Imagine yourself in the winter, thinking about springtime, and plans for your garden. You’re looking thru the seed catalogue and you find seeds that make really, really big tomato plants with big tomatoes. So you order some of the seeds from the catalogue, they come in the mail, you put them with your gardening tools and time passes. Finally spring is here and its time to get the soil ready. You work the soil and rest for a day.

Then you put on your gardening apron with pockets, in which you put your seeds. On the way out to your garden, some of the seed from the apron falls onto the path. Some of the seed falls on the side of the path where it is kind of rocky. Then some of the seeds fall there in the weeds by the rocks of the path. When you get to the garden, here is the really good soil, with lots of healthy nutrients. You spread your seeds, scattering them on the good soil. Work done. You go back to the house, and check the garden occasionally.

One time, you noticed all the seed that had spilled on the hard path. The birds had come and eaten the seeds all up. And then you noticed those seeds that had fallen on the rocky edges right by the side of the path, those tomato plants had grown up but they had all withered and died. Those plants had been there a little while but they shriveled up and died. Then, next to the rocky edges were the weeds. There were the tomato plants right there in the middle of the weeds, but there was not any fruit on them.

When you get to the garden with the great soil, you are delighted with the big tomato plants and their big tomatoes. One plant had a hundred ripe, juicy tomatoes! That’s right, a hundred! We all know this is an exaggeration, so its impossible you say. Any gardener listening to this story would laugh, and so did Jesus. He concluded a similar story with, “When you go home today and have lunch, figure out the story.”

Everyone liked Jesus’ stories because he knew this down to earth stuff and he also had wonderful exaggerations, especially at the end of his stories. And the people would ask, “What does that mean? What does Jesus mean by that story?”

Jesus said, “Why is it, that so much goodness is produced in some people’s lives? Why is it that some Christian’s lives are so productive?  Why is it that some Christians produce a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control? Why is it that some Christians produce a hundred tomatoes of love? Why is it that some Christians have a hundred tomatoes of happiness? Why is it that some Christians have a hundred tomatoes of patience? Why is it that some Christians have a hundred tomatoes of goodness?

Why is it, when you look at some people’s lives, that they produce such an abundance and other people don’t produce anything at all?  Why is that?

That is the underlying question of this parable. Why is it that some Christian lives are so enormously productive and others are not?

For more of Rev. Edward Markquardt’s sermon