“Ogres are like onions.”  Who can name this profound statement?  This gem of wisdom comes from the first Shrek movie.  Listen to the rest of this educational conversation.

    Shrek: For your information, there's a lot more to ogres than people think.
    Donkey: Example?
    Shrek: Example? Okay, er... ogres... are... like onions.
    Donkey: [sniffs onion] They stink?
    Shrek: Yes...NO!
    Donkey: Or they make you cry.
    Shrek: No!
    Donkey: Oh, you leave them out in the sun and they turn brown and start sproutin' little white hairs.
    Shrek: NO! LAYERS! Onions have layers. OGRES have layers. Onions have layers... you get it. We both have layers.
    Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. [pause] You know, not everybody likes onions. [pause] CAKES! Everybody loves cakes! Cakes have layers!
    Shrek: [restraining temper] I don't care... what everyone likes. Ogres. Are not. Like cakes!
    Donkey: You know what else everybody likes? Parfaits. Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "No, I don't like no parfait"? Parfaits are delicious.
    Shrek: NOOO!!! YOU DENSE, IRRITATING, MINIATURE BEAST OF BURDEN! OGRES ARE LIKE ONIONS! END OF STORY! BYE BYE! [whispers] See you later!
    [pause]
    Donkey: Parfaits may probably be the most delicious thing on the whole planet!
    Shrek: You know... I think I preferred you humming...

This morning I want to borrow Shrek’s onion analogy and apply it to Jesus’ parable of the sower.  I hope I am able to communicate better than Shrek did with Donkey. Donkey had trouble with Shrek’s use of analogy.  Maybe abstract thinking is difficult for donkeys and sometimes or humans.  Sometimes we too miss the point of Jesus’ parables.  But anyway, I want to use the onion analogy as we approach Luke 8 and what should be called the parable of the soils.  Listen…

Luke 8:4-8  While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable:  5 "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up.  6 Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture.  7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants.  8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown." When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Last week in our Sunday morning adult class, as we began to explore this parable, we suddenly discovered like ogres this parable as several layers.  The more layers we pulled back the more we heard and the deeper we were touched.  As we dug deeper into the onion, Jesus’ statement "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," became more meaningful.  The more we listened, the more we wondered, the more we contemplated, the deeper we got into the onion.  This morning I want to kind of duplicate that process.  I want us to pull back the layers of this parable and see if we have ears.  Not ears of corn but layers in our onion, let’s not mix our metaphors. 
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Layer one: There are different kinds of soils

The disciples suspected there was more to this story than a simple agricultural explanation of how farming works so they asked Jesus to explain.

Luke 8:9-15   His disciples asked him what this parable meant.  10 He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, "'though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.' (Jesus is saying there are layers to this parable) 11 "This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.  12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.  13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.  14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.  15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

There are four kinds of soil. 
Path: They hear the word of God, but their lives are so shallow in just does a Bruno right over them.  It doesn’t resonate with them.  It is not something they have any interest in pursuing. It is like me and opera.  Someone could come to me and tell me about the best opera they ever saw.  They could explain how it brought them to tears and moved them to heights of rapture.  It was beautiful.  Wasn’t it just a bunch of people singing really, really loud in some other language?  That is how some people view the Word of God. Where I would see the glory of our God offering his grace to lost world, they would wonder, “Tell me again why Jesus died.  I don’t get it.”  There are people in the world who are just not interested in exploring an exuberantly gracious savior.  They just don’t hear grace. 
  
Rocky:  These folks get it to start with.  They want to be religious.  They want to love God, but they just can’t get past what happened.  “Because of what so-in-so did when I went to church there, I will never go to church again.”  Or, “If God is so exuberant, then why did my love one die?”  Or, “If God doesn’t give me what I need then I have got no use for him.”  They are fair weather Christians.  If everything is peachy then they will serve God, but when the tough times hit, when the storms of life rip through their hearts, they fold like a cheap tent, because they never really heard the word down deep.  Certainly we could all name people we know who are rocky.

Thorny: There is a whole category of people who just can’t get their priorities lined up.  The stuff of the world just has a hold on who they are.  They have to be who the world wants them to be.  They have to do everything the world does.  They have to compete.  They have to look good.  They have to have it all.  They have to try everything.  What if someone has something they don’t?  What if there is something they haven’t experienced.  The world, sin, pride, arrogance, impressions all keep them from growing into the person could knows they could be.  They never move on to maturity and so they shrivel up and never amount too much. 

Good: There are those who get it.  They hear the word.  They recognize Jesus as the exuberant Messiah.  Their hearts lock on to God.  What do you want?  I want to be who God wants me to be.  All I am is a man who knows he is blessed by God.  The good soil makes the choice of faith.  I choose to trust God no matter what.  I choose to be who God chooses me to be.  Their lives, by default, simply impact all the people around them.  They are the people who just talking to them you know they heart is with God.   And they are productive. 

Layer one of our onion says there are different kinds of people and the same Gospel, the very same Word is going to have different kinds of results. 

Layer Two: God spreads the seed every where.

Now, let’s peal back that outside layer and dig a little deeper. I am not a farmer.  My grandfather was a preacher/farmer.  My dad is a preacher/gardener, but I am just a preacher with no interest in growing anything.  But as a kid I did grow vegetables and sell them up and down the street. In our back yard dad had cleared a section for a garden.  I planted corn, beans and tomatoes and a few other things.  And then when they came up I would gather the best of the crop put them in brown paper sacks and take my red wagon and peddle them to all the neighbors up and down the street.  I didn’t make much, but I was proud to have earned any money at all.

Now, as I said I am not a farmer, but from my success as a kid I do know that Jesus’ parable isn’t right.  No matter what I was growing I never put any seeds on the sidewalk, or in the weeds or on the rocks.  All of my seed, which I might add was precious, was carefully planted into the soil that dad had tilled and fertilized.  We attempted not to waste any seed.  So, I am a little confused by the parable that the farmer indiscriminately threw seed everywhere.  I suspect, I don’t know, but I suspect the farmers listening to Jesus would have said, “What? You don’t plant seed that way.  Nobody throws seed to waste.  That’s ridiculous.”

But then it dawned on us in class last week, that this was Jesus way of making an amazing point; the 2nd layer.  God is not like regular farmers.  God sows seed everywhere; to everyone.  God is this exuberantly generous God who indiscriminately sows his seed in every heart.  Pull back that layer of the onion and say, “Wow, God is not like real farmers who are selective in where they plant the seed.  God plants his seed everywhere!”  We serve an amazingly generous God!

Layer Three: We can’t tell who is good soil.

There are three odd verses right at the beginning of chapter eight that are going to help us peal back the next layer.  Did you notice that we started reading in verse 4?  Let’s go back and read the first three verses of chapter eight.

Luke 8:1-3  After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him,  2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out;  3 Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Why in the world does Luke tell us about these women right before he tells this parable?  Could it be the parable is illustrating these women?  Could it be that these women are the good soil?

Luke 8:15  But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

Here is the thought about this layer.  The people we may think are good soil may not be the good soil.  And the people we think are the path people or rocky people or thorny people may in reality be the good soil.  That is the very point Luke has been making all the way through his Gospel so far:

®An old barren worn out couple is used by God.
®An unwed mother bears God’s Son.
®Bottom the social ladder shepherds are the first to hear the good news.
®Jesus stands in his hometown and proclaims the year of Jubilee to whom?  Poor, prisoners, blind and captives
®Fishermen are called to be fishers of men.
®Standing on the level place who does Jesus say is blessed? poor, hungry, mourners, rejected
®Roman Centurion’s servants are healed, Widows sons are brought back to life and sinful women who cry at Jesus’ feet are forgiven.

Wow, I would have thought all those folks would have been unproductive soils.  I would have planted my seeds among the rich and the powerful and the religious, the “good” people.  But Jesus says you don’t always know who the good soil people are.

Simon and the other Pharisees didn’t get it either.  “Hey, wait a second Jesus. We are the good soil.  We are the ones you need to preach to.  We are the ones who are holy and righteous.  You need to be working with us.  We are the ones who are good soil.”

But this layer of the onion says, “You don’t always know who the good soil is, so plant your seed everywhere.”   You are talking to us aren’t you Jesus?  “I am talking to the Los Alamos Church of Christ.  Where are you planting your seed?”  Are we assuming who would be good soil or are we spreading the seed indiscriminately?”

Layer Four: Good soil produces a good crop

Each layer of our onion burns our eyes a little more.  But we have one more layer to look at. “Come on Tim, don’t peal back the last layer.  We’re good.”  There is one more layer.  And it is going to really make your eyes water.

Luke 8:8   Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown." When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Luke 8:15   But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

Good soil produces a crop.  The noble, good, hearing, persevering soil produces a hundred times more than what is sown.  That was how I made money as a kid.  I would take one grain of corn and carefully plant it in the good soil and then it would grow into this amazing plant; taller than me and I would pick lots of ears which contained hundreds of kernels of corn.  One produced hundreds.  That is the way of good soil.

When we hear the word of God, really hear it, it calls us to share it with others.  It calls us to connect to others.  It calls us to set aside or prejudging and speak words of grace for God.  It calls us to share our lives with those whom God places before us.  It calls us to have the same attitude that Donkey had toward Shrek. (scene 10)
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    Donkey: Hey, Shrek. What are we gonna do, when we get our swamp back?
    Shrek: Our swamp?
    Donkey: Y'know, when we're through with rescuin' the princess and all that stuff.
    Shrek: We? Donkey, there's no "we". There's no "our". There's just me and my swamp. And the first thing I'm gonna do is build a ten-foot wall around my land.
    Donkey: [looks hurt] You cut me deep, Shrek. You cut me real deep just now. [cheerful again] Y'know what I think? I think this whole wall thing is to try and keep somebody out.
    Shrek: No! Y'think?
    Donkey: Are you hidin' something?
    Shrek: Never mind, Donkey.
    Donkey: Ooooh, this is another one of those onion things, isn't it?
    Shrek: No, this is one of those "drop it and leave it alone" things.
    Donkey: Why don't you wanna talk about it?
    Shrek: [irritated now] Why do you WANT to talk about it?
    Donkey: Are you blocking?
    Shrek: I'm not blocking!
    Donkey: Yes you are.
    Shrek: [really getting angry] Donkey, I'm warning you...
    Donkey: Who are you trying to keep out? Just tell me that, Shrek. Who?
    Shrek: [loses it] EVERYONE, OKAY?!?
    [pause]
    Donkey: [grins] Oh, now we're gettin' somewhere!
    Shrek: OH, FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!
    Donkey: What exactly is your problem, Shrek? What you got against the world, huh?
    Shrek: I'm not the one with the problem, okay? It's the world that seems to have a problem with me. People take one look at me and go "Arrrgh! Help! Run! A big stupid ugly ogre!" [sighs, feeling sad] They judge me before they even know me. That's why I'm better off alone.
    [pause]
    Donkey: Y'know, when we met, I didn't think you were just a big stupid ugly ogre.
    Shrek: Yeah, I know.

Prayer: Lord I want to see people as soil.  Help us not to prejudge the soil but to be willing to share your word with anyone you place in our lives. Amen.