Richard Dawkins, a man who is mostly known for outspoken atheism, is also the father of memes. He’s the one who coined the word** *meme* **long before everyone was used to seeing them on the internet. Today when most people hear that word they think of the pictures with some sort of short message that are often shared online. But a meme is really more than the format. It’s a bite-sized idea transmitted from one person to another. Dawkins described them like thought diseases, a virus that changes and adapts to catch on with as many people as possible. That’s why a rapidly-spreading meme is described as “going viral.”
The catchy nature of memes can be a good thing or a bad thing. They can build up or they can tear down. They can spread truth or they can spread lies. A bite-sized idea can leave a lot of important information out. So pay attention. Listen carefully. Use critical thinking.
A long time before Richard Dawkins, Jesus talked about spreading ideas. But what he was describing was something much bigger than memes. The kingdom of God spreads as the Gospel is proclaimed. The Gospel is the good news of God. His Word is powerful and effective. It springs to life. It produces a harvest. So Jesus says, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!”
The parable of the sower is found in Luke 8, and also in Matthew 13 and Mark 4. We find Jesus regularly teaching the people with parables, and with this parable Jesus gave some explanation to his disciples as to why. Jesus could have given long and detailed lectures, but instead he usually taught with these little pictures that anyone could understand. I suppose you could say they’re a bit like memes in that way. But they also have a great way of dividing between those who listen and those who don’t. Jesus’ disciples asked him for an explanation of the parable and before explaining it Jesus told them
To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest I speak in parables so that ‘even though they see, they may not see, and even though they hear, they may not understand.’
So let us hear and also, by God’s grace, understand what it is that our Lord tells us.
The story is a simple one. A farmer went out to sow seed. Back then it was all manual labor. You weren’t going to plant thousands of seeds one at a time, and so you would walk along in the field, scattering handfulls as you go. What would happen with that seed? Jesus’ parable is very realistic here. The seed would land in a variety of places, and not all of those places are so friendly to seeds. Some landed on the path, where the dirt was packed down. There it was trampled and eaten by birds. Other seed fell on rocky soil where it grew, but quickly withered away because it didn’t have any moisture. Some seed fell among thorns, where it got choked out by the weeds. That happens in my garden way too often. And finally, some seed fell on good soil where it grew up and produced a great harvest, a hundred times what was sown.
To the crowds that was all Jesus said with this parable. He left them to ponder its meaning. But that doesn’t mean the parable was open-ended. It was no postmodern parable that “means whatever you want it to mean.” Jesus explained it to his disciples in private, and through those disciples the Holy Spirit recorded its meaning for all of us.
Its about how the Word of God is heard in different ways. The seed is the word and the different places the seed lands represents how people respond to it. Some hearts are hard, like the path. The seed never even has a chance. The Devil comes and snatches it away, like a hungry bird. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day came to him with questions not because they cared about what God had to say, but because they wanted to find a way to trap him. Richard Dawkins sells books about how the whole Christian faith is just a delusional meme. The devil has no trouble snatching the word away from a person whose heart is set against it.
Those who hear the word like seed that falls on rocky soil and like seed that falls among thorns are similar. Both have a good start but don’t last. The one on the rocky soil is the one who receives the word with joy and springs up quickly, but has no roots and so withers away in a time of testing. The one among weeds is more gradual. His faith is out-competed by the things of this life. And Jesus includes both the bad, worries, as well as the good, riches and pleasures, as thorns, things that choke out faith so that it never matures.
Why should the farmer even bother? Why sow the seed at all? And of course when Jesus tells this parable he invites us to ask, “Who am I?” And we’re quick to say, “I’m in church, I’m listening to God’s word, therefore I must be the good ground.” But maybe it’s not quite so simple. There are times when the things of this world fill my heart in the same way that the weeds grow up in my garden, long tendrils spilling over the sides of the fence, dense leaves covering over the things I want growing there so much that I can’t even seem to find them anymore. And there are times when I face trouble and testing and instead of digging in deep to the never-ending water of God’s word I just wilt. And there are times when I forget God’s word, when the Devil swoops in like the grackles and starlings that cover my birdfeeder, chasing away the songbirds and greedily devouring every seed they can find. At different times I could be any of these kinds of soil. I could be all of them.
There’s something really fascinating about this parable though. We might start to ask, “What should I do? What does God want of me? How can I be a good Christian, the good soil, not the weedy soil or the rocky soil or the hard and dead path?”
But Jesus doesn’t answer that here. That’s not the right question to ask. Does soil prepare itself for seed? Can it weed itself and water itself? Can it chase away birds? Can it open up on its own to receive the seed that is scattered? No, the soil is just soil. The seed does the work. The farmer does the work. God does the work. He causes it to grow.
This is good news for you, you why by nature are more helpless than a patch of dirt. It’s not our love for God that made us his field. It’s not our good works that caused him to work in us. It’s not the sprouting plants of faith that caused him to plant the seed.
Why does the farmer bother? Why sow the seed at all? Because of the harvest, that’s why! The farmer doesn’t worry that some ground will be hostile to the seed he sows. He knows it will happen, but he sows anyway because he sows for the harvest that there will be. And what a harvest it will be! What he has scattered on the ground will come back to him a hundredfold. When the time comes, his storehouses will be filled.
There are times when the work of spreading the gospel can be frustrating. We see people hearing God’s word in just the ways that Jesus describes. There are people who just plain don’t care. There are people who know they should be coming to church and don’t. There are people who come to church full of joy, on fire for God, but then they burn out, they leave and never come back again. And there are people who always seem to have something else, something bigger, something more important. And that can be discouraging for Christians who want to see the word spread and God’s kingdom grow.
Don’t think that God cares about those people less than you do. Jesus died for them. He took their sins on himself on the cross, just as he did for you.
But the farmer doesn’t fret about the ground that is hostile to the seeds. Instead, he keeps sowing for the harvest. And we, as people who by God’s grace have had his word planted in our hearts, have the joy and privilege from our Lord to sow the seed of his Gospel. The Gospel is a powerful thing, the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. We sow that seed by proclaiming the promises of God and the things he has done for us. We sow that seed by administering Jesus’ sacraments. In Holy Baptism we receive new life, a planting of faith from God.
The good news of Jesus, the news that in him we have forgiveness and life and salvation, is truly an idea to share. But it’s so much more than a meme, a viral idea. It’s God’s own work in your heart and in your mind. It changes you, making you a new person in his image. It drives you to love God and to love each other, just as Christ loves you. It grows to an eternal harvest as it makes yours the srue promise of heaven. And that’s all from him, from the seed of his word. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear! Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson