Art Reading Scripture

Sower and the Seed, Trinity Lutheran Church, Milaca, MN, Peter Dohmen, 1967

Listen! A sower went out to sow. Mark 4:3

Jesus spoke in parables, little stories widely open to interpretation. A parable may seek a single point. The Sower is generous and trusting casting the seed everywhere trusting that somewhere it will bear fruit. A parable may be read allegorically, as this one often is. Each type of soil represents receptivity and obstacles. Reading the soils in terms of individual failings can turn interpretation to judgement. After Jesus told the parable the Gospel provides this kind of interpretation. As it is the rare instance of Jesus offering an interpretation of a parable, rather than leaving it open ended, I hesitate to let it be the last or only word. Better I think is the idea that each type of soil exists in each of our lives, places where we stumble, get distracted, disillusioned or complacent, as well as places in the heart that are receptive and bear fruit. As each of these soils persist throughout life, the life of faith may be understood as a struggle rather than an accomplishment, as a process rather than a one time event of salvation after which nothing hinders the way to the harvest.

The Sower and the Seed Window includes the obstacles to the soil and the seed. At the base of the window are the stony path, birds and a thorny plant. Over arching the scene is a scorching sun. Life indeed is beset by afflictions and times of trial. And yet, in the midst of it a hand full of seeds reaches down and scatters seed onto the rocks, amidst the birds and around the thorns as the sun beans down. In spite of the obstacles that impede growth, three wheat stems arise. They are full of grain. Oddly the window provides no image of good soil, no black dirt in a cleared field. The hand of God is iconic of creation and blessing in the midst of this world of troubles. The picture is not of an interventionist God manipulating life, but of a God present to the world sowing seeds of life wherever it may bear fruit.

Some have asked why God does not act like a good agriculturalist and sow only on productive, receptive soil. Don't waste seed where it may not grow, or where it will struggle and come to naught. I think the response is that God hopes and longs for the seed that is cast. God trusts and has faith in the word and love that "come down from heaven and do not return there until ... it shall accomplish that which I purpose...". Perhaps even the hardest, beaten down life might produce some grain. Maybe the life scorched by misfortune or choked in distraction might yet come to the harvest. We are impressed by bumper crops, "thirty and sixty and a hundred fold." I served in eastern Montana during the drought and grasshopper years of the mid '80s, when the dryland farms barely produced a crop. And yet, the farmers drove the combines to the fields and reaped what had grown, well less than thirty fold.

Consider the circumstances of your life. God is merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God scatters love through the word into hardened cynical hearts, lives eaten up by injustice, scorched by failure, and choked by distraction. God forgives, and sows more seed. Consider the grace scattered into your life, where the soil is good and you have gifts to serve your neighbor, a vocation that has called you to love this world with what you are able. Who knows if many of us, if any of us, have produced a hundred, sixty fold of goodness or faith. Maybe thirty fold which a farmer expects from the crop. But even if less, still worth the harvest.

Keep the faith. Say your prayers. Love like Jesus.

Pastor Tim Bauer