Jesus told stories about things that are familiar to us in order to teach us about things that might not be – like how things work in the Kingdom of God. His first farm story is recorded in chapter 13 of Matthew’s gospel and points out the many similarities between processes we know in the natural world and processes in the spiritual world.
“A farmer went out to sow his seed…,” Jesus said when he began his story, as recorded in Matthew 13:3. Seeding time is just about over. Farmers have been out there in the field with their SeedMaster or Seed Hawk or Morris or whatever, and they’ve got the grain in the ground. No seeding, no harvest. It works that way in God’s kingdom too!
The seed of spiritual life is God’s Word. It is the good news about Jesus Christ – his birth, his life, his death and his resurrection. As we hear that news, it is like a seed planted in the soil of our hearts. And just as soils are different from field to field and farm to farm, hearts are different from person to person. As Jesus’ story unfolds in Matthew 13, he talks about different soils, but when he explains it, we learn that it’s really about our hearts.
Some people are not open at all to God’s Word. For them, hearing the message has no effect. It’s like seed falling on the hard-packed trail. The birds eat it and it’s gone. Others take it in with joy, and it springs up like a crop with an abundance of surface moisture. But then the heat wave hits. And where is that rain anyway? Jesus said that these take in the Word with joy but do not have a deep root of inner commitment in their heart, and when somebody puts the heat on them because of their expression of faith, they wilt like grain in scorching heat that didn’t get its roots down deep enough.
Then there are those who do take the Word in deep. And it does grow. But there are other things growing along with it, even out-growing it. Weeds! It takes no effort to grow weeds. And the farmer who doesn’t deal with the weeds knows all too well what that means come harvest time. Jesus said that some of us let worry and wealth and pleasure and other things overtake and crowd out God’s Word in our lives, and as a result we never produce the harvest of good things that God’s Word is capable of generating.
But Jesus saves the best ‘til last. There are those, he says, who take in the Word of God, who have a committed heart, who persevere through difficult circumstances and contrary opinions, who diligently keep the weeds out and who experience a full harvest of the blessing of God in their lives. Why would anyone not want this?
