A Seedy Story

"Listen! A Sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some see feel on the path, and the birds came and ate it up."

(Mark 4:3-4)

I love stories. All kinds of stories. In all kinds of forms: oral, books (from children's picture books to adult novels), movies, theater, music, standup comedy, etc. Jesus seemed to love stories, too. He could have simply preached sermons or issued theological directives all the time... but instead, he often told stories called parables.

One of his earliest parables in Mark's gospel is the Parable of the Sower (or the Parable of the Soils). A man scatters seed all over and it lands on four types of locations: pathways, rocky ground, thorny ground, healthy/rich ground. The traditional interpretation is that 3/4 of the soils aren't good for growth, so be like the good soil. Period.

But I love how scholar and author Robert Farrar Capon talks about this parable: it's all about THE SEEDS! The seeds are Jesus, who is the Word of God, sown by God all over a needy world. And they always accomplish what a seed is supposed to do. In 3/4 of the locations, seeds grow (it's just that in 2 of those locations, the growth is stopped prematurely - but they all produce growth!). The only place where the meds don't grow is along the pathway where the birds eat it up.

But think about it for a second... isn't there something called "birdseed"? It gives life to God's feathered creatures of the sky. Isn't that accomplishing something? Also, having lived in Hawaii for most of my life, I know that some of the vegetation in the islands came from seeds that were consumed elsewhere by birds, then digested & "eliminated" in Hawaii... and they still grow! It's just delayed a bit, and occurs in places not originally scattered. (That still kinda sounds like it accomplished something, doesn't it?)

So if you think your life has been 'trampled down' like a pathway... and you're not sure how God is going to produce any growth in you... maybe you're focusing on the wrong thing (which is you!), and you need to be focusing on the seed (which is Jesus). Follow the birds! Bon appetite!