A Parable Of Difficult Soil, Or An Over Generous Extravagant Sower . .

This text of Scripture best explains what we are experiencing in the world today. It best explains why the church is having such great challenges. It is the best explanation that we have of why things are so bad, and why things are devolving into chaos in so many fronts around our world. It’s why we are not doing the simple little things that we all know we should do, and it is why we are not living what we know we should be living.

We hear the parables, and we have heard them so often that we say to ourselves, “I know what this parable is about.” I want to propose to you today that you don’t know what the parable is about, and I want to propose that you approach the parable as if you don’t know because it’s the only way you can hear with your ears, the only way you can see with your eyes, and allow your heart to be open and converted by him; and that’s what Jesus is saying here with the parable because in this text he is saying something that is very provocative and, at the heart of this parable and his explanation, comes another parable which is from Isaiah 6 which says, “you will listen and listen again, but not understand. You will see and see again, and not perceive, for the heart of this nation has grown coarse, their ears dull of hearing, and they have shut their eyes for fear they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and be converted, and be healed by me.”

That text of Isaiah is a mini parable in Isaiah, and here’s what we do know about – it is quoted by many of the prophetic writings; it is quoted in all of the Gospels; it is quoted throughout the scripture because it says why it seems as if the Kingdom of God is failing; it is the explanation to why things are not working; it is the explanation of why the Jews would leave Jesus; it is the explanation of why his mission would seem to fail; it is the explanation to why Israel at the very key moment in its history, rather than repenting and yielding to God, chose to go another way, and why Israel went into exile. It is the explanation of why a whole nation experienced judgment, and its judgment was because it failed to hear, it failed to see, and failed to be converted to God. That’s what the judgment is about, and if that is what Isaiah is speaking to, about the judgment of a nation that fails to hear, see, and understand, then we have to understand that this text of Isaiah is a text about the judgment of a people who were listening to Jesus at that time. There is another level of the text. We have to also presume that the text is about a judgment that is being issued to a people who are reading the text today in 2020, and listening to this text today on the fifteenth Sunday of ordinary time – and in case he didn’t get that message, that is me, and that is you.