What the Seed Knows
Matthew 13: 1-23
Home Moravian Church, July 12, 2026
A pastor went out to sow.
It began with a packet of wildflower seed given to her on Earth Day. She took a notion to buy more seeds and create a sort of mini-meadow for wildflowers in an isolated patch of her yard.
She cleared some space and loosened the soil. She opened the packets and, though surprised to find only about five seeds in each four-dollar envelope, cast those few seeds into the soil.
Given the seeds’ apparent value, she probably should have studied up a bit on fertilizers, planting techniques, suggested amount of water and sunlight, and so forth; but being, as this pastor was, a bottomless fountain of cheerful naivete, she simply tossed the seeds in the ground and assumed they would know what to do. The one precaution she did take was to cordon off the patch with sticks and string, and post signs in Spanish and English: “No lo corte,” “Do not mow.”
Over the next couple of weeks, seed leaves began to appear amid the pasture grasses. Out of one set of seed leaves came a quick-growing plant with light green, spiky fronds. The pastor was particularly pleased with this plant and waited eagerly to see its flowers. Taller and taller it grew, suggesting greater and greater yield to come, until one day she came home from work to find that the lawn crew, despite the sticks, and strings, and posted signs, had cut it to the ground.
Do you ever feel like you just can’t win?
Did the sower in today’s parable ever feel like he just couldn’t win? The seed faces so many challenges: hungry birds, rocky soil, intense heat, thorns. How would you feel, if you were the sower?
Putting ourselves in the sower’s place is one way to reflect on this parable. We draw meaning from Bible stories when we try to see things from each character’s perspective. We can imagine ourselves as the sower, and worry over the growth of the seed. But the story doesn’t give us much about how the sower feels. In fact, as soon as the seed leaves his hand, the sower disappears from the story.
And so, usually, we reflect on this story from the ground level. I say “usually” because most churchgoers are familiar with the story, and when we hear it (or preach it), our minds go to familiar places. Usually we equate the soil with our hearts, waiting to receive the word of God. How will we take it in? Will it bounce off our hard heads to be snatched away by the evil one? Will the word shoot up quickly in our hearts, only to wither and die, rootless, in the face of persecution? Will we let our self-absorption and grasping for worldly goods choke the good growth of God’s word? After that sermon, we all leave church determined to be good soil.
That’s a valid interpretation, one that has borne fruit for centuries.
But if we read the story closely, the interpretation frays a bit at the edges; things get confusing. Are we seed? Are we soil? Who is the sower? Despite Jesus’ offering what seems like a helpful interpretation, explaining how each element of the story stands for some challenge or victory in a spiritual journey, the story is a parable; and parables are typically strange, puzzling, even disruptive to our assumptions.
An allegorical interpretation tends to stabilize a parable, make it safe and even comforting. Yet Jesus was much more prone to disrupt people’s assumptions than to stabilize them. So it’s a little unusual that in this story he seems to turn the parable into an allegory, point by point. What’s up with that?
I think again about the sower, discouraged by the challenges of the field. I think of the two natures of Jesus, as defined in Christian doctrine: both fully divine and fully human. I can imagine that sometimes the fully human Jesus felt a little discouraged (as any human would) in sowing the word of the kingdom, given that his own disciples seemed as confused as everybody else. In the middle section of this story, which the lectionary wanted to leave out of today’s reading, the disciples seem to be struggling with Jesus’ teaching style. Maybe he decided to give them the Cliffsnotes.
More likely, though, the interpretation was provided by church leaders long after Jesus walked the earth. The gospels were not written during Jesus’ lifetime, but some decades later; they are not word-by-word records of what Jesus said, but memories viewed through various interpretive lenses. Biblical scholars have observed that the gospel Matthew seems especially focused on building the church, and I’m sure those early church leaders worried about their success. They were working for something so new, something that people surely struggled to understand. It could be that the author, or editors, of Matthew felt that unless they stabilized this parable of the sower point by point, the seed would never take root.
In other words: Maybe those who shared this story through Matthew’s gospel felt that the seed’s success was their responsibility. If it was their job to spread God’s word, they had to take every measure to increase the harvest. There were so many challenges, and they felt so responsible.
Think again about the sower. When the seed was gobbled up by birds; when it sprouted on the rocks, only to wither; when the thorns choked the young plants; did the sower blame himself? Did he lie awake at night thinking he could have been more careful about where the seeds fell, keeping them off the path? Certainly he should have cleared the rocks before sowing the field. And why did he not recognize the briars as they sprouted and cut them back before they choked the seeds?
If we imagine ourselves as the sower, this story offers apparently endless potential for self-recrimination. But remember: Once the seed has left his hand, the sower disappears from the story. After that, it’s up to the seed.
It is the habit of church members to see ourselves as the soil. It may have been the habit of the church leaders in Matthew’s time to see themselves as the sowers of the word. Everyone is worried about the growth of the seed. But is anyone listening to the seed?
The seed says:
I am a seed who fell on the path. I watched as the seeds around me were gobbled by the birds. I knew I would be gobbled up, too. And I knew that the birds’ hunger made them reckless, fierce, even destructive; but I hoped that good see, in feeding them, might change them.
I am a seed who fell on rocky ground. I soon burst into growth. When I felt too much heat from the sun, I knew that I would soon wither; but I also knew that even in my short life, I had been beautiful, and those who saw my green leaves might remember.
I am a seed who grew among thorns. I knew I would be choked and would die; but I also knew that in my time of growing, I helped to break up the ground, making way for the seeds to follow.
I am a seed who fell on good soil. I grew and produced a rich harvest of seed—seed enough to feed hungry birds and have more left over; seed that even in a short life could produce a message of beauty and hope; seed that even in falling to thorns, could create better growing conditions for the seed to come; seed to be harvested and to feed, and feed, and feed the world.
A seed knows what to do. Every seed is a packet of information, equipped with instructions for its own growth. As soon as it falls to the ground, it begins to interact with its environment. Whether it grows to harvest or not, the seed will always, in some way, furnish something the world needs. Every seed gives something to the world.
God’s church sows the word of the kingdom; and that seed is equipped with instructions for its own growth. The seed knows what to do. Regardless of where it falls, regardless of whether it produces a harvest, it furnishes something the world needs. It offers bursts of beauty. It breaks up the soil. It might feed many hungry souls; or it might offer just the right nourishment to heal one angry, destructive heart.
In Mark, the good soil produces a harvest of “thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” Matthew reverses the order: “a hundredfold, sixty, thirty.” Perhaps the message is that the smallest harvest is still a harvest. Matthew talks a lot about “the least of these.” We might say: Even the least harvest from the seed of God’s word is a bounty of blessing.
I have finally persuaded the lawn crew not to mow my little wildflower meadow. It’s mostly just really long grass, but I have a spot of color here and there, and some promising-looking stalks whose blossoms I am eager to see. What got me really excited, and in fact inspired my line of thinking for this sermon, was that the other day I found one of those promising-looking stalks shooting up from between two bricks … the seed fell on the path, and still it knows how to grow. As for that plant cut down by the mower: It has come back bigger and stronger, pushing out more beautiful, spiky, yellow-green fronds every day.
As sowers of the word, we can do our work happily and freely. We can sow, and sow, with love and without worrying that the seed might not take. The seed knows what to do. The seed of the word of the kingdom is fully equipped for its own growth, and it is working even now with the soil to do whatever God wills. Wherever it falls, the seed falls with confidence in its power to feed the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.
