The Reckless Sower: One More Seed

There is a painting most of us have walked past without realizing it has anything to do with us.

It is Vincent Van Gogh's "The Sower." A bent figure in a field. A great blazing sun overhead. Seed flying from his hand toward ground he cannot see. Van Gogh painted that image more than thirty times in his short life. Over and over. Morning light. Late afternoon. Same gesture. Same scattering. Same waiting soil.

Sunday at Peak City, our friend Lee Coate told us why.

Before Van Gogh was a painter, he was a failed minister. He went to seminary and washed out. He tried to be a missionary among Belgian coal miners, gave away his own clothes and his own food, and got dismissed for being "too zealous" — which, can we just pause and admit, is a problem most churches would love to have. But the church looked at this strange, intense man and said no. So he picked up a brush and painted the sower instead. Lee suggested Van Gogh kept coming back to that field because he needed to believe a life poured out like seed was not a wasted life.

He was right. He just could not see it yet.

Two thousand years before Van Gogh ever picked up a brush, Jesus was sitting in a boat off the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in a stretch the locals still call the Bay of Parables. The hill behind the beach formed a natural amphitheater. The water carried his voice up to the crowd. And the terrain right in front of them had every kind of ground — hard packed paths, rocky shelves, thorn patches, and good soil — all within sight of where Jesus sat. No one planned it. It was just there. And Jesus did what Jesus does. He pointed.

"Listen," he said. "A farmer went out to sow."

Lee walked us through Luke 8 and made an observation I cannot stop thinking about. There are three elements in that story — the seed, the sower, and the soil. Quick reading tip on parables: notice which elements stay constant and which one changes. The variable is always the hinge.

The seed never changes. This is not a story about good seed and bad seed. The Word of God will produce fruit if you give it a chance.

The sower never changes. And here is what we miss. He is reckless. He scatters seed on hard ground and rocky ground and thorny ground and good ground alike. He does not seem to be running a careful calculation about where the seed is most likely to land. He throws it everywhere. And that is the point.

What changes is the soil. The dirt. Which, of course, is us.

So Lee asked us to do something on Sunday morning that none of us are eager to do. He asked us to take an honest look at the ground of our own hearts.

The hard heart looks like cynicism. Life has hurt you. People have let you down. And somewhere along the way a callus formed over what used to be tender. Hardness does not happen all at once. It happens one layer at a time while you are busy living. The good news, Lee said, is that all it takes is one little crack. Just one honest prayer — "God, plow me up" — and the seed finds its way in.

The shallow heart looks like the curse of distraction. We are the most stimulated, most scrolled-by generation that has ever lived. Roots happen in the quiet, but we cannot stand the quiet. When the gospel goes only an inch deep and then hits rock, the first hard season bails us out.

The cluttered heart is, Lee said, the most dangerous of all — because it is the most subtle. The soil is soft enough. The soil is deep enough. It is just already growing other things. Worries. Riches. Pleasures. Endless versions of "the next thing will fill the hole." And weeds do not leave on their own. They have to be pulled.

And then there is the good soil. Soft. Deep. Uncluttered. Lee told us to look around the room — every life in this church that is bearing any kind of fruit is good soil with somebody's seed in it. Maybe from years ago. Maybe when you were the worst possible ground. The grain is coming. It always does.

But here is the line Lee dropped that landed in my chest and would not move. Healthy soil does not just absorb the harvest. Healthy soil produces seed. Good soil does not hoard. Good soil multiplies. Which means becoming healthy ground is also becoming the next sower.

What kind of sower will you be?

Jesus knew exactly how it would go when we start scattering. Some seed will hit hard ground. Some will hit shallow ground. Some will get choked out. We are going to be tempted to stop. Don't. Look at the ultimate Sower himself. So much of his sowing looked empty. Crowds melted away. Religious leaders rejected him. His own family questioned him. And then, in the final hours of his life, hanging on a cross with most of his field looking empty, Jesus turned his head toward a thief — a criminal, a wasted life, the worst possible soil by any measure — and threw one more seed. One sentence. "Today you will be with me in paradise."

Jesus looked at that ruined life and thought, this is good soil.

He is still throwing seeds.

So here are the two things Lee left us with this week, and I want to leave you with them too.

First — let Him do the soil work in you. Pray the hard prayer. "God, plow me up. Make me soft. Make me deep. Pull the weeds." Pray it this afternoon. Pray it tomorrow morning. Pray it until something inside you starts to break open.

Then — go be the sower. Pick one person. Just one. Somebody whose ground looks dead to you. Somebody you have almost given up on. Throw a seed. Send the text. Make the call. Show up at the door.

One more seed.

We'd love to have you join us on Sunday.