Paths

I’ve always read the parable of the sower as a religious litmus test or a warning to the culturally-spiritual rebellious. A decision as to what type of person God looks at with favor.

Jesus addresses a crowd at a lake in Mark 4 by telling a parable, a story. He uses a word picture that would be easy to understand but difficult to wrap your logical mind around for those who thought themselves to be spiritually elite or God-savvy. He tells of four different scenarios where a farmer scatters “seed”:

paved road – no soil exists there and therefore cannot receive the seed; satan steals the seed

rocky places – the seed is received with joy but it is short lived; there is no root and trouble/persecution come resulting in falling away

thorns – the worries of life (deceitfulness of wealth and desires for other things) choke the seed causing it to be unfruitful

good soil – commended as the one that truly accepts and receives the seed, the good soil gives birth, as good seeds do, to new life and an abundant harvest is the result

I’ve heard this story a hundred times in my eight years as a Christian. And for as long as I’ve known Jesus and read the bible I’ve equated this story with four different ways to live your life as a human being. This is also the only way I’ve ever heard this passage taught. The first scenario represented someone who had no desire to know God. There was indifference and rebellion resulting in complete lack of knowing God. The second scenario represented someone who was not truly connected to God in an authentic way, and, as a result, their faith was short-lived due to persecution or trial. The third option was similar to the second but distinct in that there was more of an established trust that lasted before the world and it’s corruption took it’s toll on the person and they crumbled, losing their credibility and witness. The fourth was the Christian. This person received the seed… also explained as the word… and the result was terrific. They produced all that God desired for them because of their “yes” to God. And there you have it, the parable of the sower.

I no longer see this parable or read this story with this particular lens, though. 

Over the past few years I’ve realized that I’ve become someone who enjoys predictability and constant. I love knowing and remaining in the know. When things are consistent and predictable I can control them and mitigate risk/failure. Faith for me, ever since I was 18, meant being that person that received the seed. Because I knew what it meant to be the other three options in some way/shape/form. But what I’ve observed of myself and of others is that there is a deep shame and discomfort and pain associated with this story and the way it often does not play out in the ways we’ve explained.

Conversion… receiving the seed/word… is not a one and done deal. It is not an altar call. It is not a hand raising (for the record I have nothing against these things, but when we chalk up salvation and understanding God/ourselves to distinctive rituals that mark moments of growth/choice it can be dangerous and misleading). When we receive the seed/God, the other three types of soil are still apart of us (or at least can be) in some ways.

I raised my hand in a church. I raised my hand at Christian University to answer the call to be a pastor. I raised my hand as a pastor to be a certain type of person. But here’s what happened. I became so focused on the raising of my hand, the idea of receiving the word, that I lost sight of all the small ways I was actually the other three types of “soil”. I disregarded the small deaths and miniature fractures that were apart of my story and my life so that I could press on. But what happens when you don’t lead an aware, integrated life is that those things catch up to you. I forgot that in order to be “born again” it requires the work of constantly surrendering to Spirit to be born again again and again.

Once I quit my job as a pastor and moved back to OR, I realized a lot about my character and shadow self that had been hiding under the guise of a pastor and professional Christian. I had come face to face with the fact that I actually am all four types of “soil” on any given day. That being a Christian and devoting myself to following Jesus does not mean I stay locked in to the fourth way of receiving the seed on default mode. Although my desire to be in that space is growing and I’m realizing how rocky I truly am, I think we have to be okay with non-judgmentally accepting our true selves as all four types at any given moment/season.

I believe Jesus is getting at something much more provocative and challenging in this story than just how to live a pure and holy life. I think he is speaking of the four different ways we already do operate in life by receiving or rejecting God and ourselves. It can be deeply disruptive to our egos when we realize we are not who we want to be. Furthermore, it can cause great pain when others perceive us differently than we do ourselves and we feel far from who we are projecting. All the while, God sees us and knows us perfectly despite our best efforts to deceive ourselves.

I’ve denied myself but not in the ways I wish to. I’ve denied who God has made me to be by denying that I am currently a proverbial asphalt road with no hope of swallowing the seed God has provided for me because I have closed my eyes and ears out of fear of what he might speak to a broken man like me. I’ve denied that in my immaturity I’ve said things, done things, and been things that I said I never would again. Things that remind me of who I used to be. For fear of accepting myself, and thus truly accepting God, I have nervously laughed at the idea that I might be that rocky desert soil thirsting for water but too prideful to ask. I am the thorny soil that is too sharp for my own good. Critically pointed and sharply defending my behavior and freedom and current state of apathy, hurting those who come toward me in love and grace and thus hurting myself by cutting off the seed that wishes to plant something new within me. 

I believe that what Jesus is getting at is this: we are all, regardless of religion, capable of becoming and returning to any of these four ways of being. We are all traversing these four paths in life and left to ourselves we will drive ourselves mad with the constant changing. I believe that God’s best for us is to remain as people of the good soil, soft and readily greeting the word that comes to us daily to birth beauty and color and fragrance we didn’t know existed. I believe this– this garden of delight— is where we are all brought forth from and it is because of these origins that we yearn to remain in a place of such beauty and rest. 

The point is this: when we find ourselves in a state of being less-than-good-soil-people, we need not fret. The difference between road one and four is awareness and return. The magic is remembrance and re-calibration. The divine spark within you knows the path home. Your soul, in some way even if it feels distant or foreign, knows True North in a deep way. We all have a choice to deny this awareness or to trust it. You have to trust this homing device that knows God. So long as we close our eyes and ears, we will not perceive and not understand. We will drive ourselves crazy with confusion and self hate. We are actually in better shape if we are aware of ourselves being concrete pavement than deceiving ourselves into thinking we will remain good soil on auto-pilot. This is the good news: we are offered the seed of life every day anew. This seed promises to bring out of you more than you ever thought was possible. You possess more color and diversity and love and growth than you presently understand. Just as a seed must die to give life to something else, buried in the dark for a time before realizing the power within, so too you will feel this death and rebirth as you trust that you won’t stay under the ground. There is fresh opportunity for you today. Fresh chance to become who we are. This will not change.