The Parable of the Sower and the Soils

A Reflection of Matthew 13:23

By Khen Lim




Image source: termlifeinsurance.org

Lent has always been known as a dusty and pallid interlude in the period from Epiphany to Easter. It’s what some would call the ‘season of dirt.’ As of this time of writing, we’re nowhere near Lent but I remind myself that any time is still a good time to reflect on one of the most engaging of Jesus’ many celebrated parables. For here is a story that, whatever else it may be to others, it is about dirt. It is of no surprise that Jesus would once again be dealing with… dirt. God, it seems, has chosen to adopt a constant agrarian approach in many of the narratives in the Bible as evidenced from the time He “planted a garden in Eden, in the east.”

In the parable, Jesus tells a story of seeds sown on four different types of dirt that produces four outcomes of which three are not exactly desirable. In each of these cases, the ultimate result can be tracked all the way back to the condition of the soil on to which the seed was strewn. We have a patch just outside our own house where nothing seems to want to grow. One small tree after another has since died on the same patch. Therefore that soil leaves something to be desired. At most it could well be a few inches deep. Who knows – and I haven’t gone to digging it yet – there might not be any good soil at all.

Exactly what soil do you have? Or if I can be blunt – what kind of heart do you have? Can and have the gospel seed taken root in your heart? And if so, have they been able to anchor and endure? When the scalding sun scorches – as it often does in our part of the world – will they survive? And if they do survive, can it produce useful grain?

This is the point I’m driving at – Lent is a season where such questions are poignant and very deeply ponderable but we don’t have to wait that long. For now, let us think for ourselves whether our soil and our hearts are rocky or weedy, compacted with birds overhead or deep and rich. But even if they are found wanting, despair not.

In the Gospel of John, we learn that Mary, mother of Jesus, on arriving and discovering an empty tomb, mistook our risen Lord as “the gardener.” Come to think of it, maybe that’s not an accident. Jesus, as someone suggested to me, is “the gardener who came to clean up his garden and lead it into abundance with the promise of a fruitful life.”

And for that, Jesus’ lesson for us is that a great garden must always begin with good soil. So my question now is, what kind of soil do you personally deal with where you live? With the different types that Jesus identifies in the parable, how would you describe the very kind of soil that defines your heart?