People of good conscience and well-grounded faith can engage in respectful debate over the merits of public food programs like last month’s ecumenical Feed the Kids summer nutrition program.
On one hand, struggling to put healthy food on the table is a daily challenge for many, and the faith community’s efforts to address those needs reflect a quite-faithful and -thankful response to the life-saving grace with which God feeds us. In Christ and by the Spirit, God’s people receive grace upon grace; like Christ and with the Spirit, we hoard not that grace for ourselves but pass-on that unmerited nourishment to others in need of similar blessing. Through ministries like Feed the Kids, we join our sisters and brothers in faith to build a community that reflects Christ’s love for all.
On the other hand, efforts like Feed the Kids raise questions about the healthy boundaries of personal and community responsibility. And more practicality, do our well-intentioned labors reflect God-pleasing stewardship of time, talent, and treasure? Volunteering at Feed the Kids last week reminds me that children are picky eaters with eyes often bigger than their stomachs, and concerning amounts of food and drink went to waste.
Help to resolve my moral dilemma comes in the words that our brother Danny Schlitter shared in worship last Sunday. In encouraging our participation in Feed the Kids, Danny observed, “You never know.” Of that little, or grade-schooler, or teen-ager who enjoyed a noontime meal, “you never know” what that child will grow to become.
Perhaps we fed the next groundbreaking medical researcher, or a future designer or builder of grand bridges and soaring skyscrapers, or the pioneering farmer or agri-business leader who ends up figuring out how to better feed a hungry world while exercising better stewardship of the environment. Or perhaps more importantly, maybe we simply nourished a budding involved citizen, a some-day loving spouse, or nurturing parent. “You never know”– with a plate of spaghetti or a slice of pizza, and a glass of milk – how we will have contributed to the fullness of developing gifts and aspiring talents of that hungry kid from down the block.
In that sense, we are tillers and cultivators, sowers and seed-planters. And the seeds we scatter in the name of the Lord are not always ours for the harvest. No, “you never know.” But that doesn’t mean our present labors are in vain.
Hear, then, the Parable of the Sower in the Gospel of Matthew, the Lord’s teaching about how – or even if – we come to understand these things of God and God’s Kingdom. God, of course, is the generous sower, and God seems more concerned about the seed getting out than making sure it lands in fertile places where its chances of success are best. Heaven’s seed bag appears endless – a mind-bending prospect to be sure. And instead of calling the sower foolish for wasting it, the farmer simply sows the seed in which he or she believes.
That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying:
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched, and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Let anyone with ears listen!” (Matthew 13:1-9)
According to Matthew, Jesus next offers a sidebar about why he teaches in parables. Jesus tells parables in order to confuse, because they are confusing. Jesus says he tells parables, because somehow this teaching style matches the spiritual cluelessness of most listeners.
He preaches these confusing parables so folks reflect more deeply about what the Good News of the Gospel is all about. He apparently doesn’t want hearers to grab hold of the Gospel too quickly, because haste almost always results in anemic faith that never takes firm hold in the human heart.
As we’ll hear in moment, Jesus really does seek understanding for the hearers of parables. But the kind of understanding that the Lord seeks isn’t just factual head-knowledge. Jesus seeks heart-knowledge. His learning goal is understanding so sufficiently deep and firm as to challenge human thought, attitude, and behavior. To understand on Jesus’s terms brings changes in our action – our very ways of living, moving, and breathing. Jesus then unpacks the understanding buried deep in the confusing Parable of the Sower –
“Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another 60, and in another 30.” (Matthew 13:18-23)
Jesus unwraps the gifts of understanding within his parable. But it all still sounds rather silly.
Imagine watching a farmer hook up the planter to the back of his John Deere and firing up the tractor’s engine. But then the farmer immediately throws the power-takeoff switch to activate the planter even before leaving the driveway! There he goes, putt-putting down the dusty, gravel road: seed scattering hither and yon, bouncing on the road, flying into the ditch. When he finally nears his field, he cuts through a patch of thorny weeds with seed still flying loosey-goosey!
No sensible farmer would be so careless in the scattering of such valuable seed. It’s wasteful: a spectacle of sheer stupidity that no frugal, economically minded farmer would ever tolerate lest he become a laughingstock. Yet the seed-sower of the parable apparently has more than enough to go around and so throws seed everywhere and tosses it anywhere, the odds of harvest success mattering now a whit. Maybe if the whole world existed as God intended in its creation, maybe the seeds would face better odds – maybe even sprouting 100 percent of the time, with every heart carefully plotted on fertile ground that’s eager to capture the loving seeds of the Creator and yield a bin-busting bumper crop of grace and peace, healing and reconciliation.
But as it stands, people build roads in fields of their hearts, six-lane freeways packed down by daily life’s rush-hour traffic, by the cynicism and arrogance of our day, by those who sneer at the very idea of God, religion, and faith. The seed of the Gospel bounces off such well-compacted, steam-rolled hearts. Maybe a bird of the air will eat the seed. Or maybe it’ll just get smushed under the weight of the next vehicle to whiz through that heart. Either way, the seed won’t sprout; it won’t grow, not this time around anyway.
Others are not that bad off, not so stubborn and stiff-necked. But they nevertheless have been made fiercely and dangerously shallow by a get-rich-quick, instant-gratification culture of fad and indulgence – forever on the lookout for the shiny bauble or fancy trinket that’s “new and improved,” believing that the next best thing to come along is always lurking just around the corner and thus theirs for the snagging. Sometimes the seed of the Gospel shoots up in the human heart like a fast-growing weed, but then withers just as quickly as it appeared, when the shallow, me-first craving for novelty once more takes hold.
Still other hearts – and you’ve met these folks, too – are just plain crowded and crazy-busy: hearts neither calloused nor shallow and, in fact, blessed with some measure of depth. Lots of stuff grows there, but in the end, it’s too much. The seed of the Gospel comes in and sprouts just fine but faces stiff competition for light, warmth, and nutrients. Because just over there grow the plants of profit and loss. Concerns about the 401(k) fund, the children’s college funds, and the growth of their stock market portfolio suck a lot of nutrients from the soil of the heart. As Scripture elsewhere proclaims, the love of money is the root of all evil.
Also struggling for growing space in the garden of these hearts are the plants of community involvement: the PTAs at school, the booster groups of extracurriculars, the club sports and traveling teams, the affinity groups of politics and activism, and on, and on, and on. It’s all good stuff – or a lot of it is, but it sure makes for long to-do lists and overloaded planning calendars. And so, when the pastor calls looking to recruit some new church elders and deacons, or a committee chair reaches out in hope of finding a helping hand – well, what can one say? “Sorry, but I just don’t have time for everything.” Which is an ironical response given that, as Scripture reveals, the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is everything.
There is, of course, that final heart where the soil is rich and the seed of the Gospel does splendidly well. Thanks be to God! Literally! Because given the apparently long odds for Gospel success, you have to assume that the heart whose soil is deep, wide, and free of weedy encumbrance is a field cleared by the Holy Spirit herself. Only the power of Almighty God’s Holy Spirit can overcome the obstacles that the world throws before us: the hindrances of cynicism and despair, of media hype and incessant novelty, of sheer busyness, fame, and greed.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear; she who has ears to hear, let her hear: The sowing of seed and its success – when that happens – is all about grace. Maybe that’s why the brave, intrepid farmer keeps lobbing seeds at even the unlikeliest of targets. It’s not that the farmer doesn’t understand the long odds. It’s just that, when you’re talking about salvation by grace and grace alone, it’s not finally about the odds but about the persistence of the Holy One who won’t stop. Ever.
Indeed, Danny, you never know!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message in worship on Sunday, August 3, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by George Buttrick, Chelsey Harmon, Scott Hoezee, and Tom Long inform the message.