It’s Not About Us
The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 12, 2026
The Rev. Josh Evans
St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, NY
As modern readers of scripture,
we have this urge to assign neatly defined roles
to the cast of characters – human or otherwise – in a given parable,
to find out what it means –
as though there’s only one possible “correct” interpretation (there’s not) –
and to find our place in the story –
as though it’s all about us (it’s not).
So: The sower is God,
the seeds are God’s word,
and the different terrains on which the seeds fall
are different groups of people.
Easy-peasy, right?
Until: It spirals into a game of “Which terrain am I?”
And all of a sudden,
we’ve made this parable all about us.
From there,
it’s not a far ride to shame and judgment,
as we begin to re-evaluate
our own spirituality and faith practices.
We worry if maybe we are
the hard path,
the rocky ground,
or the choking thorns.
We hyper-fixate on whether we’re “good” enough,
or praying enough,
or reading our devotions enough.
We feel guilty
when our faith life doesn’t measure up
to the imaginary yard stick we’ve set up for ourselves,
especially when compared to other people.
(That’s always a fun game too, right?)
Yet, when we manage to make the parable all about us,
or worse yet, about shame and judgment,
there is no good news –
no God-action –
in that.
But: It’s not about us.
This isn’t the “Parable of the Four Terrains.”
It’s the “Parable of the Sower.”
And the Parable of the Sower,
as theologian Debie Thomas puts it,
is “a parable about the nature and character of God.
About God’s kingdom,
God’s provision,
and God’s extravagant generosity.”
In Jesus’ parable,
the sower goes out to sow – everywhere.
The sower doesn’t carefully evaluate the land first
to find the most “ideal” place to plant.
They just sow.
Abundantly.
Indiscriminately.
Extravagantly.
Perhaps even wastefully.
The sower also doesn’t stick around after the fact
to see what happens to the seeds they planted.
Does the sower not care?
That seems awfully irresponsible.
Or maybe,
the sower knows, deep down,
that what needs to flourish will flourish –
just perhaps not all at once or everywhere.
Some seeds take a little longer to sprout and grow.
Perhaps more importantly,
the sower’s indiscriminate and extravagant sowing
leads us to believe the sower isn’t concerned
about running out of seed.
There’s enough to go around,
even enough to “waste.”
It’s not going to run out.
There’s a reason so many of Jesus’ parables begin,
“The kingdom of heaven is like…” –
as Jesus makes clear
in the omitted verses (10-17) in today’s gospel –
explaining the purpose of the parables:
This is a vision for the church!
And it’s an invitation to follow in the example of our Sower God,
whose grace cannot be owned or contained,
whose mercy never runs out,
and whose love is extravagant enough
that we need not concern ourselves
with “wasting” it
or who “deserves” it.
A sower goes out to sow,
and whatever terrain we find ourselves on,
the seed will find its way to us –
not for anything we are or do,
but for who God is
and what God promises.
