Luke 8:4-15

Transcript

00:00:00:25 – 00:00:20:06
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Happy Wednesday. Thanks for joining us as we continue through the Gospel of Luke in the eighth chapter today. Just ai1 of my I think one of my favorite parables, though I’m not sure if I would I don’t know if I would argue that Luke is my favorite version of it, but it’s an important parable.

00:00:20:11 – 00:00:48:18
Clint Loveall
It’s it’s interesting the way that Luke lines it out and tells it, and we’ll get into it. Today, verse four of chapter eight, I’ll read the parable, then we’ll go in kind of section by section here. When a great crowd gathered and the people from town after town came to him, Jesus said in a parable, a sower went out to sow seed and he sowed and some fell on the path and was trampled.

00:00:48:23 – 00:01:10:55
Clint Loveall
And the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock and as it grew, it withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns and the thorns grew with it and choked it. Some fell in good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundred fold. As he said this, he called out. Let anyone with ears to hear.

00:01:11:00 – 00:01:40:07
Clint Loveall
Listen. So a relatively simple parable, an important parable, but also an odd parable, I think a memorable parable, because even those with kind of a rudimentary understanding of farming and planting realized that this isn’t a agricultural story. I mean, this isn’t how things are planted. You don’t see farmers planting on the driveway and the rocks and the roads.

00:01:40:08 – 00:02:00:21
Clint Loveall
I mean, we we live in an area where we know that the point is to get seed in good soil. But in in this case and Luke is the least I think Luke gives us the if you only read the parable in Luke, you get the impression that that isn’t sown there. It falls there in the other parables.

00:02:00:21 – 00:02:25:33
Clint Loveall
It’s a little more seems to be the case that the sower scatters it everywhere. But even here you get the idea that the seed ends up and what happens to the seed is dependent upon where the seed lands. And we’ll see in a moment what Jesus does with that. But it’s a I think those who heard this story would have been to some extent, maybe confused by it.

00:02:25:33 – 00:02:45:16
Clint Loveall
Michael First of all, and there’s that obvious question, why is the sower sowing seed in these places where it won’t grow? And secondly, the idea that it would produce a hundredfold is also pretty remarkable and typical of Jesus parables, a statement of extravagance.

00:02:45:21 – 00:03:09:31
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, it’s certainly going to resonate differently in a culture whose entire economy and in many cases the food on the table is hinging upon how well this planting goes and how well the season produces for them. And so we, the reader here, come to this text and we we see a few really critical transitions. I think the first is already in verse four.

00:03:09:36 – 00:03:31:46
Michael Gewecke
Notice that it’s a great crowd that’s gathered. We’ve seen Jesus really in many ways picking up momentum as Luke has told the story. And now we have this this adjective applied to the crowd. They’re great, they’re large and people from town. After town are coming to see them. So you get the sense that this teaching is not accidental.

00:03:31:51 – 00:03:53:42
Michael Gewecke
Jesus, turning to a parable here is not something that is just sort of fly by the pants kind of teaching. Jesus has now really begun a movement, and he’s beginning to make a case for what this kingdom looks like. We spent a great deal of time yesterday talking about that kingdom, and it it was a relatively in-depth conversation.

00:03:53:42 – 00:04:22:32
Michael Gewecke
But if you didn’t hear it, I would highly recommend you go back and listen to that. But then Jesus moves on. And one of the things that commentators make the point of emphasizing is the fact that Jesus, when he gives parables, is exceptional in his ability to pick parables and stories that resonate with people, common people, normal people, that the stuff of life and the daily kind of practicing of life that other people could understand and hear.

00:04:22:37 – 00:04:49:29
Michael Gewecke
Turning to this very common image of the one whose planting enables Jesus to make what is an obvious statement even more obvious. Not only that the weirdness of planting seeds in such a way that it’s even possible it could go in the wrong place. Any farmer who could get a hundred fold out of the soil would be completely flabbergasted by that.

00:04:49:30 – 00:05:17:52
Michael Gewecke
The point here is that on one hand this story is describing something entirely common and normal. On the other hand, this story is clearly not describing something common and normal. It is somewhat mysterious in that. And that’s the beauty of Jesus’s parable. He’s always using something accessible to teach something that is, by definition, inaccessible. And this is a probably really strong sort of example of that.

00:05:18:00 – 00:05:41:42
Clint Loveall
Yeah, that’s that’s really good insight. Michael. I think one of the masterful things that Jesus does is he gives us things that sound like things we know, but he changes them enough to make us uncomfortable and surprise us so that we ask more questions. And and the story here has not been in a couple of verses. He’s going to kind of give a line by line explanation.

00:05:41:42 – 00:06:15:38
Clint Loveall
But but as we as we sort of encounter this on the surface level, what we learn is that whoever this sower is sows generously, scatters seed everywhere. And we we are maybe not aware in the context of Luke yet what that means. But even here we have, you know, that question, Is this a foolish farmer or a hopeful, generous farmer?

00:06:15:43 – 00:06:43:39
Clint Loveall
And I think you know that in the context of the gospel, what we learn is that the main character who is almost always God in the parables, is a generous sower of seed plants everywhere, in the hope that some of it will grow. And whether it grows in this case is dependent upon the soil on which it lands.

00:06:43:39 – 00:07:18:55
Clint Loveall
So then we get Luke, interestingly, splits the parable from the interpretation, and we get this little blurb in the middle. So just read a couple versus here. This is nine and ten. The disciples asked him what the parable meant. He said to you, It’s been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of God, but to others I speak in parables so that looking they may not perceive and listening, they may not understand, which is an Old Testament quote, but it’s a troubling quote because it implies that Jesus sort of hides the meaning from people.

00:07:18:55 – 00:08:02:06
Clint Loveall
I think in the context of the gospel, maybe it means that rather than simply say things explicitly, Jesus demands a little bit of effort on the part of the here which which perhaps resonate with this parable itself. But the idea that that Jesus doesn’t just share the secrets of the kingdom of God, but people have to look for them, and sometimes they look, but they don’t see and sometimes listening they may not understand that That seems again, like a troubling thing for Jesus to say, because you would think that Jesus, his whole point is to make things as obvious as possible.

00:08:02:11 – 00:08:26:31
Clint Loveall
But I think as is often the case with some of the most important things in life, they’re better when they demand a little bit of effort on our part and and rarely do we appreciate what we receive without any work or without any cost. And so in this case, Jesus gives this little cryptic word about why he uses parables.

00:08:26:36 – 00:09:00:00
Michael Gewecke
It’s not as prominent in Luke, but math or Mark, excuse me, includes these kinds of obfuscated or in many ways teachings that are missed. And Jesus makes it almost very clear in that book that it’s intentional. And that’s a challenging theme in the book of Mark. And we talked about it when we did the study of Mark. But here, Clint, I think that it’s a similar kind of strain and it is in some ways similarly troubling to us, this idea that Jesus would talk in parables, these words that seem common and accessible.

00:09:00:12 – 00:09:22:25
Michael Gewecke
It seems offensive to our sensibility that he would be using that to somehow keep others from seeing it. And there’s a way in which I think Christians have read this to be a byproduct of revelation. And in other words, there are many people in Israel who see Jesus plainly. They see him literally in front of them. They’ve been waiting for generations for the Messiah to come.

00:09:22:30 – 00:09:44:38
Michael Gewecke
And here now, when the Messiah stands before them, they miss him. They misunderstand his teaching. They see the Son of God, and what they see is a man who’s causing trouble and a man who’s teaching wrong things. And they decide that they’re going to seek him out and that they’re going to do him harm. And so when you have that context, it doesn’t resolve the tension.

00:09:44:38 – 00:10:21:10
Michael Gewecke
I think that Jesus is intentionally trying to make a case here that when he teaches, he does so with a kind of authority and power. We don’t completely understand and we certainly don’t control. But there’s also a sense in which that people are not perceiving and people may be listening, but they’re not understanding because they’re looking for the wrong thing or they’re perceiving the wrong thing or they’re understanding down the wrong road is just an interesting kind of turn for us as we read the parable, because I think it’s counter to what we think Jesus would want to do, certainly not 21st century marketing, where the goal is.

00:10:21:10 – 00:10:43:22
Michael Gewecke
You make your point simply and you hammer that point. It’s consistently as possible. Jesus here is explicitly naming the mystery of revelation that when he shows up, even though he might may say a thing, it’s it’s likely to be misunderstood. And we, the reader, are invited to understand that that’s a part of the conversation happening even with those present.

00:10:43:35 – 00:11:17:35
Clint Loveall
If you only read this verse, I think maybe it would be less obvious. But given that it’s context is a story about how people react to the word, I think this is fair and I certainly think it’s fair in the larger context of the Gospels. Michael I think it is reasonable to say it is less the case that Jesus tries to hide truth from people and it is more the case that the truth is hidden from people who aren’t open to it.

00:11:17:40 – 00:11:46:24
Clint Loveall
It really is a measure of whether they’re receptive. Jesus is not trying to keep the good news from anyone, but there is a barrier to good news in the hearts of many who are self-righteous or judgmental or wealthy in Luke’s case or whatever. That must be overcome if they’re going to hear it. And I think that’s supported by where we go next in the explanation of the parable.

00:11:46:24 – 00:12:11:24
Clint Loveall
So let me read the final part here. Now, the the meaning of the parable is this The seed is the word of God, the ones on the path or those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so they may not believe in based be saved, the ones on the rock or those when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but they have no root.

00:12:11:29 – 00:12:41:18
Clint Loveall
They believe only for a while and in a time of testing, fall away. As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear. But as they go their way, they’re choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life. And their fruit does not mature. But as for those in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they have heard the word hold it fast in honest and good hearts and bear fruit with patient endurance.

00:12:41:18 – 00:13:06:07
Clint Loveall
So here Jesus, and this is relatively rare in the Gospels, Jesus tells many parables, but only in a few instances does he explicitly explain them. In most cases, the meanings are left to us, and in most cases they’re relatively obvious. But here Jesus lines it out for them, including who is each character in the story or each circumstance in the story.

00:13:06:07 – 00:13:35:30
Clint Loveall
And and now we begin to understand the seed is the word and the sower puts the word out everywhere. And the character of how that seed is received is reflective of the kind of soil that the person who hears it has in their heart and their life. So some are choked by worries or pleasure. Some do well at first, some are hardened to it and can’t accept it, give it no place to take root.

00:13:35:34 – 00:14:06:56
Clint Loveall
And others, there’s this wonderful that the seed finds a place to hold fast in an honest and good heart, and they bear fruit with patience, endurance, which we can unpack in a moment. But I think what’s interesting about this from my perspective, Michael, is that Jesus here, without it, there’s an open ended in this, in this, in that often in a parable we can identify each character with certain people.

00:14:07:01 – 00:14:26:55
Clint Loveall
Here it is the people who determine what happens to the seed. And it is a challenge to each person to sort of evaluate their own status, their own receptivity to the word, and ask themselves what kind of soil am I.

00:14:27:00 – 00:14:52:44
Michael Gewecke
The haunting question here is what does it look like to be those who hear the word, How do we hold fast and act on it with an honest and good heart? I think on one hand, as with all of Jesus’s parables, there’s a temptation to want to put ourself in the shoes of the positive character in the story.

00:14:52:44 – 00:15:23:53
Michael Gewecke
We always want to be part of that hero’s kind of story arc. But Clint here Jesus parable, I think pushes us to recognize that the human heart is a very messy place and that there are forces both within and without that are acting upon us in our life of faith. And so this idea that the devil who is the idea here is that there is a being of force, there are things outside of you in your control that can have an impact.

00:15:23:58 – 00:15:52:21
Michael Gewecke
There are those who are just short sighted and short lived and unable to continue on in the faith. There’s a sense in which they’re they can’t persevere. And then you also have those who just the sheer pleasures of life, the idea of living and having experience and acquiring and consuming that this is the thing that one is living for and not for the maturing, changing, growing life of faith.

00:15:52:21 – 00:16:19:10
Michael Gewecke
And I think that what Jesus is able to accomplish in this is both a kind of challenge and a kind of encouragement, and he’s doing it simultaneously. He’s offering us an opportunity to be self-reflective, and he’s also offering us a way of hearing grace in a new way. Because I think that when seed has planted and grown, we as Christians know that there’s more than has happened, than just good luck.

00:16:19:10 – 00:16:49:10
Michael Gewecke
There’s been perseverance, there’s been practicing of the spiritual gifts, there’s been grace, there’s been fellowship and communion, communion community. All of these things, I think, are it seems that are worked into this parable and some of them not explicitly, and some of them named explicitly. And each one, I think, helps us see that Jesus is inviting us to be those with good hearts, though that’s not necessarily a thing that we just wake up and decide one day.

00:16:49:10 – 00:16:51:49
Michael Gewecke
That’s it. That takes a lifetime of practice.

00:16:51:54 – 00:17:17:47
Clint Loveall
It’s interesting. Luke’s kind of code word, not code word, but Luke’s summary of this is the idea of hearing. And for the gospel hearing also equals doing. And so the question is not, did you hear the word but what happened? Because you heard it, Did it take root? Did it grow? Did it bear mature fruit or did something take it away from you, did something, choke it out?

00:17:17:47 – 00:17:40:51
Clint Loveall
And in some ways, this parable became particularly important in the life of the church, even more so, I think, maybe than in its original context. Because in the life of the church, all this was happening. There were people who came to the faith but then fell back. There were people who came to the faith but then couldn’t answer some of the hard questions.

00:17:40:51 – 00:18:09:16
Clint Loveall
So they gave up. There were people who came to the faith but were afraid of the oppression or the dangers of that in their world. And so they shrank from it. And there were those who stood firm and who bore fruit with this wonderful phrase patient endurance, which are two words that that complement each other really well from a faith perspective, because we were called to both of them.

00:18:09:16 – 00:18:38:49
Clint Loveall
And the idea of doing them simultaneously is really powerful. And again, I think there is a level while Jesus is describing a landscape and we might be able to to even identify people we know who could stand in the in the heading of each of those soils. I think really the power of this parable is that it challenges each of us to consider what is growing in the soil of our own.

00:18:38:49 – 00:18:59:15
Clint Loveall
How how receptive are we in our hearts to what we have heard? And in English, it works really well. It’s a it’s a beautiful coincidence that the word heart is the word here with a T at the end. That’s not true in other languages, but it works really well for us in the context of connecting some things in this parable.

00:18:59:15 – 00:19:24:02
Clint Loveall
But I think at the end, this parable is really challenging to simply say what’s what’s growing up? What kind of soil am I? Am I receptive to the word? Is it growing? Is it being choked out? Is it being taken away from it? You know, am I producing fruit through patient endurance? And so I think this is a wonderful sermon in and of itself.

00:19:24:07 – 00:19:29:46
Clint Loveall
Again, I don’t know if Luke is my favorite version of it, but this is one of my favorite parables.

00:19:29:51 – 00:19:54:01
Michael Gewecke
I think my only final word here just briefly, is note how verse 11 begins with the explanation The seed is the word of God and then see how it ends. The ones who, when they hear the word hold it fast. This all hinges on the word. It’s all about the word proclaimed. When Jesus is speaking to these crowds, when he’s sharing with them.

00:19:54:12 – 00:20:15:02
Michael Gewecke
In many ways, this parable is telling us what Jesus is doing, but it’s not telling us the word that Jesus is speaking. That’s the whole book. That’s what Luke is trying to give us is a record of what Jesus did and what he said of the Word of God, both in fleshed in Jesus and as Jesus taught it, as He spoke it.

00:20:15:07 – 00:20:34:55
Michael Gewecke
The question is, will we be changed by it? Will that word live in us? And so I think what makes this parable interesting for me is it’s not so much a lesson about what is the center of the kingdom of God. It’s more a lesson about how that takes root and how it changes a person. And that is the challenge and the invitation.

00:20:34:55 – 00:21:08:58
Michael Gewecke
Have we heard and been changed? And if we’ve not, then what kind of soil are we? And if we are being changed, What are the challenges of being open hearted and steadfast in that process? And anyone who’s practiced faith for any period of time knows that we need practice and work as we do it. Luke is doing a magnificent thing in telling us this story in this way, connecting it in the narrative, in this way, because it helps us understand what’s at stake in hearing Jesus and understanding what he’s teaching and how easy it is to miss that.

00:21:09:03 – 00:21:34:46
Clint Loveall
Almost always, when the Bible talks about others, it does so asking us to consider ourselves. And so even here, as Jesus explains the things that happen among all of the people who hear the word, and how only some of them then have it grow and become a part of their life that is inherently the question that is personal.

00:21:34:51 – 00:21:55:44
Clint Loveall
What is happening in my life? It is not. If we read this and think it’s about the others who aren’t getting it. We’ve, I think, totally missed the point, Michael. And I think ultimately this is a very personalized parable asking each one of us to consider what kind of soil am I and what is growing in the soil.

00:21:55:44 – 00:21:59:42
Clint Loveall
That is my life because the word has been planted in it.

00:21:59:47 – 00:22:11:25
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. Good summary. Thanks for being with us, friends. We’re glad to spend this time with you today. Hope you will be with us when we continue this study next week, Monday. We’ll be off tomorrow. Until then, be blessed.

00:22:11:27 – 00:22:12:10
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.