On Becoming Rich Soil: A Holy Week Meditation – Gradye Parsons
4 When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable:5‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up.6Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture.7Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it.8Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ Luke 8:4-8
On the ninth of March, the “switch” was turned on and all the birds in my neighborhood began to sing.
I don’t know where they were before that morning, but they sure seemed to have practiced for that sunrise. Their arrival is a sign of spring. The season when planting happens. The time of year we pull out those tools from the garage and prepare the soil for seeds.
This seasonal rite is old and crosses many cultures. Though it is very much mechanized now, it is still the rite that puts those whole grain breads on our tables. Bread: The staple of life and the broken loaf that depicts the Christ.
The parable would not pass muster with any efficiency experts today. There appears to be seed wasted on paths, rocks, and thorns. Perhaps the sower is listening to his IPod and not paying attention. The birds get fatter and the thorns get thornier. What a waste!
It is a percentage game. We have all heard sermons on the methodology of first-century planting. This is precisely the method that was used, and an illustration with which Jesus’ audience would certainly have been familiar. Even so he has to end the parable with, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen,” a statement that every preacher would like to say at the end of the sermon.
But the disciples don’t hear. The crowd doesn’t hear. In truth we do not hear. Oh, we get the parable. Or at least we have heard it so many times we think we get the parable. Some of us are the hard path, some the rocks, some the thorns, and some the good soil. We are all convinced we are the good soil and they—whoever they are—are the other options.
Once when I was guest preaching at a friend’s church, I had just finished shaking hands at the end of the service when a person came up to me and said, “I am sorry you had to preach on that, but they had to hear it!”
The reality is that all of those soil types live in all of us. We are all a little rocky, a little thorny, and hopefully also have some fruitful soil. Which type of soil we are can depend on the day, the context, or the word that is coming our way.
There are some well-worn paths inside of us. Some of those paths are where we have been run over by life. Others are where we have tried to be better in the same old areas and yet nothing changes. They are paths of retreats from good intentions. There are paths hardened by people who have hurt us deeply by breaking our hearts, our egos, or our wills. It is really hard for the word/seed to take hold there. Here is the where the work of forgiveness and reconciliation need to happen.
In Q/A 125 from the Heidelberg Catechism we read:
What is the fifth petition? “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” That is: be pleased, for the sake of Christ’s blood, not to charge to us, miserable sinners, our many transgressions, nor the evil which still clings to us. We also find this witness of thy grace in us, that it is our sincere intention heartily to forgive our neighbor.
In Christ we are given the grace that we may heartily forgive our neighbor. The worn paths within us were once rich soil. If we can stop revisiting them and allow the grace of God to replenish us, we can forgive. That forgiveness can repair broken relationships and restore our ability to be in relationships. That is no small thing.
So often the rocks are just below the surface. We had a home once that had been extensively remodeled before we bought it. I learned over the years where all of the old brick had gone. It was always right under where we wanted to plant anything. The bruises heal on the outside but the wounds underneath heal slowly. So we tell ourselves never more. Never more will I trust. Never more will I love. Never more will I risk embarrassment from failure.
Maya Angelou said, “Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” Never is a very long time. Always is a very long time. Receiving the greatest of the gifts, according to Paul, has risks. But to always be afraid is to live a very limited life.
Last winter on the Sunday following the tragedy at Sandy Hook, a congregation was preparing to put on its annual Christmas pageant. Just as the play was about to begin, the director rushed up to the minister and said that one of the little girls was too frightened to be in the chancel for the pageant. The minister took the little girl in tow, found some cookies, and chatted with her in her office. She asked, “Why don’t you sit up in my big chair in the chancel? I know a secret door we can use if anyone comes in the church with a gun.” The little girl agreed. The minister and the girl snuggled in the big chair together to watch the play. At one point, the big chancel light came on. When the girl began to get up, the minister asked, “Where are you going?” The girl replied, “I want to be in the play. I am afraid of the dark, but I don’t want to be afraid of the light, too.”
Yes, we have all been hurt in love or trust. We fear the darkness. Yet because the light of the love of God has entered our world, we can’t be afraid of the light, too.
The thorns are those barbs we expose when anyone gets too close. They protect the vulnerable places in us. Often they are so obvious that people steer clear of us or are guarded when they talk to us. The thorns hurt others. The hurt is to send a message that we won’t be pushed around anymore.
The thorns really don’t protect the roses. They are still vulnerable to disease and bugs. The thorns don’t really protect us either. They only put distance between us and others.
My wife and I use to babysit her young cousin when we were first married. He loved to play his own version of hide and seek. In his version, he would hide and we were always the seekers. He loved to jump out of some closet or from under some bed and yell, “You found me, you found me!” As much as we would love to get away from these thorns, we have been found. The Christ who wore thorns on our behalf found us and died for us despite our thorny selves.
I was a minister in Appalachia for many years. Every spring, the creeks and rivers would flood from the mountain snowmelt and the rains. In that water would be soil created by hard paths dissolved, rocks eroded, and thorns decomposed. That soil would become the rich soil of river bottoms that would eventually produce the best of crops. Similarly—at Easter—a flood of emotions overcome us as we sing the traditional hymns, smell the lilies, see old friends, and share at the table. May that flood leave in you the rich soil that will produce faith a thousandfold.
Gradye Parsons is a Teaching Elder (Minister of Word and Sacrament) who serves as Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is originally from Tennessee where he served two different congregations. He is married to Kathy Parsons, a Ruling Elder, father of Josh, a Ruling Elder and Rachel, a Teaching Elder.