09.Jul.2009 Becoming the Farmer and the Field

Start of a New Series: “The Seed”

Mark 4:1-20:
Once again Jesus began teaching by the lakeshore. A very large crowd soon gathered around him, so he got into a boat. Then he sat in the boat while all the people remained on the shore. He taught them by telling many stories in the form of parables, such as this one: “Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seed. As he scattered it across his field, some of the seed fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plant soon wilted under the hot sun, and since it didn’t have deep roots, it died. Other seed fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants so they produced no grain. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” Then he said, “Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.”
Later, when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and with the others who were gathered around, they asked him what the parables meant. He replied, “You are permitted to understand the secret of the Kingdom of God. But I use parables for everything I say to outsiders, so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled:
‘When they see what I do,
they will learn nothing.
When they hear what I say,
they will not understand.
Otherwise, they will turn to me
and be forgiven.’”
Then Jesus said to them, “If you can’t understand the meaning of this parable, how will you understand all the other parables? The farmer plants seed by taking God’s word to others. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message, only to have Satan come at once and take it away. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”

It is crucial to note that Jesus’ parable of the farmer scattering seed is in many ways foundational to the other stories he tells, not just elsewhere in the Book of Mark but also throughout the remainder of Scripture. Read the red text in your Bible and you’ll find mostly little narratives, I’d reckon, stories and illustrations, allegories and, yes, parables. But Christ himself implies here in Mark 4:13 that if his listeners do not grasp the meaning of this parable, that of the farmer scattering seed, that the remainder of his teaching would be cryptic to them. Useless.

These are strong words. Surely, though, every great discipline has its fundamental principles. How, for example, could one ever grasp algebra without a comprehension of basic addition and subtraction? And one’s appreciation of poetry would be severely crippled without their grasping simile and metaphor. So, too, is the case here with Jesus’ instruction. One must understand the meaning behind the farmer and his seed in order to accurately make use of the rest.

This all, of course, skirts the underlying question that many have doubtless pondered, including (and especially) the Pharisees in Jesus’ day: Why not make it plain? Why does Jesus not just come out and speak his Truth directly? Why teach in metaphors when explicit instructions tend to be more easily followed? His approach is certainly not what I would do. But Jesus, thankfully, is much smarter than I. He understands that something has deeper, more satisfying meaning when it is sought after and obtained rather than when it is spoon-fed. Cheap truths don’t always have meaning, after all. (Donald Miller writes extensively about this very distinction in his text Searching for God Knows What.) Something’s worth, in other words, resonates loudest in the mind only after it is sought and won. Pastor Sy Rogers perhaps said it best in one of his messages here last summer: You will never possess what you are unwilling to pursue, for pursuit is proof of desire. The same goes for Biblical truth. One must first desire to understand before they ever will. They must wrestle, and question, and pontificate, and discuss, and then wrestle some more before they will likely ever tap into any lasting revelation. One, for example, doesn’t read a book like Job one time and walk away with 42 chapters’ worth of revelation. It takes time. It takes, in fact, a lifetime.

So let’s take a brief look at this parable. Since it’s so important.

Here we have a farmer, who could best be understood as God’s messenger. After briefly introducing us to this character, Jesus describes four types of soil, denoting the state of one’s heart attitude, the various conditions, that is, that will receive the farmer’s seed. How many times, for instance, has somebody come into our world—a pastor at the pulpit, a coworker’s encouragement, a friend’s advice—and deposited something that we have completely missed out on due to the fact that the soil of our heart was unhospitable? This must be a frustrating turn of events for God; He takes the time to carefully package and deliver His divine message only for it to be lost between the cracks of our clumsy hearts.

Other times we’ll actually manage to receive the seed being planted, and it’ll begin to take root, but this time it is tribulation, persecution, or hardship that’ll cut short the growth. This is what Jesus is referring to when he speaks of those who possess only shallow soil, those who have perhaps returned to church after having being backslidden. Or maybe they’re a new convert. An excited, but obviously fledgling Christian. These are the ones who can pick up the posture and the lingo almost effortlessly. They’ll learn to say “hallelujah” and “amen” at all the right times. They might even pop down to the local Christian bookstore and place one of those big fishes on their bumper. The church will probably rejoice in this verve, and their friends might be fooled. But if theirs is a shallow soil, the root will not take a firm hold. Tribulation will thus cause a subsequent separation.

The interesting problem in all this is that it can even be God’s revelation that’ll cause this tribulation. This is a troubling turn of events for the new, and even the enduring, Christian. Take marriage and family for example. A person might find that God has put it in their heart to take a husband or a wife and to multiply and fill the earth. So they do. They find that guy or that girl, get serious, get engaged, and get hitched. But then the baby comes, or the marriage lands on testy territory, and it becomes hard, but really hard. One can react to these turn of events in two ways: they can either question the word and its messenger, question the revelation itself—they can, in short, give up or become bitter or regret—or they can take a step further out in faith and recognize that the problem is not external, but internal.

The big idea of this parable, then, is to continue refining this sacred soil—to make it ready for the seed God wishes to plant there, seed that’ll often come packaged in the words and examples of others. God’s Truth here, again, is the seed, those acquaintances of ours the farmers, and our heart the soil. Make ready this soil, church. For even the Holy Spirit cannot make revelation take root if the soil’s not accommodating. Indeed, even He cannot (or more accurately, will not) override the will of a stubborn man. In the end, you alone govern your heart. If you wish to cling tightly to your issues, your hang-ups, and your grievances, you are able to. God allows it. The life you have, in the end, is the life you have created, for the good or for the ill.

Finally, keep in mind as well that we are not always the listener, the soil, in these exchanges. Sometimes we are the farmer, the one sowing into another. At times we’re aware of this role; we’ll go into an important conversation prayerfully, knowing that we’ve got a word for our friend or spouse. But there are also times when God will use us without our even knowing or preparing for it. He’ll put a word on our lips that we’ll perhaps speak before we’ve the chance to allow our minds to engage it. Or maybe it’ll be a throwaway line that will become stuck in our listener’s heart, causing them to engage God anew. When these things happen I believe that it is the Holy Spirit tapping our bodies in a way that has nothing to do with physiology whatsoever. He just borrows our physical vessel for a moment for His glory. And this, of course, is why we are ultimately placed in community, in His church. Because without farmers our soil, good or bad, will remain barren; and without the surrounding fields we, the farmer, have no place to sow.

So because we are both farmers and fields, ready your soil to receive, and, what’s more, ready also your heart to impart. Why? Because that’s what Jesus did.