Matthew 13:3-4
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.
Matthew 13:18-19
“Listen to what the parable of the sower means: When someone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
Grass grows in lots of places; in yards, through asphalt parking lots, in the cracks of sidewalks, and even on the roofs of some houses. But there’s one place where grass will never grow: under a children’s swing set!
For a number of years when our boys were younger we had a swing set in our back yard. Within just a few weeks of putting it up I noticed that the spots under the swings had been rubbed completely bare. The scraping and pounding of little feet had left rock hard spots of barren soil, so trampled and downtrodden, that those areas were destined forever to be devoid of vegetation!
That’s like the one of the soil types Jesus mentions in his parable.
A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path…
In Jesus’ day farmer’s fields were often small and located near footpaths used by people and carts as they did their daily business. Sometimes fields were actually criss-crossed with these narrow paths.
The farmer would just scatter seed by hand, flinging it all over his whole field, including onto these footpaths. But since the paths were worn rock hard by traffic, the seed had no chance to penetrate the soil and would be easily picked off by hungry birds.
What does Jesus have in mind when he talks about the path, the hardened soil?
Many years ago my father had the difficult pastoral task of leading the funeral service for a young man who had been severely disabled from birth. The boy’s mother and sister attended my Dad’s church, but the father did not, and was, in fact, an agnostic and somewhat hostile toward religion. The father had actually objected to a funeral, preferring simply to go straight to the cemetery and bury his son. But his wife and daughter had persuaded him to allow my father to lead simple service in a local funeral home.
My Dad says that as he stepped up to the lectern to open the service, the father, who was seated in the front row directly in front of the lectern, gave a great sigh and muttered through clenched teeth, “Keep it short.”
That’s a heart that’s been worn hard by pain and bitterness.
That’s what Jesus is talking about when he says:
When someone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
I don’t know that man’s full story, but I’ve heard enough stories through the years to know that his heart had probably been in the process of hardening for a long time. Maybe it started with the pain of having a son born with severe disabilities. Maybe it began long before that.
Pain is inevitable in human life. Our lives are filled not only with joys and successes, but also with failures and grief. And when we experience pain or loss the soil of our hearts tends to either grow deeper and softer through our faith, or harder and harder through anger and bitterness.
We must not miss or underestimate the role of the one Jesus calls “the evil one” in the story.
The evil one is Satan, and Satan loves to harden hearts. Hearts that have been hardened by pain and bitterness become resistant to the seed of the gospel. They become resistant to truth; and even resistant to love. Hardened hearts want to be left alone with their pain; hardened harts want to “Keep it short.”
So Satan relentlessly accuses God and tempts us.
“Look what happened to you,” he says, “God doesn’t love you. God doesn’t care about you.”
“You deserve better. You deserve to have everything you want. You have the right to be angry and bitter.”
And slowly our hearts grow as hard as the bare spots under a swing set.
But a good farmer does not give up on hard soil! Rather, the good farmer works tirelessly to break up that hard soil. He rolls up his sleeves and plows and tills and digs and does everything he can to soften that soil. And he continues to scatter seed in hopes that sooner or later it will take root.
Is your heart hardened in some way today? Have you allowed the evil one to convince you that God does not care for you?
He does care. He knows your pain. And he wants to break up the hard soil so that his joy may grow once again. Will you let him?
Pastor Brian Coffey
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