The Sower

In a culture obsessed with performance and comparison, it is easy to be misread Jesus' parable through the lens of judgment, fixated on the condition and “fruitfulness” of the soil. But what if God has lovingly hidden a better, truer story in plain sight? The choice is yours.

Scripture & Quotations

• Matthew 13:1-23

  
  ”What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns but about the extravagance of a sower who does not seem to be fazed by such concerns, who flings seed everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon, who feeds the birds, whistles at the rocks, picks his way through the thorns, shouts hallelujah at the good soil and just keeps on sowing, confident that there is enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?”

  - Barbara Brown Taylor, Seeds of Heaven

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Parable of the Sower, 1557, oil on wood panel, 73.7 x 102.9 cm (29 x 40-1/2 in.), Putnam Foundation, Timken Museum of Art.