With this parable on my mind, I went down to look at our Community Garden this week. And my first thought was, the farmer in the parable is certainly not a Presbyterian. Or at least not a good Presbyterian, in any case. "A sower went out to sow"? I mean, come on, where's the committee, where's the feasibility study and the plan for phased implementation? Did the farmer have session approval? Did the sower have a Garden Kick-off Day that was mentioned in the local paper? It certainly seems to me that our Garden Committee could have taught that farmer a thing or two. What happened to doing things decently and in good order, after all? And don't even get me started about the whole issue of stewardship. With food prices being what they are these days, how can that farmer justify putting good seed on the path or rocky ground?

After I calmed down a bit, I realized that maybe this passage is not a how-to guide on how to sow seeds. Maybe it was meant to address other concerns. And perhaps one of the chief concerns that this passage addresses, the question that it implicitly answers, is, Why do people respond differently to the same message? Why do some people seem to "get it", and other don't --whether it be in the classroom or at work or in church or wherever? In the church context, why do some people become active members who contribute to the life of the church, and others seem to disappear or fade away?

It could be that what the church really needs is an assimilation committee that focuses on getting people connected. I've seen such committees in churches. Or maybe the people in the congregation could be a bit more friendly or outgoing. Maybe it is a matter of marketing, of having a catchy website and an accessible location. Or maybe, I hate to mention this but maybe it is a problem with the sermons. The sermons could use a little more . . . a little more something, don't you think? If Jesus, or the disciples, or the church pastor could just preach it a bit better, maybe the message might be more easily received.

But this passage doesn't seem to focus on the strengths or weaknesses of the farmer, or even the characteristics of the seed. No, the focus seems to be less on the style of the presentation and more on the identity of the listener. What is going on spiritually, in the hearts of those who hear? What accounts for differing responses?

These were important questions to the disciples and to the community to which Matthew writes. The structure of Matthew's gospel helps us see that more clearly. In the fifth through the seventh chapters of the gospel, we have what? The Sermon on the Mount, a collection of some of the things that Jesus said. Then, in the eighth and ninth chapters, we have stories about some of the things that Jesus did, including many stories of healing. Jesus sends out his disciples in chapter 10, but chapters 11 and 12 chronicle the response, and to a large extent, the response of the the people, or at least many of the people, is nothing to get too excited about. Jesus reproaches the cities, saying, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!" He condemns some of the Pharisees as a brood of vipers, and he talks about "this evil generation." It would seem the response to Christ's ministry, as represented here in Matthew's gospel, was less than overwhelming.

Similarly, the early Christian community must have felt a bit confused themselves. To their message about the good news of the coming of the Messiah, and the changing of the world order, to their message about how God's love in Christ had changed and was changing everything, to this exciting gospel news they received varying responses -- hostility, indifference, persecution and hospitality and everything in between. What the heck was going on?

You find the same gamut of response today, in the church and outside of the church in other organizations. You tell people about a Habitat for Humanity project and they can't be bothered. A teacher invites students needing more attention for free after school tutoring, and some jump at the opportunity while others are resentful that one of their excuses for failure has been eliminated. You invite people to learn about the Bible, or about some problem the community faces, and they are eager to participate and grow -- or they makes excuses and put it off. You tell someone how the church welcomes foreigners and gays and women in leadership, and some react with hostility. You have children of the same parents -- one child grows up and becomes a committed member of a congregation throughout his/her life, the other never sets foot in a church again except when spending Christmas with the parents. Although the context has changed, the type of responses, by and large, have not.

In addressing this question, notice first what Jesus doesn't say. He doesn't deny or minimize the differences in response. He doesn't say, Oh, it doesn't really matter what you do, everything is relative, different strokes for different folks. No, one thing that is clear throughout this passage and throughout Matthew's gospel as a whole is that one's response matters. The choices you make, the way you live your life, they matter. Matthew's Jesus is neither nihilistic nor relativistic. Some choices are clearly better than others.

What Jesus does say in this parable outlines a variety of responses. For some, the seed is snatched up right away, it doesn't seem to sink in or make any kind of impact at all. For others, the seed is sown but the roots never really develop. And for others, too many other activities and concerns crowd out their response.

We see these kind of responses in those around us. Joe doesn't come to Sunday school, the whole idea of it bounces off of him like a seed on a gravel path, he is indifferent, he'd rather sleep in on Sunday mornings or play golf on Sunday afternoons. It wouldn't matter if Jesus himself was teaching, Joe wouldn't be there. Elizabeth joined the church last spring. She jumped in headfirst, became a greeter and an usher, joined the Congregational Life committee, and regularly participated in a wide variety of church activities. But then something happened, I don't know what, she got distracted, it was as though someone flipped a switch, she just lost interest. She moved on to another hobby and no one ever sees her at church anymore. Somehow, whatever was happening in the church community never took root in her. Her commitments don't last. Matt has been a member of the church for years. He has been telling himself for a long time that he wants to make his spiritual journey more of a priority in his life, he wants to pray more and be more active in mission, but somehow it never quite happens. There are his children to take care of, being successful at work requires more time, it seems like he is always playing catch-up with everything else and his spiritual life ends up fallen by the wayside.

And then there is Jennifer. She comes to church regularly, she sings in the choir, she takes her spiritual life seriously, she is one of those people with whom it is a pleasure to minister. She seems to "get it", and she doesn't just "get it," she embodies it. It just takes a few people like Jennifer to keep me going.

Although these examples use the church, I don't think this passage is speaking only or even primarily about church participation. It is speaking about a receptivity to an entire way of life, a way of life that Christ embodied. A way of life that cares and shares, that struggles for peace and justice, that witnesses to and trusts in a power beyond one's own.

While we see these kind of responses in those around us, I don't think this passage calls us to play the role of the judge. I don't think we are called to pigeonhole those around us into different categories, saying to others or ourselves, "That Mary, she is definitely some rocky ground if I ever saw any, and what a bunch of fertile soil David is." No, that would be far too arrogant of us. Rather, these examples of different types of soil and different types of people challenge us with the question, what type of soil are you? Are you sometimes like the Joe that I have imagined, or sometimes like Jennifer? The truth for all of us, I think, is that we are a mixture of soil, rocky and thorny and good all at the same time. But what is it for you that inhibits your following the way of Christ? What holds you back? What habits or fears or sins hold you back, hold us back as a community?

This passage makes it clear that there is a difference between hearing and understanding. I am reminded of a story my father, a retired minister, told me about a woman in his congregation. She served as an elder on the session. My father preached about openness and inclusion for women and gays, he served as her pastor for several years. After he retired he learned that she had joined another church that opposes women in leadership or the acceptance of gays. I don't know what happened, but it would seem that although she had heard, she had not understood.

In another example, I think of the movie, The Matrix, and the characters Neo and Morpheus. Morpheus teaches Neo everything he needs to know, all the techniques, but yet Neo still struggles. Eventually Morpheus remarks, Sooner or later you will learn that there is a difference between knowing the path and walking it.

There is a difference between hearing and understanding, there is a difference between intention and commitment, between knowing the path and walking it. Christ calls us through this passage to walk the path and to examine ourselves for what obstacles inhibit us.

But this passage also does more than that. It also offers us a double whammy of good news. The first part is perhaps most clearly depicted in terms of a future promise. "Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." On the other side of the struggle, there is vision of future abundance. That is a lot of grain we are talking about here.

Commentators suggest that a normal harvest in the time of Jesus would produce seven-fold, and a very good harvest might produce ten-fold. But Jesus here is speaking of thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. That kind of abundance is surprising, it is life-changing, it doesn't seem to make sense. It is crazy talk. Maybe that is the point. He has been speaking in terms of human experience, comparing it to different types of soil, but here, when he offers a vision of the kingdom of heaven, normal analogies don't work any more, he uses ridiculous language, fairy-tale language, Jack-and-the-Beanstalk kind of language to describe an indescribable spiritual reality. That kind of harvest can change one's life, not only one's own life but the life of a community.

Haven't you known this kind of spiritual reality, where the impossible somehow becomes possible? I hope you have. You see it sometimes in people who have been given a clean bill of health after an extended and life-threatening illness, they are thankful to the medicine and the doctors, but their gratitude is more abundant than that, it overflows thirty and sixty and a hundredfold. You see it in people who fall in love, nothing has changed but yet everything has changed, everything has become more alive, more blessed, everything adds up to more than it did before, the whole world has become richer. You see it where enemies are reconciled, where old hatreds are driven out to make way for new beginnings and new energies. You see it in church communities that are somehow more than the sum of their members, the community itself is alive with a spirit, the Holy Spirit, that welcomes and strengthens and blesses and empowers people to serve.

Finally, the good news of this passage isn't limited to Christ's crazy description of the abundant harvest. No, the good news is more abundant than that, this passage offers us another glimpse. Do you see it? Growing up with this passage, I had not seen this other glimpse until seminary. Professor Brian Blount, now the president of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, told a story about a group of Latin American peasant farmers that gathered to study this passage. They were living in poverty, in a context of scarcity. And one of them said that what struck him most about this passage was not the types of soil, nor even the description of the abundant harvest, but the image of an extravagant God. A God who has lost her marbles, who has love enough to spare, who spreads it all over the place in an insane abundance, some of it falling every which way, a God gone crazy with joy. Seed, seed, and more seed, everywhere seed. Love, love, and more love, everywhere God's sacrificial agape. It is a wonderfully liberating image, it fills me up until sometimes I feel I can't hold it anymore, and then I remember, I don't have to, I can share it too. This image reminds us of the generosity of God who magnifies our best efforts into, as Tom Long writes, a "fruitful, extravagant, and altogether gracious yield. Therefore, the church is called to 'waste itself', to throw grace around like there is no tomorrow, precisely because there is a tomorrow, and it belongs to God." (Thomas G. Long, Matthew, The Westminster Bible Companion)