But today, as we read in chapter 13 of Matthew, there is a shift, and a welcome one. Those declarative statements from the past few weeks are instructive, but the reader, the disciple, needs to drill down into them to extract the meaning. But today Jesus teaches in parable, which is a whole other ball game: we’re not supposed to drill down too far, because the message is in the story, and the story is amazingly adaptive to exactly where you and I may be.

The film, “The Great Escape” was on TV recently, and every time I watch it I find myself relating to one of the many different characters: when I saw it for the first time some 40 or so years ago, it was the cool, motorcycle-riding Steve McQueen character I was drawn to, then the intellectual and precise Donald Pleasance forger role, then Richard Attenborough’s determined-to-the-death leader, and, in this last screening, James Coburn’s under-the-radar, smooth talking character. Why am I drawn to different characters each time? Probably because I grew and changed between viewings; maybe I just watched it in very different moods.

The point is that, unlike declarative statements, the parable conveys truth in a way that moves and shifts as we move and shift. Like “The Great Escape” for me, the story connects no matter what state or season we’re in. The parable is a brilliant way to talk about something like faith, because it is designed to make sense to people in very different situations, with very different experiences, and very different expectations. The parable is multi-valent, which means it conveys power and meaning in different ways depending on who is listening. The parable speaks the truth no matter how much we have changed between readings or hearings.

And the Parable of the Sower, as our lesson is called, is a treasure because it conveys, in the simplest of images, what it looks like for human beings to be in relationship with God: it’s not the same for everyone all the time, there are variations in the experience that are to be expected, though God’s part is consistent. You and I are both the sower and the soil, and in both those roles we do and will have different experiences—season to season of life, year to year, week to week, even moment to moment. If you do no other summer reading over the next few weeks, read and reread this parable and let it percolate and speak to you wherever you happen to be or however you feel. It will always have a word especially for you.

So as not to overanalyze how this parable works, let me speak autobiographically about some of the images from the parable. Perhaps that will connect with your own personal version of the same experiences. The seed in the parable is the Word of God—it could be the Bible itself, it could be a disciple’s words, it could be a disciple’s actions, it could be the movement of the spirit, it could be a convergence of events that have meaning. The seed is the grace of God in all its forms. And, as I said, sometimes we are on the receiving end of that grace—we are the soil, and sometimes we are on the giving end—we are the sower.

As one—like each of you—who has been invited to receive God’s grace, there have been times when I have been rocky ground, when God’s grace has had a hard time breaking through and taking root in me. In the past, I was rocky soil during my scientific years, when I was invested in reducing the world to verifiable fact. I was rocky soil when I was convinced acts of kindness were just lucky breaks and not intentional gifts. I was rocky soil when I became such a student of biblical criticism that the scripture became for me an ancient artifact of literature, and not the living word of God. These days there are moments when my soil still becomes rocky—the seeds of grace can’t take hold—when I’m anxious about money, or waiting in lines that just don’t move (I have a hard time thinking a single good thought, let alone making room for the Holy Spirit), or when I’ve simply gone too long without stopping to eat. My awful poison ivy from two summers ago made me stony to God’s grace for a good month, because the itch was all I could think about. When have you been resistant to God’s grace? When in the past week did you still find yourself—spiritually speaking—turning to stone?

There have been other seasons when a passage of Scripture or a kind deed or unexpected moment of peace came to me and I saw it as grace, as that seed, and then that good news suddenly or slowly became something else, got the life choked out of it. That happened a lot when my commitment to discipleship encountered my skeptical friends, friends I continued to love, but who were invested in persuading me that what I thought I was experiencing or believing wasn’t quite the truth, and I couldn’t help but listen. Sometimes the weed that is too much weeknight TV or time on the Internet or just too much thinking and analysis that chokes off my faithful intentions and I wonder what became of that still, small voice that was guiding me so clearly yesterday. The weeds grow when my hopes give way to realities like mothers having car accidents, and too many deadlines to meet, and people who laugh in my face when I bring up the importance of church. What is it for you that competes with your faith? What tries to undo your trust in the mystery of God’s goodness, or twists it into something else? If you’re like me, some things always have and probably will; others, new species of weed, come up from time to time.

And then there are some days—not so many as I’d like—when it’s like God has filled my every waking moment with grace to be received, and I am open to the Holy Spirit in every interaction, when people seem to be speaking more truth to me than they realize, when my breakfast tastes so good I don’t care what happens the rest of the day, when I have unanticipated energy to accept the cost of discipleship, when I feel unmistakably that I am an instrument of something far greater than me. Sometimes those days happen because the sun is shining, or I slept well the night before, or the worry elements are minimal. But sometimes they happen for no reason I can explain or identify.

Jesus’ parable just tells it like it is for people like you and me trying to be faithful. When it comes to receiving God’s grace, sometimes our doors are wide open and it all clicks effortlessly; sometimes we seek and receive that grace, only to watch it fade and disappear in the ocean of other items consuming our attention. And sometimes we’re just shut down, and we wouldn’t know God’s good news if it slapped us in the face. Sometimes we know why our soil goes from rich to weedy to rocky and back again; at other times it’s a mystery to us.

And Jesus also intends that the parable help us understand how it works when we are the vehicles of grace for others (as we are called to be), when we are not the soil, but the sowers. Because we all have variable soil, our efforts to sow good news for others as Christians will not always bear good fruit, or at least the fruit we expect, and we need to be ready and know that it is not our failing, but the nature of things. Sometimes our obedient discipleship lands on good soil, and we can see the fruit, the result—the Biloxi 24, and 26 and 5, and all the Habitat and CAC folks, see their work, see how it affects the people they went to serve, see how it deepens their own relationships. A kind word brings about a kind word in return. An apology reestablishes a relationship. An act of simple generosity changes a life. Your insight on a biblical passage, or a story from your own life experience, connects with someone who needed to hear that exact word.

But other times, we do the right and faithful thing and it works, but not as we thought or hoped. How many sermons have I preached which I thought were home runs, but which ended up confusing or boring or even offending the hearers? I offer directions at a gas station and the person thinks I’m trying to con them. Kind words can be twisted like weeds entwined among wheat. Here at church someone has a great idea for a new ministry or program, and by the time the well-intentioned congregational wheels do their grinding, the moment and the enthusiasm has passed. The Board for Christian Education does its faithful best to welcome children and teach the basics as we all want, but then for some Sunday morning at church competes with other commitments and all that potential doesn’t come to full fruition. In all these, everyone is well-intentioned, but the seeds compete with weeds of inertia, and habit, and other responsibilities, and the prevailing mindset that discipleship—like everything else—needs to fit into my well defined schedule.

And, of course, sometimes the seeds we faithfully sow land altogether on rocky soil. One of my friends always says that no good deed goes unpunished, and I think that’s a little too cynical, but haven’t we all had the experience of doing the right thing and getting more grief than thanks? I heard this week of a situation in which a person offered loving perspective and affirmation and it was received as manipulative meddling. Sometimes when we’re wronged and we turn the other cheek, it also gets slapped. There are times when I use the language of my faith to explain myself and people stare at me with these blank looks because it’s just not part of their world. As sowers, our seeds simply sometimes fall among the rocks.

Jesus teaches in parables because the mystery of God encountering the mystery of the human heart is always an unpredictable event. It depends on the whole story of our life so far, our particular personalities, our circumstance of the moment, maybe even the barometric pressure on a given day—and is complicated by all those same factors at work in everyone else. Whether we are the recipients of God’s grace or the instruments of God’s grace, whether we are the soil or the sower, none of the outcomes is for certain. Today’s parable affirms the life of faith is by nature unpredictable: it may bear great fruit, but it’s not without real built-in risk and limitations.

But what is for certain, and what the very best news of the parable is, is that God’s seed is sown abundantly and without concern for the type of soil on which it may land. That means that if we are in a rocky place and God’s grace just can’t find purchase in our hearts on Tuesday, God will sow again on Wednesday, and we might be better able to receive. And that also means that, as sowers, it’s not up to us to make a determination about how well our acts of faithful obedience will be received by others, but it is up to us to sow kind words, and acts of compassion, and works of justice, and expressions of faith abundantly, constantly, perhaps even recklessly, and leave the fruit bearing to God in relationship with those we serve.

Brothers and sisters, sit with this parable and listen to its message for you. No matter where you are, no matter where the people in your life are, this simple story has God’s custom made word for you this week. Listen to it.