Summary 

The parable of the sowers in Mark 4 is a fundamental parable. How do we receive any of the words of God? It's for this reason  that Mark uses his often-employed inclusio here, sandwiching his reason behind using parables within the context of this seed and soil parable. Why does Jesus teach in this way? Quite simply because it reveals for us those who desire to bear the fruit of the Kingdom and those who don't have or want to have the ears to really hear and heed our Lord's words

Transcript

Our Lord, we pray that you would bear much fruit in us, that we would receive your word. Throw your seed upon us, God. And would we be those who desire to understand and to bear the fruit of the kingdom of God. Amen.

Seed and Soil

I want to begin today by telling you a parable that I was told in one of my seminary classes by my professor Dan Doriani. Here it is:

In the mountainous regions of northern Italy, there was a monastery which overlooked a small alpine village. Every day, a monk winded his way down the mountain path to say mass in the village church. One cold fall day, he noticed a bird lying by the path, nearly expired from the cold. He looked at the bird and then without hesitation, put it inside his habit next to his warm body. By the time he entered the church, the bird, warmed by the monk's body and clothes, had begun to wiggle about. He knew that it wouldn’t do to take the bird into church with him and so he began to scan about for an alternative. As he pondered what to do, he noticed a big steaming cow pie providentially placed by one of the cattle who had departed for one of the meadows beyond the village. Gently but firmly he put the bird into the warm and gelatinous mixture. He went into the church. The bird was further revived by the warmth of the cow pie, so much so that now it was no longer just wriggling but chirping and singing merrily. An old fox happened to be patrolling the wall around the village that day and when he saw the bird and heard the bird, he jumped off the way and as a flash leapt into the piazza and snatched the bird out of the cow pie. 

There are three points to this story. 

1. the one who puts you into it is not necessarily your enemy. 
2. The One who gets you out of it is not necessarily your friend. 
3. When you find yourself up to your beak in the stuff, it’s best to keep your mouth shut. 

There is a parable. Kind of like a riddle of a joke. Something you have to think about and ponder and reflect on and often learn from. You often don’t exactly know how it is going to end and sometimes you aren’t even given the ending (does the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son enter the party? We don’t know. And that question is part of the point!) Some define a parable as “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning”. 

This parable that we have for us this morning is a foundational parable that sets the stage for the rest. Jesus even says this in verse 13: And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?” And Mark tells us in verse 2 that he was teaching in parables, but then gives us this parable as a key parable to understand first. This is one of the longer teaching sections in the gospel of Mark and this parable lays a foundation for us.

Those two questions there (“Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?”)I think help us get at the point that Jesus is making here in this passage before us: Seed and soil go hand in hand. 

Let’s consider the seed here first:

Seed

Jesus has another large crowd that has gathered about him. It’s so large that Jesus gets into a boat and sit in the boat out in the sea of Galilee to teach this crowd that is gathered along the shore. He does something similar in chapter 3:9. [T]here is a spot, south of Capernaum, where the shoreline of the lake forms a natural amphitheater. The land slopes gently down to a lovely bay. The bay is actually called the Bay of Parables. Israeli scientists have verified that in that location a human speaker can easily be heard by several thousand people on shore.” [Rayburn, Edwards, 126] So Jesus is speaking to this large crowd in parables, but Mark gives us this parable.

On the face of the parable it is rather simple, but there are some oddities here.

There is a sower who is sowing his seed. And how he does this may seem odd to us. I mean, he throws some of it on the path or some translation will have “road” and, obviously, we need to remember that that path or that road wouldn't have been paved. There were no cars back then. But that’s not the only thing that might be odd to us. We might think of how you should till up your land first and then plant the seed. But often in the ancient world it would work the opposite way. You would throw out your seed and then till up the land. And this would work fairly well. Some of you can imagine this because you have had a garden where maybe a pepper plant or a tomato plant has come up from the year before. The seed was left over from the previous year and you just turned your soil over and it grew up again. But that was just largely the practice in the ancient world. Anyway, some of these things that we read about here, the way the seed is scattered about, would have been very normal in the day when Jesus was telling this parable. 

But there was something maybe not too odd to us but very odd to the original audience. That thing is the yield of these seeds. 

We live in a Monsanto world, where we put all kinds of different fertilizers into our crops and we breed certain seeds for their productivity. Well, in the ancient world a yield was typically 6 or 8 or 10 grains for the one that was sown. So, you throw in one seed and you get an ear of grain that has 6 or 8 or maybe at best 10 grain back. But Jesus tells us here that there were some seeds here that didn’t just bear fruit but they were incredibly fruitful. He says, they “produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold”!

So, here is the seed. What do we think of it?

Isn’t it just like life? Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Life is like a lottery? You study for 5 minutes for that quiz and sometimes you don’t just get an “A” but you got the extra credit question right too and sometimes you study hard for that quiz and nothing seems to go right.

Maybe this little parable is like a lot of sermons or a lot of speakers. Jesus tells us, after all, that the seed represents the word that is sown. It’s just giving us a good little lesson on life. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose! Sometimes the date goes well and sometimes it doesn’t, but you gotta ask the girl out first to find out and you gotta say yes to that date to find out! Sometimes you make a bunch of sales calls one day and no one buys anything and another day you make 10 sales, but you gotta be in the game to get the yield!

I’m sure some of the people that heard Jesus teaching that day were glad they came and heard that speech and went home and didn’t think much more about it. When their friends ask about their day they said “Interesting guy, he told us what we already knew about life!”  I also bet there were some folk that were actually a little mad about it. They had traveled a long way to hear this rabbi / teacher who was becoming famous for his proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God and his healing and this is what they got. “What a waste of their time and energy,” they thought. 

Of course, there were some that were interested and they wanted to hear more. But it doesn’t seem like there were a lot of these. 

Verse 10: And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

So, seed. Seed that is sown and some of it produces very little fruit. And some of it produces great fruit. 

But this seed and soil go hand-in-hand, as I mentioned.

Soil

When Jesus explained the parable, the main thing he emphasizes is the soil into which the seed is sown. 

Some of the seed is on the path and Satan immediately takes away the word. It’s like in one ear and out the other with no thought. No real interest in the things of God. No desire at all to engage with Jesus. 

Some of the seed is on the rocky ground. The word of God seems to be grabbed onto with Joy and yet there are no roots. So, when the winds of trials or persecution come they are gone. When life gets hard it dies off because it is thought and sometimes even taught that you come to God and all you get is the good stuff - health and wealth and all the rest. 

Some of the seed is sown among thorns. They also hear the word, not just in one ear and out the other, but this time it is not the trial and persecution that cause them to fall away, but this time it is the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things (good things?) that cause them to bear no fruit.

Then there is the good soil. And that seed bears unbelievable fruit. 

It’s the same seed. It's a different soil. 

Some people get on board, some stay far off. Some hear and forget. Some are enthusiastic but just for a little while, Some have too much on their minds and on their hearts and Jesus is pushed to the side. And some become unbelievably fruitful.

There is, in a way, this obvious lesson for us. That lesson is the pursuit of the word of God and desire for rich soil. 

There is no question that that is a significant part of this lesson this morning; our own desire to be good soil and the goodness that comes from the word sown into good soil. 

But there is something deeper going on here too.

I told you there were three points to the story that my seminary professor told. Did you buy it? Did you think those were the main points? What if I told you, as he told us, that that story was told by a Christian scholar addressing a group of young and older Christian scholars who largely taught at major public universities? Maybe that changes what the parable is doing, given the setting. As they consider following Jesus in the vocation in their setting, Christians on secular campuses, maybe some of what he was saying is “If you want to survive it’s best to keep your mouth shut!” Sounds rather despairing. Dan Doriani told us that the man who told that parable told it because he heard it himself from the president of the university he taught at to incoming professors. What did it mean then? “Tow the line!” It was a threat! 

Context always matters immensely, doesn’t it?

Mark is sort of known for the literary divide of an “Inclusio”. It’s sort of a small chiasm that we saw so often in Genesis. It’s a literary sandwich and sandwiches are known for what’s in the middle (ham, turkey, PB and J). Well, here we have the parable and the explanation of the parable (which, of course, are very important), but Mark has something for us in the middle of the sandwich, which is the reason why he tells parables. 

So, verse 10-12:

¹⁰ And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. ¹¹ And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, ¹² so that 

“ ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, 

and may indeed hear but not understand, 

lest they should turn and be forgiven.’ ”

Does Jesus not want people to understand? 

Here’s the context. Mark told us that he was giving the good news about Jesus back in chapter 1. That same chapter, we heard that Jesus was in Galilee, right here, and was proclaiming the gospel of God, that the Kingdom of God was at hand. We also read almost immediately that he heals people of an unclean spirit and heals a leper and heals a paralytic and heals a man with a withered hand. He declared the forgiveness of sins. Think about this. He calls the 12 to himself and establishes that he is doing what Israel had so long desired for God to do, to come and to act. But the truth is that for so so many he didn’t do it how they wanted or how they expected. They wanted fan fare, they wanted him to oust the Romans, they wanted a king on a throne. They certainly didn’t want someone to question their own religious practices and all of the rest. Jesus doesn’t meet their expectation and so they will listen to him from a distance but not fall at his feet as Lord and God. And so, what we have seen is that hand-in-hand with the great works and words of Jesus, is the absolute rejection of Jesus. What did we see just last week but propel saying “He’s out of his mind!” “He’s possessed by Beelzebul!” “He has an unclean spirit!” And the fact is that today in Christ we have the offer of the forgiveness of sins and the hope of a life to come that is free of sorrow and pain and tears. We have a message unlike any other message, that the God who made you made you in his image. A message that gives immense dignity to every person. We have a message that says we are all sinners -  a message that should humble all of us and that we do not need humbling for the healing of our homes and our world. We have a message that says this creator God becomes part of his creation in order to heal it of its rebellion. There is so much to Christianity that is so compelling and beautiful and good. 

And yet, just like in Jesus day, so so many see and do not perceive and hear and do not understand. 

Why does Jesus tell parables?

Because they reflect on the soil. Mark is asking us to look at ourselves and our responses to Jesus’ teaching. These parables show us if we are engaging with Jesus while it is convenient and fun, or just until it gets hard or just until we find something that we think is more beautiful and better for us. 

Jesus doesn’t say exactly what he means all of the time and part of what that does is reflect on us. 

When you first come to these verses that explain the reason for parables, verse 11-12, it seems as though you have some sort of hard determinism. And the fact is that faith is only and ever a gift from God. But here’s the thing, Jesus explains the parable to those who came to him and asked him about them. 

God is teaching us here both the necessity of fertile, receptive soil, but also the power of the seed. And in the context of Mark there is again before us a great question of who we will be. 

Jesus not only gives them the parable, he explains it to them and he will do so for you too if you go to him in faith and belief. 

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Let me pray for us. Lord, this parable that is so familiar to so many of us and yet has such a simple yet profound message. God, I pray that we would have ears to hear. God, I pray that we wouldn't be those that simply hear and quickly pass on from your words to us, or simply those who hear and think good moral speaker, but those who sit with you, like these few that were gathered together with the 12 and desire to learn from you. God, I pray that we would be a church that desires to hear your word, that it would sink deep within us and that it would bear much fruit in our lives. God, I pray that even the strange challenge that you give in this setting of the difficulty sometimes of hearing you, God, that would be a challenge that we would rise to, that we would be desirous to actually understand you, to let that seed soak in and germinate and bear fruit. God, please do that in us. Please bear this fruit in us. Give us a great love for your holy word. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.

Previous Page