The parable of the sower probably stands out as one of the most well-known of Jesus’ parables. While, it may not have the fame of the prodigal son or the good Samaritan, it does occupy a fairly prominent place in the minds of those who have some familiarity with Jesus’ teaching. That comes in large part because this is one of the few parables where Jesus provides for us a detailed explanation of what the story means. Only occasionally does Jesus explain his parables at all, and then usually only some minor clarification. Here, he spills the whole meaning.

As a scholar, I’ve got to confess that I almost wish he hadn’t done that. Parables are often the richer for all the possible meanings they can have. Take the Prodigal son for instance. The parable gains a completely different meaning if we place ourselves as the father than as the son, and then another if we are the older brother.

With the parable of the sower, regardless of whether we take Jesus’ explanation or go further afield, one element cannot be ignored. This sower is so incredibly wasteful. I mean, really, this guy just throws seed everywhere. It’s like he’s not even trying to aim for the good soil, the tilled soil, the soil that is meant to be planted. He’s just out there flinging away like he doesn’t care.

I doubt in this day and age of cost-consciousness that he’d keep his job for very long. Business in this day and age is very mindful of that often narrow gap between income and expenses, which is where the profit margin lies. Too many expenses and you have little, if any, profit.

I remember this dynamic well from my days in food service. Back in college, I worked at a MacDonalds for a time. Anyone else worked there or for another fast food joint at some point? It’s an experience. These folks have got making a hamburger down to an exact science. Burgers come in frozen and every burger is exactly alike. Same shape, same size. You fry them up and put them on a bun. There’s these big gun-like contraptions that squirt out the exact amount of mustard and ketchup. One squirt, no more. One pinch of onion, two pickles, no more than that, and you’ve got a MacDonalds hamburger. All measured and precise to ensure that the MacDonalds franchise and corporation is paying as little as possible to make that hamburger and to maximize their profit in selling it to you.

One can then imagine this sower, if he were to be working for some modern agricultural corporation (and not replaced by some machine that did this job for him), that he would be given instruction to plant his seeds in measured, ordered rows, ensuring that every seed planted would bring forth crop and thereby avoid loss, minimize costs, and maximize profits for the corporation.

But that is not the story Jesus tells. This guy throws the seeds everywhere and he doesn’t seem to care where they land. Of course, that’s only how it seems. The real truth is this sower flings seed everywhere not because he doesn’t care, but because he does. The sower knows something that we as the hearers of his tale only get a glimpse of. The sower knows that good soil isn’t always where it seems.

As such, suddenly this parable of the sower suddenly falls in with so much of the rest of the Gospel story, where we see example after example of Jesus going among those that no one in his day would ever regard as “good soil”: Tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, the blind, the lame, the poor, the Roman enemy, you name it. We’ve seen Jesus teach us this lesson multiple times in these past few weeks. Even just last week, we heard his call to take his yoke and learn his teaching, the people and God are not always what they seem, that there is often more to them that what we think.

Jesus’ own haphazard sowing of the Gospel seed yields quite an abundant return also. He planted the seed in a young man named Saul. We heard his story recently, of how he held the coats of those who murdered Stephen and then set out on his own mission of violence and persecution against the church. On the Damascus road, the sower flung some seed at him and made of him the Apostle Paul. You want two hundred fold return? Paul took the Gospel to the gentiles, and we here now 2000 years later would not be sitting in these pews if not for his work. Think of the generations since that 1^st century AD who have come to Christ thanks to Paul and all those who followed after him. Talk about good soil. Jesus found it in a man who had once dedicated himself to destroying the church and all those therein. He found good soil where we might least expect it.

That is why the sower flings his seed the way he does. He’s taking a chance that there’s some good soil out there, hidden among the weeds, the rocks, and the birds. It may seem wasteful as the seed falls among all the traps and temptations of the world, but sometimes you have to take a chance to reap a reward.

Too often in the modern church, we have missed this lesson. We often approach the ministry of the church and the proclamation of the Gospel in the same way that MacDonalds makes hamburgers. Precise, controlled, and determined to minimize cost and risk. And we end up after all that work with only one hamburger. The sower’s story talks of hundred fold return, thirty fold, twenty fold. You don’t get that without taking chances.

The sower once took a chance on us, threw seed our way, planted it within us. Others may have thought us good soil or bad, and maybe we believed them. But we’re here now because of that seed, and the mission of the church falls to us. The world needs to know what we know, the bag of seed is on our hip, waiting for us to begin our part in the planting.

Our message is not a complex one. God is love. He sent Jesus his son to live, die, and then rise again for the salvation of all. There are so many ways we can share it, and so many people with whom we can share it. The question before us is also simple. Are we flinging seed or making hamburgers? Are we playing it safe or are looking for the good soil in unexpected places? For some of us, the least expected place of all was within ourselves and yet here we are. Is that a lesson to us that people are not always what they seem? I hope so.

The seed is ready. It’s planting time. Amen.