July 12 - “Teaching in Parables”

Teaching in Parables

Matthew 13:1-8, 18-23

July 12, 2026

Rev. Mary W. Nelson – First Congregational Church UCC of Williamstown MA

Jesus often used storytelling as a teaching method. Some of his stories are just one or two sentences long; some, like today’s, are more drawn-out. When we dissect his stories, we can see that most of them have four specific characteristics in common, and we call that group of stories “parables.”  

The word parable basically means metaphor. All parables are images of comparison, metaphors in story-form, and that element of comparison is the primary characteristic of a parable. Jesus would start off by saying, “the kingdom of God is like an old woman… or a mustard seed… or a shepherd… or a treasure…” And then he’d make some statement about what that person or object does that illustrates how God’s kingdom works. He doesn’t always make the comparison quite that obvious – today’s parable doesn’t start “the kingdom is like…” – but the idea is always there, implied somewhere in the telling. When the story has a central Actor (a master, a shepherd, a farmer, an old woman), that central Actor is a metaphor for God, and Jesus is telling us “this is how God operates.” If there’s not a comparison, a metaphor, somewhere in there, it isn’t a parable.

The second characteristic of a parable is that the image is drawn from nature or everyday life. Now, we have to remember that “everyday life” in the first century was not the same as our everyday life. So to really understand a parable we need to think about what it would have been like to live back then. The images are primarily agrarian, non-mechanized, and local. In a world where people made their own bread on a daily basis, labored in vineyards, tended sheep and goats, and apparently ate a lot of mustard, stories using these images would have been highly relevant to the people Jesus was trying to reach. A modern-day equivalent parable would claim that the kingdom of God is like a spam email filter that breaks down and floods your inbox; or tell of a man who trades in his diesel-powered truck for a hybrid car and gives little old ladies a ride to the grocery store. You know, things that happen every day.

The third characteristic of a parable is one that is often not very obvious to us because the images are not so familiar to us anymore… but a parable is supposed to capture your attention through something in the story that is strange and unexpected, a little off-kilter, not-quite-right. There’s a twist of some kind, which our modern ears don’t always catch right away, but we can get there with a little imagination and empathy. If you consider our modern-day equivalent story: You may not think you want your spam filter to fail, but how else are you going to find out that your email provider has been blocking your long-lost brother’s messages to you? If you think about today’s parable from Matthew, why in the world is someone planting seeds in ground that hasn’t been aerated, cultivated, weeded, fertilized, irrigated, and carefully tended so as to maximize the return on the planting? What kind of Sower would spread seeds on the trampled-down path, and among the rocks, and in the weeds? Seeds would have been precious, not something to be treated wastefully.

And the fourth-and-final characteristic of a parable is the most frustrating: the storyteller leaves the hearers with just enough doubt about the parable’s precise application that you really have to think about it. A parable makes you sit down and wonder what the heck it is supposed to mean. There are no easy answers with parables – often they leave you with more questions than you had when you began.

We should have left out the verses that explain the Parable of the Sower this morning. The explanation that Matthew gives us (and Mark and Luke do the same thing) was added later. It’s almost certain that Jesus didn’t actually tell his disciples an explanation of the parable—the early church writers would have included the explanation as a teaching tool for their communities. But this explanation over-simplifies the process of understanding a parable. It’s a really clunky attempt to answer the question, “what is the Parable of the Sower really supposed to mean?” Jesus would not have wrapped up his story with a bow like Matthew says he did. Remember that a parable is supposed to leave you with more questions than answers.

You see, Jesus’ sower spreads seed abundantly, randomly, on rocky soil, on the hard-packed path, on fields covered with brambles and thorns. There’s no way that the scattering of this seed is supposed to have a purpose. God does not have a plan for this seed, and that’s the twist: this sower is reckless! This sower is foolish! This sower is completely indiscriminate in his abundance!

And that’s exactly the point of this parable: the abundance of the Sower.

Despite the explanation given later on, we don’t actually know what the seed is supposed to represent: God’s word? God’s love? God’s kingdom? God’s presence? God’s disciples? We don’t know. It could be any and all of those, or something else entirely. The twist is the activity of the Sower, not the identity of the Sower, and that activity gives us an entry point to discovering the point of the parable. The point is not the seed itself, but the hope that its growth will have a purpose; the point is not where the seed fell, but that it went everywhere; the point is not who planted the seed, but that it was planted in abundance. 

Here is another angle we might explore: we know that God is the Sower—what if WE are the seed? Might we, like God, plant the seeds of God’s love – or God’s presence – or God’s kingdom – recklessly and indiscriminately and abundantly? Or might we be the seed, sent out to grow where we are planted, with hope that our planting will produce some kind of fruit?

There can be more than one answer when it comes to learning the parable’s lessons. We may be both the seed and the beneficiaries of the seed. We are ones who send out God’s love into the world, and we are also seeds of that love waiting to take root. And maybe we’re supposed to emulate the Sower: We must be abundant in our living, indiscriminate in our sharing, and reckless in our loving. We must spread the seeds of God’s kingdom everywhere – not just in the soil that has been weeded and turned over and fertilized and watered, but on the hard path so that the birds, too, may be fed; and in the rocky soil so that it, too, may bear witness to God’s love; and among the weeds so that they, too, may grow near to God’s kingdom. We must trust that we have been planted where we are – even if only for a moment – so that we can reach out to those around us who need the spiritual fruit that we alone can grow, with God’s grace.

We might be both the Sower and the seed. Thanks be to God. Amen.