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The Gate Was Meant Only for You

The Gate Was Meant Only for You

Last updated on: July 14, 2026 at 7:14 pm by Frederick Schmidt

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The Gate Was Meant Only for You 2026-07-14T19:14:05-06:00 Frederick Schmidt

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Choosing Growth

There is an enormous body of scholarly literature devoted to the study of the parables. | Photo by Paz Arando on Unsplash.

Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”

“Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” (Matthew 13:1-9,18-23)

Parable or Allegory?

There is an enormous body of scholarly literature devoted to the study of the parables. And sooner or later, everyone is introduced to the principle that parables have a single point of comparison with the reality or situation that they describe. Allegories, it is argued, have multiple points of contact and each element in the story has its own meaning.

According to this line of reasoning, biblical scholars argue that Jesus taught in parables, and anything that looks like an allegory has to be an interpretation created by the early church. On that basis, some scholars have argued that the Parable of the Sower can be traced to Jesus, but the interpretation found in Matthew’s Gospel belongs to the later church.

Like so many people prepared by the academic world, for a long time this conclusion made sense to me. But like others in my generation of biblical scholarship, if you stare long enough at those assumptions, you begin to wonder, “Is that really true?” Part of the problem with the distinction between parables and allegory – and everything in between – is that the scholars who argue that there is a hard and fast distinction between the two can’t be sure that the distinction really existed.

It is true that many of the parables appear to have only one point of comparison with the message that Jesus is conveying; and you can tell that’s true from the way interpreters strain to come up with meanings for everything in the story. But – as with the Parable of the Sower – some of the elements seem to insist on multiple points of comparison.

Rather than argue that Jesus should conform to rules that scholars developed two thousand years later, it strikes me as rather more reasonable to suppose that if you find yourself straining to make more than one point from a parable – you should stop. But if the parable invites multiple points of comparison, then Jesus may have those comparisons in mind. That, at any rate, has been my assumption in thinking through the parable of the sower; and I think that it is an approach that unlocks the vivid possibilities of the story Jesus tells.

Four Kinds of Soil

The situation that he describes is unlike any cultivation strategy used in modern America. So, we shouldn’t get distracted by that. In the Ancient Near East, farmers scattered seed liberally and then plowed the seed under. They also planted in areas where rocks often lay under a shallow covering of topsoil, and weeds with vast underground systems of roots were common. This means – as the parable suggests – that the fortune of the seed and not the behavior of the farmer is the point of comparison.

But from there, the parable serves as a powerful window into what happens to the words of Jesus: Some of them fall on the path, and the birds eat them up. Other seeds fall on rocky ground, so, without deep soil, they sprang up quickly and are then scorched by the sun. Other seeds are lodged among the thorns, which grow and then choke the seed. And still other seeds fall on good soil, take root, and flourish.

So, the soil is what matters and there are four kinds:

· The path

· The rocks

· The thorn-infested ground

· The fertile soil

Each characterizes the reception that the teaching of Jesus receives, and the interpretation that Jesus offers hints at what is at stake:

· The hardened soil of the path is people who hear but don’t understand.

· The rocky soil is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it but has no depth of understanding and, for that reason, perishes in the face of trouble and persecution.

· The thorn-infested ground is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word.

· And the good or fertile soil is the one who hears the word and understands it.

Now, I don’t think that any of the descriptions are meant to be exhaustive; and I don’t believe that they are intended to describe types of people. Instead, I think that each category is meant to describe a mindset or spiritual state which is not necessarily fixed but can have lasting significance.

Having spent decades now as both priest and spiritual director, the conditions that Jesus describes are familiar:

Some people are in a place in life where they just don’t get what Jesus is saying or they just don’t care. They may be so sold out to materialist definitions of life that they don’t believe that the spiritual dimension of life is real – or that it could matter that much. They may be so proud of the fact that they “believe in the science,” that they consider spiritual considerations childish or simplistic. Or they may already have gods in their lives that they don’t want to stop serving: careers, drugs, sex.

As Jesus notes, others are sold out to a superficial version of their relationship with God. They love the spiritual fireworks. They are “good to go” — as long as life is good. They may have even bought into a version of the Gospel that promises them that’s what it’s all about. But they don’t understand that the Gospel is a word of hope in a broken world and a call to discipleship lived out on behalf of others. So, when illness or loss breaks in on their lives, they surrender their faith, just at the very moment when the promises of Jesus become relevant.

Still others hear what Jesus is saying, but the preoccupations of life crowd out the place of God in their lives. Jesus cites “the cares of the world” and “the lure of wealth.” But, of course, those are just shorthand for an endless list of other distractions. “Need” is a fungible word in our society, and the cares of the world are often far more trivial than the ones that Jesus had in mind. And while wealth can definitely be a distraction, I’ve found over the years that it is often not the wealthy but those who envy the wealthy, who struggle most with its “lure.”

The Fertile Ones

But if these are spiritual choices and not destiny, this also means that we can choose to live differently, and we can grow. As often as I have seen people who would not open themselves to growth, far more often I have met people who allowed God to speak light and life into their lives. They are the fertile ones:

· A man who has next to nothing in terms of personal wealth but is constantly helping the homeless.

· Another man who is constantly meeting the needs of his parish, while – on a daily basis – shouldering the physical needs of his wife.

· A woman who, deep into her eighties, remains the central figure in encouraging her children.

· A couple that ministers to their aging friends, jetting around the world to be there when they are needed.

There is no one way of growing and flourishing. But there is a center to each of those lives and others. They have received the word of God, and they have let it grow within them.

But that, of course, brings us back to choice. So much of the spiritual path that Jesus describes depends upon just starting. Following. Setting aside the temptation to believe that there will always be time. Setting aside the arrogance that convinces us that we know better than God how life ought to be. Setting aside the obstacles that we tell ourselves are insurmountable. Setting aside the barriers we blame on others: I was injured. I am bitter. I was taught the wrong thing.

The Gate Meant Only for You

With apologies to Franz Kafka, I’d like to use an amended version of his parable to underline the urgency of the one that Jesus taught:

Once upon a time, a man from the country, after many days and nights of wandering, came to a gate that towered so high it seemed to touch the sky. Its doors were of dark, heavy wood as the mountains, and from its cracks shimmered a light that promised more than words could ever capture. Before this gate stood a doorkeeper. He was as broad as a boulder with a gray cloak that fluttered in the wind, and in his eyes gleamed a quiet, impenetrable wisdom.

The man drew near, bowed, and said, “I have come to ask for admittance to the gateway of grace.” But the keeper only raised his hand wearily and said, “Not now, perhaps later.” The man was startled. He drew back, yet did not dare to pass through the gate. The guard seemed immovable, as if he himself were part of the gate, inseparably fused with it.

And so the man sat down beside the threshold on a small stool he carried with him and began to wait. The days passed. Sun and rain took their turns. Dust settled upon his boots. Sometimes he heard the wood creak as if it were calling to him. And when the guard stepped aside, he thought he could catch a fleeting glimmer of light. Golden as the morning, deep blue as the distant ocean.

Each time he would ask softly, “May I enter now?” And each time he received the same answer. “Not today.”

Weeks rolled into months. The man brought small offerings: a piece of bread, a few coins, a jug of wine. The keeper accepted them, barely nodding, and said, “This is so you do not think you have left anything untried.” The man remained resolute.

The once strong wanderer became an old man, his back now bent. He would often listen to the stories of the wind which told of distant villages, and he wondered if his family still thought of him.

Sometimes he would speak with the keeper about rain and harvests, but as soon as the conversation turned to grace, the other would fall silent.

The years came and went. He experienced summers in which the heat made the wood breathe and winters in which snow covered the steps and his breath stood like smoke in the air. Birds built nests above the gate and the man saw generations of them come and go, but he remained. His eyes grew weaker, his hands more gnarled.

In his dreams he spoke with grace itself. Sometimes it was a radiant palace in whose halls all knowledge rested. Sometimes a mighty voice that whispered answers to him. Yet every awakening brought him back to the same scenery. The gate, the guardian, the stool.

He began to talk to himself. Perhaps, he murmured, the test lies in the waiting. Perhaps grace reveals itself only to the patient. On other nights, he whispered, “Or, I am a coward because I never dared to take the step.” The doorkeeper heard his words, yet remained silent.

Years later, already gray and frail, the man touched the wood of the gate with trembling fingers, felt the warmth of the sun within it and asked one last time, “Why else does no one want to enter here?”

The guardian bent down, his eyes flashing for a heartbeat with something like pity. No one else could have gained entry here. This gate was meant only for you. Now I am going and I will close it.” Then the man understood in that final moment.

All those years he had waited had sacrificed his strength to doubt instead of passing through the gate. His gaze faded and the threshold remained uncrossed. The gate still stood tall and dark but without him. And so it is still told today.

The greatest barrier is often not the gate before us, but the fear within ourselves. Whoever always waits loses life. Whoever dares lives.

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