Perspective: We Are Not Soil

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We Are Not Soil

Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7 (NRSV)

This is your life: Are you who you want to be?
This is your life: Are you who you want to be?
This is your life: Is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose?

From "This Is Your Life" by Switchfoot

There are some stories in the Bible I seem to encounter year after year after year.  Though I am often tempted to skip such familiar stories when they come around again, sometimes I am actually confronted by something in them that is new to me.  One such story is the Parable of the Sower.

In three of the Gospels, we read that one day Jesus tells a parable about a farmer who went out to scatter seeds.  Some of the seeds landed on a beaten path, where they were eaten by birds.  Some of the seeds landed on shallow, rocky soil, and, though the plants grew quickly, they withered under the sun because they could not properly take root.  Some of the seeds landed among thorny plants, and, though the seeds grew, they were not able to bear fruit because they were stifled by the thorny plants.  Some of the seeds landed on good soil and produced an abundant harvest.¹

Some of Jesus' followers don't understand the parable but still realize that it is not just a story about a farmer.  They ask Jesus what the parable means, so He explains it to them.²

The seeds scattered by the farmer represent a word from God.  The seeds that landed on the beaten path only to be eaten by birds are like people who hear the word from God and quickly forget about it.  The seeds that landed on the shallow rocky soil are like people who joyfully hear the word from God but leave it behind the moment they experience some resistance.  The seeds that landed among the thorny plants are like people who hear the word from God but do not give it the opportunity to bear fruit in their lives due to the worries, vices, and other distractions of this life.  The seeds that landed on good soil are the people who hear the word from God and are transformed by it.³

I've written about the Parable of the Sower in the past.  I once suggested that it is essentially a self-fulfilling parable since it describes the different ways Jesus' original audience would have reacted to it.  I also suggested that the parable serves as an analogy for any work God gives us to do.  Though some people might not be very receptive what we do, the work is still worth doing because someone will be positively affected by it.

When I encountered this parable in the Gospel of Luke last year, I was struck by something unique to Luke's version.  In it, when Jesus is describing the people who are represented by the seeds that landed on good soil, He says, "Through their resolve, they bear fruit."⁴  Their determination is what makes them different from the other people Jesus describes with His parable.  Luke's addition exposes a crack in the parable, and, as singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen would say, the crack is "how the light gets in."⁵  A parable only works to a certain extent, because it is not meant to be a fully fleshed-out representation of reality.

A seed's ability to grow into a plant and bear fruit depends in part on the soil in which it is planted.  Soil cannot help how many people have tread upon it; it cannot help how many rocks are in it or how deep it is; it cannot help what kind of plants are already growing in it.  Human beings are not soil.  Though we may have a similar chemical composition to the dirt beneath us, we have agency that the dirt does not have.  Unlike the soil in Jesus' parable, we can actually choose how we respond to what God says to us.

We do not have to be like the seeds that landed on the beaten path, for we can choose to pay attention to what God is saying to us.  We do not have to be like the seeds that landed on rocky ground, for we can withstand the temptation to turn away from what God says to us and allow it to take root in our lives.  We do not have to be like the seeds that landed among thorny plants, for we can choose not to be distracted so that we may mature spiritually.  We can be like the seed that falls on good soil, for we can commit ourselves to what God is calling us to do and be fruitful with our lives.


Notes:

1. Matthew 13:3-9; Mark 4:3-9; Luke 8:5-8
2. Matthew 13:10-17; Mark 4:10-13; Luke 8:9-10
3. Matthew 13:18-23: Mark 4:14-20; Luke 8:11-15
4. Luke 8:15 (CEB)
5. From "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen

The Sower was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.