As many know, I have an interest and passion in gardening. Our family has a 25’ x 40’ Community Garden Plot at the Rose Tree Media Park near Media. We enjoy this family project. I often wish there were more hours in the day so that we could spend more time in the garden. As I write this newsletter article, I hope to have everything planted in our garden by the end of this week. We’ve already been blessed with lots of lettuce, kale, various herbs, and a few peas from our garden plot and garlic scapes (from home). If there’s extra, you’ll probably see it appear on a Sunday morning. Perhaps that’s a reason to have consistent worship attendance this summer.

I also started and successfully germinated some plants from seed this year. However, the transplant process didn’t go as well as I hoped. The wisdom of my mother says we have been overwatering them, although I’m wondering if it’s not the soil medium I used. Either way, the garden and the transplants have me thinking this morning about Jesus’ parable of the Sower.

This parable, largely the same, is found in all three synoptic Gospels, Matthew (13), Mark (4), and Luke (8). All
three also explain the parable’s meaning. Jesus told the parable to a large crowd of people. The parable goes that a farmer went out to scatter seed. Some of the seed fell along the path and the birds of the air ate them up. Other seed fell in rocky soil. They grew quickly, but died in the heat of the sun, because they lacked roots. Still other seed fell among thorns that grew up with the seed and choked the plant. However, some of the seed fell on good soil and produced an unbelievable crop a hundred, sixty, and thirty times what was sown.

When the disciples asked Jesus what this parable meant, he replied, the seed is the word in Mark, the word of God in Luke, and the message of the kingdom in Matthew. The seed being sown in the various types of soil represent what happens on different occasions of hearing the word of God. At times, the word is snatched away from people who are on a path. Others are like rocky soil. They hear the word with joy but have no roots. Therefore, when trouble comes, they fall away. Those who are like soil with thistles, hear the word, but then allow the thistles of life, worries, the deceitfulness of riches, and pleasures of the world to overtake them. Therefore, they do not mature. However, some seeds are sown on good soil. They hear the word and produce a crop thirty, sixty, or one hundred times sown.

When I’ve heard this parable, the question is often asked, “What kind of seed are you?” The parable explains that the seed is God’s Word. The better question to ask is “What kind of soil are we? Are we like a path, hard and impervious? Are we rocky or weedy soil? Or are we good soil?

Just as I prepare my garden soil, it’s possible we may need to tend to the garden of our lives. Does the soil of our lives need amending? Does the soil need weeding? Do we need to remove the rocks? My hope for each of you reading this is that you’ll consider what kind of soil you are and then pursue opportunities to work with God and fellow believers to nurture that soil in whatever ways are necessary to become good soil that produces a crop of 30, 60 or 100 times what was sown.

Pastor David