I expect some of us invest money, maybe in property or in shares in companies. Perhaps some of us ‘invest’ in other ways. We invest in our future by studying and passing exams. We invest time in people. When we invest, we hope for a return. What do you suppose is the best investment of all? Is there any investment that will give a guaranteed return? Yes, there is.
Today we’re going to look at the Parable of the Sower. Well, sort of. I’m not going to look at the parable itself. I’m going to assume that you’re generally familiar with the parable. What I’m going to do is look at the explanation Jesus gave of the parable and at one specific point in the explanation that relates to the return we should expect.
I’ll make a few comments about the parable and then we’ll look at Jesus’ explanation.
The Parable of the Sower comes in three gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. That itself suggests that the parable is important.
The parable is short. It’s only about 100 words.
In Matthew’s gospel it’s the first of seven parables about the kingdom of God. None of them have scripture references.
We can learn something from those last two points. If we have the opportunity to share the gospel with non-Christians, let’s take note of Jesus’ example. Keep it short. And we don’t have to have Bible references!
In the parable the seed is God’s word. The sower can be anyone who is spreading God’s word. It could be Jesus; it could be us. A seed is small and light. If someone dropped a seed into your hand, you’d barely feel it. God doesn’t take a pneumatic drill to get through to a person.
That’s enough of a recap on the parable itself. Let’s now move on to Jesus’ explanation of it. We find Jesus’ explanation in Matthew, Mark and Luke. I’m going to look at the explanation in Mark’s gospel. Here it is:
“Jesus said to them, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. It is as if a man should scatter seed on the earth. Night and day, while he sleeps, when he is awake, the seed sprouts and grows; how, he does not know. Of its own accord the earth produces first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the crop is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because harvest time has come’” [Mark 4:26-29].
I read this from the Revised New Jerusalem Bible. I don’t think this translation is different in any significant way from other popular versions of the Bible. But about two weeks ago I was in a meeting of leaders and representatives of some of the churches in the Boscombe area. A Jesuit priest read these verses from this version. For some reason this phrase, ‘if a man should scatter’, struck me in a way that it hadn’t before. In this talk I want to focus on that phrase, ‘if a man should scatter’. I think it tells us something that’s really applicable to our present situation at Rosebery Park.
We’re in a time of sowing the seed of God’s word. Next Sunday morning we have ‘After the Storm.’ Our initial purpose in ‘After the Storm’ was to encourage people to come along to thank God for helping us through this horrible pandemic. Since then, we’ve decided to combine it with a harvest thanksgiving. Many of our members have put a lot of effort into this. Someone has had 10,000 leaflets printed and distributed. Some people have spruced up the church and someone has power-washed the front of the church. Someone is providing LOTS of flowers. The music group has been practising.
Then next Sunday afternoon we’re joining with other churches in Boscombe for an open-air service down by Boscombe Pier. We’re going to publicly witness to God. It’s another form of sowing the seed of God’s word, to acknowledge him. There has also been quite a bit of work organizing that - I don’t need to go into the details.
In this time of sowing the seed of God’s word what can we expect? Can we confidently expect a harvest?
Look at these four verses. How does Jesus’ explanation start? It starts with a man scattering seed on the earth. Now look at how it ends. It ends with a harvest. Great! That’s the result the sower wants! What does that harvest depend on? The weather? The quality of the seed? Apparently not. In these four verses the word ‘if’ only comes once. Jesus said: ‘IF a man should scatter.’ There is no other ‘if’. When I was sitting in the meeting of leaders of Boscombe churches I wondered about this. Does it mean that IF a man scatters, there will be a harvest? Does the harvest depend on nothing other than a man scattering seed?! It seems extraordinary. Of course, if it’s true, it’s a great encouragement to sow the seed of God’s word! If it’s true, then the seed of God’s word is foolproof. As long as it’s sown it will produce a harvest!
Winnie-the-Pooh once described himself as ‘a Bear of Very Little Brain’. I align myself to him. I like things to be simple. If there’s an ‘if’ in a sentence it means there’s a condition. If there‘s only one ‘if’ it means there‘s only one condition.
Let me give you an example. Suppose I tell the family, ‘If it’s sunny we’ll go to the beach tomorrow.’ The next day I COULD say to the family, ‘I’m really sorry, but we can’t go to the beach after all. I’ve just remembered some urgent work I have to do.’ I COULD say, ‘I’m really sorry, but I forgot that Mum has a hair appointment.’ What would the kids say? They’d say, ‘But Dad!!! It’s sunny! You said we’d go if it’s sunny!’ I don’t think Jesus would change the rules. He’d keep his promise. He wouldn’t say something he couldn’t fulfil.
Actually, Jesus is very much against people adding in conditions afterwards. Do you remember a bit of a run-in Jesus had with some Pharisees? On one occasion he took them to task for adding an ‘IF’ that wasn’t in God’s law. God commanded us to honour our fathers and mothers. But, Jesus said, you Pharisees have added an if! You say that IF the benefit a man’s father or mother would have got is devoted to God, then he MUSTN’T help his father or mother! The Pharisees’ added IF changed God’s ‘must’ to a ‘mustn’t’! It completely nullified God’s commandment!
So we see that Jesus doesn’t like people adding ‘ifs’ to God’s commandments. That means that if there are any more ‘ifs’, he’ll tell us. There’s only one ‘IF’ in our passage: ‘IF a man should scatter.’ It means that the result is very much in our hands. I’m not saying that the result only depends on us. The result also depends on God – and God has the real work to do. Paul says, ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.’ But God will play his part. There’s no ‘if’ about that. The only question mark is over us. If we can be bothered to scatter seed, there will be a result.
We find this principle – that God’s word always brings a result – elsewhere in the Bible. I’d like to read Isaiah 55:10-11:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
God says that his word ‘shall not return to me empty … it shall accomplish that which I purpose.’ There’s no possibility of it not working out.
That’s brilliant, isn’t it? If God’s word is sown it yields a harvest. It’s guaranteed. And note: this is not a harvest of wheat or sunflowers. We’re talking about a harvest that may last into eternity!
I imagine that many of us watched with astonishment Emma Raducanu winning the US Open. Afterwards one of the commentators joked about her having to declare her new silverware when she flew back to the UK. But the cup is only a small part of what she’s gained. Her achievement will shape the rest of her life.
But sowing God’s word has an even greater result! Scripture says that faith comes from hearing – and faith is the basis for eternal life.
I hope you’re all feeling happy about this, encouraged that our labour will not be in vain. It won’t be!
This is the big picture. But I need to tell you about some dark clouds which you may notice scudding across the sky.
First, let’s acknowledge that sowing is hard work. Sowing anywhere would be hard work. In Jesus’ parable some of the seed fell in rocky places and some fell among the thorns. Did the sower deliberately sow in those places? I don’t know. I personally think this sower wanted to sow everywhere! There’s a missionary society called Interserve. Its tagline is ‘People for the hard places’. Reaching hard places needs even more effort. Let’s not begrudge the effort. If we sow, the harvest is certain.
Second, let’s acknowledge that not all the seed will not grow into mature plants. The sower doesn’t expect it to. In Jesus’ parable some of the seed germinated and grew but then faded away. That’s the way it is when we sow God’s word. There may be some initial signs of response and we get excited. Then it starts to fade away. Paul saw that in the Galatian church. When he wrote to the church he said, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you”. My guess is that most of us know people who started off as Christians and then stopped. If we see this happening let’s not be disheartened. We may not have a harvest in one area but we'll have a harvest in another. If we sow, there will be a harvest somewhere.
Third, we may find that people in church aren’t very keen on sowing. I’ve certainly come across this. A few years ago I tried to encourage a church I attended to distribute Christmas cards from the church. They ended up saying no to it. One of the concerns the church expressed was that some of the Christmas cards might end up going to some more distant villages and so it would have no benefit to our church. So what? The key thing is that seed should be sown. If some falls outside our patch does that matter?! That’s much better than not sowing at all. Perhaps when we try to sow we'll find that not everyone is with us. But let’s not give up. If we press on, there will be a harvest.
These dark clouds don’t change the big picture. The big picture – the central message of this talk – is that if we sow, there will be a harvest. That’s what Jesus says in his explanation to the parable. That’s what God said through Isaiah. God’s word will accomplish its purpose.
Maybe we’ll see some dark clouds scudding across the sky. Maybe we’ll worry that our efforts aren’t giving the result we hoped for. But let’s not be alarmed. Let’s trust what Jesus says in this explanation to the parable. If we sow, there WILL be a harvest. Not only that, the harvest is of the greatest value. So let’s scatter seed! It has to be one of the most profitable ways of investing our time, energy and money.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Boscombe, Bournemouth, UK, 19 Sept 2021, a.m. service.
