One of the great joys of my life is being a pastor.  It’s funny, after about seven years into ministry, I thought I wanted out.  But it was during that dark and difficult time that I encountered some wonderful Christians.  These individuals helped me see around the circumstances and returned me to the joy of ministry.  It was during that time that I realized that was one of the greatest blessings of being a pastor.  Being around honest-to-goodness Christians is bound to take your breath away with their acts of kindness, mercy and love. 

  Christians, the real ones, are amazing.  But what’s interesting to me is how some people can hear the same words on Sunday, read the same pages of the same Bible and yet come out with completely different takes on faith in Jesus Christ. 

  I remember early in ministry taking the call of a woman who was looking to know more about Jesus.  I invited her to the church, had a long talk with her, listened to her spiritual journey.  This woman, it turned out, had dabbled in wicca for a while.  But she wanted to know more about Jesus because she was feeling a calling in her life to Him. 

  This woman did everything I suggested.  She started reading her Bible, she came to church and to Sunday school, heck, she even spent some weeks attending the men’s weekly prayer time.  It was so encouraging to see someone take to all the many facets of the church.  I. was too new to ministry at the time to see the warning signs.

  Eventually, her enthusiasm waned.  She stopped coming to the prayer time, then Sunday school and finally, worship.  I ran into her months after she’d stopped coming and had one of those awkward conversations with her about why she’d stopped coming.  According to her, our people were nice, she was learning some things but, ultimately, she decided that a better use of her time was reiki or some other spiritual practice. 

  I met another man and his family.  They were down on their luck to say the least.  At the time, we were able to help them – got them a place to stay and helped them get back on their feet.  They came to church quite actively for a time but then, well, things happened.  Work, family, the cares of the world all bore down on these folks until they disappeared into the ether.

  I don’t know how their stories turn out.  Just because I encountered them in a challenging time doesn’t mean that it’ll always be like that for them.  It could very easily be the case that their abortive starts at my church were just the first steps in their pathway to full discipleship in Jesus Christ.  That’s the great thing about the Holy Spirit – He stirs where and when He will.  That is to say that while these people were good examples of bad soil at the time I encountered them, there’s no reason to believe or assume they end up like that.  God works with people at a unique pace for us all, if we’re honest about it.  And, oftentimes spiritual growth is a two step forward, one step backwards kind of process.   

  You see, this parable gives us a way to view people like that woman and that couple.  People who are, on one hand, involved with the Word then, over time, they scatter away.

  Jesus’ parable of the sower is a means by which Jesus speaks a revelatory word to those gathered around Him that day.  That particular day, Jesus was outside on a boat on the sea of Galilee.  The water would’ve provided excellent acoustics for his talk delivered to an audience that likely sat on the ground.  Then, he begins teaching in parables

  Why did Jesus teach in parables?  On the one hand, he did so as with a keen knowledge of human behavior.  We tend to remember stories far longer than we do propositional data.  Further, we are able to extract deeper and more profound meaning from stories over time.  Look around today and you’ll see businesses embrace the truth of that as they hire Chief Storytelling Officers.  This isn’t someone to tell bedtime stories, rather it’s a marketing person who is tasked with telling the company’ story in a manner that encourages greater sales.

  So, Jesus teaches in parables because they allow for greater and deeper knowledge to come through.  But, as Jesus tells us in the parable of the sower, he also speaks in parables for another reason.