Soil Change
Original sermon given on The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, July 12, 2026 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church.
Watch the sermon live.
“Soil Change”
Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23
Soil Change
In the name of the Living God and the risen Christ. Amen.
Our Lord has had a busy few days teaching the people, healing the sick, and disputing with his adversaries — he hasn’t even had time to catch up with his own family. But in the beginning of Matthew 13, we catch him trying to catch a moment. He’s sitting down by the lakeside, and although we’re not told, I imagine him trying to take a breath, listen to the waves, and gather his thoughts.
The moment doesn’t last long, for huge crowds gather immediately around him, pressing in on him such that he’s got to set out by boat. This was a very practical move, for it gave him space to preach and some acoustical help from the water — his voice would carry better a little way out from shore.
We’re told he’s preaching in parables, and that there’s many of them. But the Holy Spirit has only selected for us the highlights, a collection recorded in Matthew 13. Like the “Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits” album or an anthology of the best short stories or poems or plays, you can take this to mean that God really wants us to hear and understand these parables… for a reason.
I’m at a great advantage this morning with the well-known parable of the Sower. You’ll notice Jesus actually interprets it for us. (It’s like he’s trying to give me a Sunday off or something!) The seeds are the message of the kingdom — God’s word sown among us and into our hearts. Imagine an ancient middle eastern farmer with a sack of seeds, tossing them along a hillside. (Our modern farming techniques are far more efficient than in Jesus’ day, but they’re not as good for telling parables.)
The seeds that fall along the path are exposed and vulnerable, easily snatched up by Satan. Those that land in the rocky places have no depth, so they sprout early and eagerly, but trouble and persecution dry them up. The word spread among the thorns gets choked by the worries of wealth in this world. So, summarizing the three poor soils: One has no safety, another no depth, and a third no fruit. In one the seed is stolen, the second it is scorched, and a third, strangled. Stolen, scorched, and strangled. That’s a bad day if you’re seed.
But there’s a good day, as well — a fourth and positive example of hearing the word and perceiving it; having it soak into your soul and leak out your life, so to speak. This good soil produces an abundant harvest of 100-fold in one case; sixty in another; thirty in another. You’ll be comforted to learn that the different yields given in the parable aren’t about different types of good soil yielding different amounts — you know, some of us are really fruitful — 100-yield Christians; others not so much. (Like, I’m only 1/3 the Christian of someone else.) No, that’s not what’s happening. What’s happening is that different types of crops give different types of yield. Wheat, barely, and beans, for example, all produce different amounts. So what we see here is that the same word brings about a different type of harvest in each of us, depending on our gifts, backgrounds, abilities, and opportunities. The word is equally at work in each of us but yields differently in each of us.
So, that’s the essential parable, as our Lord tells it and interprets it for us. Let me this morning offer four things we learn about the word through this parable: the word works; the word is abundant; the word convicts; and the Word is Christ (I’ll be brief).
First, the word works. It’s effective. It’s powerful. You’ll notice that the problems in the parable — seed stolen, scorched, or strangled — is not a problem with the seed. What’s wrong is the soil. The seed is good. No problem there. There’s no line in the parable that says, “And some seed fell upon good soil, but the seed was damaged, rancid or impotent, so nothing grew.” No!
This is a reminder to us that there is a powerful promise in God’s word. It is effective. Whether the written word in Holy Scripture; the preached word from the pulpit; the shared word amongst God’s people; the wet word in Holy Baptism; the “bread and wine word” in Holy Communion; the sung word in hymnody and liturgy — “It will not return to [God] empty, but it shall accomplish that which [he] purpose[s],” as Isaiah said. (verse 55.11)
You see, we do not have to change God’s word: fix it, repair it, make it more effective or palatable, or give it some extra juice, or genetically modify it. Rather, we are to spread it, plant it, share it, receive it, for it alone has perfect power.
Secondly, the parable shows us the abundance of God’s word. We see the sower generously, almost recklessly, even “wastefully” throwing that seed around. There’s no stingy seed Sower here. This isn’t Ebeneezer Scrooge sowing, miserly counting each seed and over-cautiously planting only where he thinks it will sprout. No, this farmer is throwing it everywhere, not rationing it or hoarding it out of greed or fear.
This reminds me of the abundance of the word we have today. You have God’s word accessible to you in your own language, in multiple translations, in print, in audio, on podcasts, and on screens. (Maybe this can inspire you to do less “doom scrolling” on your phone, and more “salvation scrolling!” Saturate your soul with something sacred instead.)
Do you know how blessed we are? This next week I’ll be presenting at a conference which will include all the missionaries from the Mission of Christ Network and the Lutheran Bible Translators, who are working to translate the scriptures into thousands of languages representing millions and millions of people who don’t have it in their mother tongue! Remember how we all pulled together to support the translation of the book of Romans into the Datoga people’s language in Tanzania? I’ll be getting an update on this project next week. We have the word in abundance, and we want to share it in abundance.
So first, the word works. Second, God sows it generously, in abundance for us. And third, the word convicts. When I hear this parable and mark the power and abundance of God’s word, but then examine myself, it causes me to ask, “What kind of soil am I?” One with no safety, no depth, and no fruit? And what’s the result of the word sown in my life, my heart? Stolen, scorched, strangled? Because the problem is not with the word; nor with my access to it. The problem is with my own sinful heart, and my poor reception of it, and my unwillingness to hear and perceive it and live it.
The abundant harvest, the fruitful Christian life is one of giving, telling, learning, trusting, praising. We respond to the word by giving of our time and possessions, sacrificially; telling others about Jesus, fearlessly; learning more about his word, eagerly; trusting his promises, constantly; and praising him with life and lip, eternally. These are the 100-fold, 60-fold, 30-fold harvests, each according to our own backgrounds, gifts and abilities.
How does Martin Luther put it in the Small Catechism? The the Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom Come. How does God’s kingdom come? …when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that be His grace we believe His Holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.” [1] That’s the fruit of faith, the abundant harvest of the word.
So the parable tells us that the word works; the word is abundant; the word convicts us in the ways we are not producing its fruitful harvest; and then finally, the Word is Christ.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God,” St. John the evangelist writes. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1.1, 14). Christ Jesus our Lord not only gives us his word, sowing it in our hearts, but he is the word, dwelling among us. And what an abundant, fruitful yield he has produced for us.
He was planted into our earthly condition for us — fully God yet fully man, wrapping himself in our human flesh, binding himself to our sin and shame and suffering. He was planted on the cross for us, scorched with our sin, strangled by our death. He was planted in the tomb, going all the way into the dark, desperate lonely places for us. And he arose in abundant victory on the third day, the “first fruits” of an amazing harvest yielding eternal life for us.
This is the word we receive today. He is the word we receive today. His power is upon us and his fruitfulness working in us. May we cling to his word, and by so doing cling only to him, who is implanted in us.
Come soon, Lord Jesus. Amen.
[1] Luther’s Small Catechism, 20, Concordia Publishing House
Image Source: Gogh, Vincent van, 1853-1890. Sower at Sunset, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57797 [retrieved July 14, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Van_Gogh_-_S%C3%A4mann_bei_untergehender_Sonne.jpeg.
