July 12, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
This parable is strange, but not in the traditional way that parables are strange. What’s highly unusual is the last part of today’s reading, when Jesus starts explaining the parable in verse 18 instead of leaving our understanding to chance. You might be surprised and say, “Finally! Jesus here is more like Paul, telling us what he’s trying to say and how to apply what he’s saying!”
Because it is so very unlike the way Jesus usually uses parables, some scholars think it’s not Jesus at all. In fact, this is the only parable where he gives this tidy explanation. Maybe it’s the only time he channeled his inner Paul-like teaching self in all of the years of his ministry, but it’s far more likely that the explanation was inserted later. We always want to keep in mind that the Gospels were written long after the death of Jesus, and it’s not like the disciples carried a tape recorder with them or even made written notes about what Jesus said.
Do we like the tidy explanation? Does it yield any surprises? Would it matter if it wasn’t said by Jesus?
According to this tidy explanation, the seed is the Good News that Jesus brings us, and the various types of ground represent humans. On the surface, the metaphors work well enough. But they’re much too simple to tell us about the fullness of a human spiritual life.
We hear about these seeds, and we want to be part of that last group, with those phenomenal crop yields. Our modern minds aren’t likely familiar enough with ancient harvesting statistics to comprehend how big these yields really are. I found some information about yields in a Gospel commentary. A 7 fold yield is good; 10 fold would be true abundance. A 30 fold yield feeds a village for a year. But Jesus talks about a 60 fold yield or a 100 fold yield. Wow. Imagine planting 1 acre of beans and getting 100 acres of return on beans. I wish I liked beans. Let’s use a non-agricultural metaphor. Imagine making 1 cheesecake for your family for dessert, and you had enough for everyone in the tri-county area.
Those of us who are overachievers may hear this passage and feel we need to get to work on our spiritual practices so that we can be part of the 100 fold yield. But remember that Jesus didn’t come to bring us a cosmic self-improvement plan, although many people do respond this way to the Bible. But really, one of the most important reasons why Jesus came was to reveal God to us.
So, how is God revealed in this parable?
I think about the sower who is sowing those good seeds everywhere—and most of them are places where seeds aren’t likely to grow. Even in ancient times a sower would know not to throw seeds in those places. But our generous God is not a sensible sower. Our God goes places that a sensible sower would leave alone.
Think of our own lives in landscape terms. Even if we’re in a high-yield field right now, we’ve likely had times when we felt strangled by thorns. It’s not unusual to be pecked to the point of injury by the birds that are the people and institutions in charge of lives and livelihoods. We might have had good times where we felt like all was going right in our spiritual lives, only to be scorched when some colossal bad news came our way. How does this parable speak to us?
In the kind of garden where we plant each year and plow it all under at the end of the growing season, this parable would mean that we had only one chance. If we’re not high yield followers now, well, tough luck. If it’s a year without rain or a year of heavy storms, too bad. If we’re strangled by thorns or destroyed by birds, well, maybe someone else will get to be a high yield Christian.
But I am here to encourage us to think of ourselves not as the kind of plant that has only one chance to flourish, but as believers who are more like the volunteer tomato plant that grows by the mailbox year after year. Or better yet, believers as blackberry brambles. I am thinking of the blackberry vines that grow in various spots along the Lutheridge roads where I walk each summer morning. The blackberries are growing exuberantly this year, and I’ve heard something similar from those who have blueberries and elderberries.
If you haven’t tracked blackberry growth, you might shrug and say, “Well, yeah, that’s what berry plants do.” And maybe, left on their own, that might be true. But I’ve watched these brambles for almost half a decade now, and there have been times when I never expected to see another berry. The summer before Hurricane Helene, Duke Power came through to install new power poles. They bushwacked all the way up the hill, taking out every single berry with them. They also took out every thorny branch, leaving the ground bare and muddy, and I assumed the berries were gone forever.
Then Hurricane Helene came through, and surveying the wreckage, I assumed nothing would grow ever again—such is the nature of despair. But last summer, which was the first growing season after Helene, I noticed some berries peeking out from the downed trees—but only in one spot.
This year, I’m seeing berries in the usual places—but also in new places. Did I never notice them before? It’s more likely that a blackberry seed traveled, either by storm or by bird. And suddenly, there are blackberries where there were none before.
Now think back to the metaphors as the end of the Gospel explains them. If we think about the landing places for seeds, what we are given as explanation doesn’t leave room for second chances or any other kind of grace. But we know that seeds can sprout in the most unlikely places, poking their way through concrete or surviving digestive systems of birds or others and finding themselves in a new spot, giving extravagant blackberry harvests.
I think of Paul and wonder if he would be astonished at the unlikely harvest his work created. He would certainly be surprised that his letters survived and became the foundational documents of Christian faith. He was writing letters to specific churches with specific problems. He thought that the final judgment was underway, so he was trying to make sure his congregations were ready when God came back to judge the living and the dead, which he expected to happen in his lifetime.
We can’t go and see any of those churches today. If you take a tour of Greece, or anywhere else that Paul traveled, you can’t go worship in the spaces that Paul founded to see how they responded to Paul’s letters. You won’t find congregations that have been worshipping there for over two thousand years or families who have worshipped for so many generations that they have their own endowed pew. We might be tempted to say that the seeds that Paul sowed fell on rocky soil.
And yet, that would not be true. Here we are, reading the Gospels and Paul’s letters and trying to discern the best way to be sowers for the Kingdom of God. Here we are, 5,470 miles away from Paul’s mission field, thousands of years later.
Today’s Gospel is full of grace—particularly if we drop the explanation. There’s more than one way to sow a seed and more than one harvest that might be produced. What one generation determines to be a low yielding crop might actually produce 100 fold when we look back across time and space. Soil that’s difficult for one crop might be fertile for others.
Happily, God’s abundance means a wide variety of chances: chances for us as seeds, chances for us as soil, chances for the Kingdom of God to come near to us, whether we’re trapped in stony paths or wrapped in thorny brambles or ready to flourish in well fertilized soil. The word of God will germinate in ways that will surprise and delight us, and ways that will change across one person’s lifespan and across all of human history. Seeds can find a way to sprout in and through concrete; the word of God is even more resilient and determined to find a way to grow in each and every one of us.
thinking too hard
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