Introduction
For the next three Sundays, the lectionary will camp out in Matthew 13. These are some of Matthew’s most beloved parables, but they are also some of his most misunderstood. Too often we treat each parable as a self-contained story with an individual moral lesson. Matthew doesn’t. He gathers them together intentionally because they all answer a larger question:
What happens when the kingdom of heaven is proclaimed?
Some hear it. Some resist it. Some misunderstand it. Some bear astonishing fruit.
Matthew 13 isn’t simply a collection of memorable anecdotes. It is Jesus’ sustained reflection on how God’s Word works in the world.
That larger picture is worth keeping in mind before we ever get to today’s familiar parable.
Narrative Context
Matthew doesn’t begin chapter 13 with the parable. He begins with movement.
“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea.”
It’s one of those details that’s easy to read right past. But Matthew is intentional about every word.
That same day.
The phrase immediately connects us back to chapters 11 and 12, where tension has been steadily building.
John the Baptist has sent messengers asking whether Jesus really is “the one who is to come.” The cities where Jesus performed mighty deeds have refused to repent. The Pharisees have criticized his disciples for plucking grain on the Sabbath. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and was accused of breaking the Law. They claimed his authority came not from God but from Beelzebul. By the end of chapter 12, even Jesus’ own family has arrived looking for him (possibly out of concern).
Everywhere Jesus turns, someone questions who he is and by what authority he speaks.
So, Matthew tells us that Jesus leaves. He leaves the house. He leaves the crowds packed around the door. He leaves the familiar places where every conversation has become another argument about authority.
Instead, he walks to the sea.
Then comes another curious detail.
Because the crowds are so large, Jesus gets into a boat and sits down while everyone remains standing on the shore.
Many commentators note that, practically speaking, this makes perfect sense. The shoreline of the Sea of Galilee forms a natural amphitheater. Water carries sound well. And so, Jesus’ boat becomes an ideal place from which to address a large crowd. I cannot speak to the validity of this, but I think it’s an interesting note.
But, I don’t think Matthew is simply giving us stage directions.
Notice where Jesus is now teaching. Not from the synagogue. Not from the Temple. Not from the home where chapter 12 ended.
He’s teaching from a fishing boat.
Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus continually relocates where God’s authority is encountered. The Sermon on the Mount happens on a hillside, not in Jerusalem. Fishermen become the first disciples rather than religious scholars. Children understand what the wise often miss. Tax collectors find mercy while the righteous argue over technicalities.
Now the kingdom is proclaimed from the water. Away from the formal institutions that have dismissed his authority.
Jesus still assumes the posture of a rabbi (as Matthew tells us that he sat down, the traditional posture for authoritative teaching), but the classroom has changed.
Instead of walls, there is shoreline. Instead of benches, there is sand. Instead of institutional architecture, creation itself becomes the sanctuary.
And standing before him are people whose lives are deeply connected to the very images he is about to use. A farmer scattering seed. Rocky soil. Birds. Thorns. Good earth.
The setting and the parables belong together.
Why Does Jesus Speak in Parables?
Matthew 13 marks a significant turning point in Jesus’ ministry. Chapters 11 through 13 should be read together. After repeated rejection, difficult questions, and growing controversy, Jesus begins speaking to the crowds in parables.
That raises an obvious question, and thankfully the disciples ask it for us. In the verses omitted by the lectionary (13:10-17), they come to Jesus and ask, “Why do you speak to them in parables?”
Jesus answers by quoting Isaiah 6, speaking of people who “look but do not perceive” and “hear but do not listen, nor do they understand.”
This quotation has generated centuries of discussion because, at first glance, it sounds as though Jesus is intentionally hiding the truth from the crowds. Is that really the purpose of the parables? Are they meant to conceal the kingdom rather than reveal it?
Interestingly, Matthew and Mark appear to answer that question somewhat differently.
In Mark’s account (Mark 4:10-12), Jesus introduces Isaiah with the Greek conjunction hina, which is typically translated “in order that.” Read that way, Jesus speaks in parables in order that people may indeed see but not perceive, hear but not understand. The parables function almost like a veil, distinguishing insiders from outsiders.
Matthew quietly changes the wording.
Instead of hina, Matthew uses the conjunction hoti, which can be translated as “because.” It is a small grammatical change with significant theological implications. Jesus does not speak in parables in order to keep people from understanding. He speaks this way because they have already become people who “look but do not perceive” and “hear but do not listen.”
The emphasis shifts from divine intention to human response.
The problem is not that Jesus wishes to conceal the kingdom. The problem is that many have already hardened their hearts against what they have seen and heard (recall Matthew’s image of the children in the marketplace not dancing from this past week).
That reading also fits the larger narrative beautifully.
For two full chapters Jesus has been anything but obscure. He has preached openly. He has healed publicly. He has answered questions. He has debated the Pharisees. He has demonstrated mercy over and over again. Yet John the Baptist has questioned him. Entire towns have refused to repent. The Pharisees have accused him of breaking the Sabbath and even claimed his authority comes from Beelzebul.
The problem has never been a lack of revelation.
The problem has been a lack of repentance.
Seen in that light, the parables are not Jesus giving up on the crowds. They are not an act of divine exclusion. They are another gracious attempt to reach people who have resisted every other form of proclamation. Rather than abandoning those who have refused to hear, Jesus begins teaching in a way that invites his listeners to wrestle, reflect, and perhaps finally perceive what has been standing before them all along.
Far from closing the door, Matthew presents the parables as one more invitation into the kingdom of heaven.
The Explanation
Jesus explains the parable.
That may not sound remarkable, but among Jesus’ parables it actually is.
Most of the parables we get in the synoptic Gospels are wonderfully open-ended. They invite questions rather than settling them. Is the father in the Prodigal Son reckless or gracious? Who exactly is my neighbor? Which workers deserve the greater reward? Part of the genius of parables is that they continue unfolding long after the sermon ends.
Not this one. Here Matthew gives us both the parable and Jesus’ interpretation.
In fact, only one other parable receives this kind of detailed explanation from Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel: the Parable of the Weeds (which we’ll hear next week).
That should make us ask why. Why give/preserve the interpretation?
I suspect Matthew is doing more than helping us understand one difficult story. He’s teaching us how to hear the rest of the chapter.
Jesus tells us plainly that the seed is “the word of the kingdom.” The various soils represent different ways that proclamation is received. The evil one snatches away what is not understood. Tribulation and persecution expose shallow roots. The cares of this age and the lure of wealth choke growth before it can mature. Good soil hears, understands, and bears fruit.
One word quietly ties all of these together.
Understanding.
Matthew uses it twice.
The seed on the path is not understood.
The good soil hears and understands.
For Matthew, understanding is not about acquiring information or becoming intellectually smarter. Plenty of people hear Jesus’ words. The Pharisees hear them. The crowds hear them. Even the disciples often hear them without fully grasping them. The question is not whether the words reached their ears. The question is whether the Word took root deeply enough to change the way they live.
That’s why the good soil is not simply the one who hears. It is the one who hears, understands, and bears fruit. In Matthew’s Gospel, understanding always moves toward discipleship. It leads to repentance. It reshapes one’s life. It produces the fruits of the kingdom. To understand Jesus is not merely to agree with him; it is to follow him.
That also means we should be careful not to turn the four soils into permanent personality types.
It’s tempting to ask, “Which one am I?”
But I wonder whether Matthew is asking a different question.
“What is God trying to grow?”
After all, if rocky soil can never become fertile…
If thorny ground can never be cleared…
If hard paths can never be broken up…
Then why does Jesus keep preaching?
Why continue scattering the seed so extravagantly?
Matthew has spent the last several chapters calling people to repentance because he believes repentance is actually possible. Hearts can change. Lives can change. Communities can change.
The interpretation isn’t meant to convince us that some people are permanently hopeless. It’s meant to assure us that God’s Word keeps going out because God has not given up on the harvest.
Preaching Possibility
The Wasteful Sower
What kind of sower is this?
Because, frankly, this farmer seems terrible at farming.
The seed lands everywhere.
On the path.
Among rocks.
Into thorn bushes.
Only some reaches good soil.
No careful farmer would sow like this. Anyone hoping to maximize the harvest would prepare the field first. Clear the rocks. Pull the weeds. Avoid the well-worn paths where everyone knows the seed will simply be eaten by birds.
Not this sower.
He simply keeps scattering.
Everywhere.
In many ways, this story functions much like Luke’s Parable of the Prodigal Son. There, a father humiliates himself by running to embrace a son who has squandered everything. Here, a farmer appears almost reckless with his seed. Jesus begins with an image that sounds absurd because absurdity has a way of exposing our assumptions. We expect prudent farming. Instead, we get prodigal sowing.
And perhaps that’s precisely the point.
Remember where we are in Matthew’s Gospel.
John the Baptist has questioned whether Jesus really is the Messiah because his ministry hasn’t looked like the judgment many expected. Jesus has shared meals with tax collectors and sinners. He has healed on the Sabbath. He has shown mercy where others demanded condemnation. The Pharisees have questioned nearly everything he has done, even claiming that his authority comes from Beelzebul.
Again and again, the question underneath the conflict has been the same:
Who deserves God’s mercy?
Jesus answers not with an argument but with a story. A story about a farmer who refuses to ration his seed.
He doesn’t stop at the good soil. He scatters it on the path. He scatters it among the rocks. He scatters it into the thorns. He scatters it everywhere.
That is what the kingdom of heaven looks like.
God refuses to ration grace.
The Word of the kingdom is proclaimed to saints and skeptics alike.
To disciples and doubters.
To those eager to hear and to those who have grown cynical.
To people whose lives seem well cultivated and to those whose lives feel overrun with rocks, weeds, and hard-packed paths.
The sower just keeps sowing.
That generosity should also shape how we hear Jesus’ interpretation.
Most of us have experienced all four soils.
There have been seasons when God’s Word barely registered because our hearts were hardened by grief, anger, or disappointment.
There have been moments when faith sprang up quickly only to wither under suffering.
There have been years when anxiety, busyness, or the lure of success slowly choked what God was trying to grow.
And there have also been moments when, almost to our surprise, the Gospel took root and bore fruit we never imagined possible.
Perhaps that is Matthew’s deepest hope.
Not that we permanently identify ourselves as one kind of soil. But that we trust the persistence of the sower.
The same Jesus who refused to give up on the towns that rejected him, who continued preaching after being questioned, opposed, and misunderstood, is the same sower who keeps scattering the Word of the kingdom.
God continues proclaiming the kingdom because God believes barren fields can become fruitful ones.
And if God believes that about us, perhaps the Church is called to believe it about our neighbors as well.
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Micah Krey 
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