Parable of the Sower: A Poor Farmer’s View

A farmer went out to sow his seeds. As he was scattering the seeds, some feel through the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choke the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Matthew 13:4-8.

The story is so familiar and common place that the disciples didn’t expect anything spectacular about it. For many pastors, including myself, the Parable of the Sower has long been over interpreted and overused such that no new meaning could possibly be squeezed out of it. Fewer passages in the Bible can be as unpromising as this one, not because it’s unimportant but because we have heard sermons on this again and again.

A marginal farmer who has not heard the parable before would ponder on the story as a story of his life. He would say the farmer in Jesus’ story was lucky that although some portions of his land were rocky and thorny a bigger portion was of good soil. That’s why he still had a good harvest – a hundred-, sixty- or thirty-fold. But in his experience, good lands are already owned by big landowners and cultivated with mechanized tools and with sufficient farm inputs. On the other, small farmers like him are left with the rocky and hilly portions and very thin topsoil. Every rainy day, the meager soil gets less and less as it is swept by the rushing floodwaters. That’s why they are getting poorer and their children even poorer than than parents.

I’m normally sensitive to social justice issues but I never ever thought of this parable as material for a social justice sermon. It sounds like this parable of Jesus is insensitive to the plight of poor farmers. It seems to be adding insult to injury – the rich farmer who controls the best portions of land is an example of Christian faithfulness, while the poor farmer who has to work hard on marginalized land is an example of a bad steward. No wonder the rich landowner has plenty of reasons to thank God for, while the marginal farmer can only thank God for keeping his family alive for yet another day of hunger and hard toil. I learned that their average yield for rice land is only about 25-30 cavans of palay per hectare, which is way below the needs of a family. And by the time of harvest a good part of that goes to the usurer. The merchant who advances the money gets to buy the harvest at two-thirds the market price. Cash is very hard to come by in the household of small farmers.

So when some agribusiness company owned by big-time capitalists like Herminio Teves come to offer them cash in exchange for planting tuba-tuba and balanghoy instead of corn and mongo beans, they jumped at the opportunity. For the farmers, land is life but it’s a very hard life and does not promise liberation from poverty. I learned that they were offered P160 daily wage and a promise of profit-sharing once the company makes money from bio-fuel production. The pay is not much for a family but it’s more than what they could expect from a day’s labor. It turned out that for P160 one has to plant a specified number of stems which will actually require four grown-up men to finish in three days. It’s like a good-news-bad-news thing – ang good news: adunay sweldo nga P160; ang bad news, dunay quota sa trabahoon nga maabot sa upat ka tawo nga magtrabaho balig tulo ka adlaw. So, a farmer has to involve his wife and children – the entire household for P160 in several days of work.

Against the backdrop of Jesus’ parable, it would seem that the bio-fuel company would make a better steward of the land because it can make the land produce a hundred-fold of harvest compared to what a poor farmer, who has no access to capital and agricultural inputs, can. Does God favor those who, having owned the best portions of the land, are able to produce more?

Most of the pastors in my informal clergy formation classes also do farming in order to support their families. In all of my professional life as a minister of the church, I never worried about making a living because I got regular salary at Silliman and I had a wife who did the worrying about meeting the family’s needs. So, it’s been easy for me to understand Jesus’ saying that one cannot serve both God and mammon. I could devote my time and energy to studying and interpreting the word of God. But in the case of our farmer-pastors, every week of the month they must serve God and also serve mammon. Or, they have to serve mammon in order to be able to serve God.

A reflection from these rural pastors on the parable reveals how they view themselves in relation to the more regular professional pastors. Some pastors, they say, are assigned to “good soil” – churches that have ample resources, educated, active and generous members and thoughtful of their pastor’s material needs. The choice churches are reserved for young and bright graduates of Silliman Divinity School.

But pastors like them who have not had formal education in seminaries are assigned to parishes that are like rocky and thorny land. In society, marginal lands are their portion. It’s the same when it comes to church assignment. This is the way things are in the UCCP. Not that they are complaining. I’m amazed that they don’t see any injustice here, maybe because they are used to the fact that life is not fair everywhere, not in society, neither in the church. They are simply stating the fact that parish assignments are like the parable of the sower – some pastors land in very favorable circumstances while others must thank the Lord simply for the privilege of sowing the gospel in stony and thorny soil. They believe that in the end God will demand of them what they have done to make productive their portion of rock-hard and thorny piece of earth. Their work won’t yield thirty-fold, fifty or even a hundred. But they hope that God would understand why their ministry has failed to bear fruit more than the ministry of pastors in Silliman Church or Dumaguete City Church.

This was what I heard from them … and I didn’t say a word. I had a mouthful to say to myself but nothing for them that would make sense and encourage them. On the bus going home, I kept asking myself what keeps them going and what makes Jesus’ Parable of the Sower meaningful to them. Why do they have a great love for the ministry of the church? Why do they submit to the teachings of the Bible like children, wholeheartedly and without complaint? Why aren’t they drawn to the lure of sects and cults that promise power and glory rather than stick with the UCCP?

Where can I find answers? From my own experience of 30 years in the ministry? From my research and years as theology professor at Silliman? From my associations with bishops and leaders of the church? From the Scriptures, from the parables of Jesus?

Maybe one of the reasons I keep going back to Mabinay is that I’m still looking for answers. Maybe their example of toil and sacrifices, often unrewarded, is what keeps me from giving up on the church. Perhaps, they are helping me to understand why Jesus chose his fate. Maybe they are teaching me how to read Jesus’ parables and what it means to follow him.

From my association with rural pastors, I’ve gained a little more understanding of Jesus and why he was rejected by the religious and civil authorities. Jesus learned the truths about the kingdom of God not from the experts – the scribes and the Pharisees – but from the poor farmers and fisherfolks of Galilee. Jesus taught us how to pray… “Our father…” “Give us this day or daily bread” – only the hungry poor pray for daily bread. “Forgive us our debts” – only those who are enslaved by indebtedness pray for release from debts. “Lead us not into temptation” – only those who have been tempted and stumbled, the sinners, pray for spiritual victory. Jesus also said that the kingdom of God is for those who are like children, and that prostitutes have better chances of entering the kingdom than the priests and teachers of the law.

Did Jesus hate the rich and the learned? It’s not that he hated this kind of people. It’s just that people can’t see the truths of God from the vantage point of those who enjoy the best that society can offer. Those who don’t know the pain of the abused, the loneliness of the grief-sufferer, the shame of the violated, or the humiliation of the poor are in no position to tell others who God is. Blessed are the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, the persecuted, the grief-stricken, those who thirst for justice – for they shall find God!

Conclusion: In our advocacy of the poor in the countryside, we are sometimes chided by smart people for romanticizing the poor. This is a lot of crap. Let them spend a couple of nights in the home of a poor peasant family in the mountains of Negros and ask them in the morning what they mean by romanticizing the poor. On the contrary an encounter with the poor will expose us who we really are – our weakness in the face of hardship, our pretensions to intellectual superiority, the hollowness of our spirituality. And beyond that – a sense that we are all bundled up together in life, and a realization of God’s graciousness – a true conversion experience.

And we shall be called blessed as well. Amen.