesn't everybody just receive this joyful sound of the gospel, the good news, let it set itself in his or her heart, and stay committed to Christ and to his Church? Clearly, this is an age old question, and the parable shows it was faced even by Jesus.

There are people of course who have no preparation for receiving the truth. The Word doesn't have a chance. William Barclay called this group the group of the shut mind. Their minds are made up already. No matter how good the seed is, it's not going to penetrate. They do not have what John Calvin called "a teachable spirit". The last thing they would want to do is ask a question. It should be said that not all these people are outside the Church. Some are inside. And the Word doesn't have a chance.

Then there's the folks who represent the "rocky ground". In Palestine, this would be not rocks as such but ground with a very thin layer of soil over a hard or stony ground. They receive the Word with apparent joy, lots of enthusiasm. But they are likely to be swayed by the next thing which comes along, and they can't be counted on in times of trouble. They have no resources in themselves. When trouble comes they tend to blame God.

Our particular form of the Christian faith has always been a little wary of the kind of preaching which intends to elicit a sudden enthusiasm. Perhaps it's this parable. We'd rather have folks use their mind which God gave them, think it through, and develop the soil of their own resources. Yes, there's joy in the gospel, but there's also responsibility as well. A too easy enthusiasm can mask that responsibility, and when trouble comes, away they go.

Then there's the thorny ground. These are the hearers with so many interests in life that often the most important things - including one's relation to God and being of use and service in the world to the glory of God - these things get crowded out, choked. People become too busy to pray, too busy to read the Bible, too busy to go to church, so involved in business that they forget that, as Dickens said, "mankind is our business".

There's a lot of "thorny ground" out there these days. There's an old saying that the good is often the enemy of the best. It is not to say there aren't things in our busy lives which aren't truly good, but it is to say they can often be the enemy of the best. What is best, for the Christian, is that seed which is the Word, which is Christ himself.
In his later life Charles Darwin admitted that his mind was "a withered leaf to everything except science." He used to enjoy listening to Handel's Messiah, but he couldn't any more. This is the way it is when the pressures of life crowd out from our minds the things of the spirit.

There's a poem which goes:

Too busy to loaf for even a day;
Too busy to smile or walk a mile,
Too busy to see that beautiful tree
Or gaze a while at the open sea;
Too much hurry, too much rush,
No time to listen to the song of a thrush.
Too busy to live, too busy to love,
Too busy ever to look above.
At last at the gate I can hear Peter say,
You're too busy. Please go away.
If I let you in, you wouldn't stay. You're too busy!"

Finally, there is the good earth. This person hears the Word, understands it, and then bears fruit. His or her mind is open and is at all times willing to learn. He or she is not too busy or too proud to listen. Above all, this is the soil which produces a harvest - some a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty.

In practically every church there are people with shut minds and sometimes they are even in church every Sunday. Nothing will grow from that. There are also people who join in a rush of enthusiasm and then quickly fade away. And there are many folks, perhaps we are all a bit like this, for whom the seed falls among such thorns of business and worry and a multitude of involvement that the gospel message of freedom and peace in Christ is somehow is lost in their lives. The church will still survive.

But what the church absolutely needs if there is to be a harvest at all is good earth, the people who week in and week out give of themselves, come regularly and gladly to hear - remember, Jesus said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear --- and who let the seed of the gospel find root in their souls so that they live the Christian life automatically, and therefore produce fruit automatically.

The Word bears its fruit in the life of the profitable hearer. He or she receives it, understands it, applies it. He adds to it the light of hope, perhaps also the water of tears, the patience of faith, and then of its own the good earth produces its fruit by the grace of Almighty God.

Thank God we have many such people in our church. Across the world, this is the strength of the Christian Church - ordinary people who actually live extraordinary lives of faith and love and charity because they are the good earth into which the seed of the gospel has been planted.

The harvest, of course, is entirely the work of God. But God needs the good earth for the harvest. But if God has that good earth, the harvest is sure.