The Sower
Luke 8.4-15: 4 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.”
9 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.’
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 cannot 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.”
The Parable
This parable is introduced by a very brief but important about the sower. The Greek words that designate him (ho speirôn: “the sowing one”) do not simply portray a sower, that is any old farmer who goes out like every other year to sow his seed, but the sower par excellence. His act of sowing could never be a commonplace event, a familiar, ordinary action you could see any day.
Another characteristic of the initial sentence: the verb is used in the absolute and is in the aorist tense. Usually, you go out from one place (a house, a city, a temple) to go to another. The best parallel in the Gospels is found in Mark 1.38: 38 Jesus replied, “Let’s go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come [exèlthon].” Or rather, “That is why I came.” (Luke reads: “was sent”.) These two aorists should be translated by a preterite and not by a past perfect; they refer to a unique, finished event of the past from which the following events will flow.
The sowing scene at first seems a bit strange. The sower doesn’t seem to care much where the seed falls. Some falls along the wayside or on shallowly-covered rock or among the thorns, it is no big deal. The sower is sowing simply because he must sow. His wide movements must cover the whole area of the field. Luke 4.43-44: 43 But he said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.”
The center of interest lies in the yield, which in Luke is given as 100 to 1. It seems, according to ancient documents and most especially Pliny (who recorded the different yields of wheat in the Mediterranean Basin during that period), a ratio of 100 to 1 would be an excellent crop but nothing unheard of. The point of the parable does therefore not reside in some kind of miraculous fruitfulness, but in the contrast between the failure and the success of the sowing: zero yield in the first three soils, optimal yield in the good soil.
The Purpose of Parables
The “secrets (or mysteries) of the kingdom of God” (Luke 8.10) concern what is still left to proclaim about the reign of the Messiah, the secrets of God’s eternal purpose that for the moment remain hidden. The rest of the Gospel will reveal what these secrets are. They are basically about the divine origin and the messianic program of Jesus: his rejection by the chosen people, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, the eternal life he is to reveal to the world, his coming as King in 70 A.D. to judge the unfaithful Jewish theocracy.
Jesus will teach publicly about all of these subjects during his ministry among the Jews, but only in highly roundabout, enigmatic language, full of imagery. Matthew 13.34-35: 34 Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables, and he did not say anything to them without using a parable. 35 So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.” That is, the eternal purpose of God for humanity fulfilled by the death, resurrection and ascension of the Christ.
Jesus resorts to the veiled language of the parables because of the unbelief and poor receptivity of his Jewish listeners. The is the same difficulty he runs into during his conversation with Nicodemus. John 3.12: 12 “I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?” Jesus distinguishes between two different levels or two consecutive steps of revelation. The “earthly things” correspond to the message that had already been communicated to Israel and to her religious leaders: “The time has been fulfilled, the reign of the Messiah is near! Repent! Be baptized (John’s baptism)! Believe the good news!” These things are “earthly”, within the reach of the chosen people, understandable even by the most religiously ignorant Jews: the tax collectors (Luke 7.29; John 7.49). There is no mysterious, obscure, complicated doctrine here. On the contrary, this is pretty straightforward stuff.
The heavenly things correspond to the “secrets of the kingdom”. Since even the simple preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus poses a problem for Nicodemus and his fellow Pharisees, what will it be like when they see things even harder to accept: a crucified Messiah (lifted up like the snake in the desert) who ascends to reign in heaven?
So, Jesus, when asked why he constantly used parables, answers that he teaches the crowds that way precisely in order that “though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.” To listeners who are already closed to the things of God, the parables will become the occasion of an even more complete blindness, the means of a judicial hardening intended by God.
That is the meaning of the preaching of Isaiah, quoted by Jesus in Luke 8.10. From the very moment of his calling, the prophet is warned that he will come up against a systematic hardening in Israel. Instead of bringing the Jews back to God, his preaching, given the poor receptivity of his audience, will be the occasion of their obstinacy and will only make their conversion less likely. The New Testament quotes this text from Isaiah several times to explain the stubbornness of the Jews in the face of Jesus’ miracles and Gospel (John 12.37-41, Acts 28.23-28).
True enough, when Jesus is alone with his disciples, he speaks more plainly, giving them, he claims, nothing less than the knowledge of the secrets themselves. Mark 4.34: 34 He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything. And yet it is hard to see that such directness had a different result. On three separate occasions, for instance, Jesus speaks quite clearly about the necessity of his dying and rising at Jerusalem, but when he comes to those mighty revelatory acts themselves, the disciples might as well never have heard a word he said. As Luke observes when he wrapped up the whole episode: Luke 18.34: 34 The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.
Of course, they understood the material sense meaning of the words: Jesus will be turned over to the Gentiles to be killed in Jerusalem but will rise again. Their lack of understanding concerns the purpose of God, according to which the Messiah must die for the redemption of mankind. They are not ready to envisage this truth because they are so foolish and slow of heart that they do not believe all that the prophets had spoken (Luke 24.25). The enigma of the passion will only be resolved for them once Jesus, after his resurrection, opens their minds so they could understand the purpose of God in the Old Testament scriptures (Luke 24.44-48).
Explanation of the Parable
Jesus says that this parable has to do with the kingdom of God, that is the messianic reign that God had promised to the Jews and was at that time very close. The key to the interpretation is that the seed represents the word of God. Which word of God? The “word of the kingdom” (Matthew 13.19), the good news that Jesus has been proclaiming since the beginning of his ministry: the reign of the Messiah is at hand. That is the message that the Jews have to believe and listen to with all their heart if they hope to enter the kingdom.
The sower, then, is Jesus himself. He proclaims that the reign of the Messiah is near and calls his listeners to prepare themselves for its coming by believing the good news, repenting and receiving the baptism of John. The fruitful harvest means that his word of the kingdom, preached by John the Baptist and Jesus (as well as the 12 apostles and 70 disciples) has its desired effect: the listeners will come into the kingdom and will have access to all its wonderful blessings. The main lesson centers therefore on what happens to the Jews who listen to the call to get ready for the kingdom. Will they finally make it or not?
The proclamation of the kingdom had triggered a veritable wave of enthusiasm in Israel. The reign of the Messiah is at hand! Freedom at last! Pious Jews who long for a profound spiritual renewal of Israel, dreamers, visionaries, activists excited by a type of revolutionary and political messianism: everyone could believe that the new prophet was going to fulfill their expectations.
But after a while, the first movement of passionate interest lapses into disappointment. Doubts start creeping into the hearts of even the best, even John the Baptist from the depths of his prison (Luke 7.19). Jesus had come, and even if it is true that the reign of God sometimes shines through his actions (the signs and wonders, especially the casting out of demons), it is not really what people had been expecting. Everyone, including the disciples, are waiting for a dazzling display of God’s almighty power through Jesus in favor of Israel. But what do they see in its place? A meek itinerant rabbi with a band of twelve hicks from Galilee, acts of mercy, the receiving of tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners. Jesus’ messianic activity is put into doubt.
The crowds are not the only ones disappointed. Jesus is too by their own attitude. He runs headlong into the hardened hearts of his contemporaries: an unbelieving and sinful generation! It is in this tense atmosphere that Jesus recapitulates his messianic activity in Israel by raising up the figure of the sower in the midst of a field that is partly barren.
But the rupture has not yet been consummated. There is still a hope for the conversion and the instruction of those who are most open, those who are willing to listen to God’s word and do his will. With the parable of the sower, Jesus inaugurates a new step in his teaching program about the kingdom of God. The time of mere proclamation is finished, it is time to start revealing the mysteries.
This parable is therefore not just a general, timeless illustration, but a symbolic story about a specific, concrete historical situation. It is the real life story of the divine seed of the good news of the kingdom (the reign of the Messiah is at hand) as it encounters the people of God in Israel. Jesus does give a practical spiritual exhortation (be like the good soil), but within a story that aims to recapitulate the events of his preaching ministry among the Jews.
At the hearing of this preaching, some have no ears to hear: the “wise”, the powerful, the members of the religious elite who seek to kill him. Others have listened but without producing the fruits of repentance, such as the people of Capernaum or those who act like the children playing in the marketplace. Others, a handful, have listened with all their heart and followed Jesus. Through these various reactions, we can recognize the four different soils, which represent four kinds of listeners.
1. The pathway. This hardened soil represents those who hear the word but do not understand it. Matthew 13.19: 19 “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it…”. The word does not penetrate the heart (the seat, not of the emotions, but of the intelligence and the will: the place where we carefully think through things and make important decisions that determine the way we live) and becomes easy pickings for the devil (Mark 4.15). The inability to understand does not come from a lack of intelligence on the part of the Jewish listeners, nor from the complexity of the message preached by John the Baptist or Jesus.
The real reason is that there is no affinity, nothing in common between them and the Spirit of God (John 14.17), between them and the truth (John 18.37), between them and the word of God in the Old Testament (John 5.37-38; 17.17). John 8.43, 47: 43 “Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 47 He who belongs to God [a true Jew] hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” They are so used to resisting the truth of God, the mind and the thinking of their Father are so foreign to them that they cannot understand when he speaks to them through his spokesmen, John and Jesus.
How does Satan take away the word from their hearts? Might it not be through his human agents (sons): the scribes and Pharisees who turn them away from Jesus and prevent them from entering into the kingdom? Luke 11.23: 23 “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.” Matthew 23.13: 13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! [A hypocrite is not an actor who fakes his religion but someone who deforms it by perverting the ways of God. The title goes along with “blind fools”. For example, Jesus calls hypocrites those who think ritual conformity is more important than mercy.] You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”
Today, the secret agents of Satan are to be found among the opinion makers of our modern secularized society: advertising professionals, media tycoons, educators, politicians, psychologists, and even certain theologians.
2. The rock. The shallow ground speaks of an enthusiastic but superficial faith which does not survive the time of testing (gr. peirasmos). Matthew 13.21: 21 “When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.” Jesus is no doubt referring to the pressure of the difficulties created by the acceptance of his preaching: the exclusion and persecution with which the unbelieving Jewish leaders threaten the disciples and potential disciples of Jesus. John’s Gospel tells us that ordinary people did not even dare talking publicly about Jesus “for fear of the Jews” (John 7.13). John 9.22: 22 For already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue. John 12.42: 42 Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue.
In the time between the resurrection of Jesus and the fall of Jerusalem, this testing will take on a much more overt and violent form. In fact, the Jewish persecution of the saints will be one of the main subjects of Jesus’ teaching and will cause a good number of disciples to fall away.
In a comfortable and complex society like ours, where everyone is terribly worried about being socially acceptable and politically correct, we fear being excluded and marginalized almost as much as physical threats. In our modern society, persecution is an attack on the mind, not the body. It takes place in the media, not the coliseum. We have a war of words, not of gladiators.
3. The thorns. These listeners are distracted by the worries, riches and pleasures of life. Jesus speaks a lot about the impossibility of serving God and money. He warns his listeners particularly about the danger of letting material concerns smother the quest for the one necessary thing. Matthew 6.33: 33 “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Luke 10.41-42: 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed.”
For us in the modern world, hedonism, the enjoyment of the good things of life, the deceitfulness of riches and material worries are all the more dangerous because our culture has a materialistc world view or philosophy of life. We believe that the material universe is the only objective reality.
4. The good soil. These listeners receive the good news with a noble and good heart and retain it until it produces a crop, that is until the time when the kingdom is established and they enter into it. As the finale of the Gospel will show, the Messiah’s reign will begin with his ascension to the right hand of God.
The parable of the sower comes at a critical moment in the ministry of Jesus. It throws light on the meaning of his work by recapitulating it: the messianic age is here. God has scattered his seed in Israel, the encounter has taken place. Now it is up to the listeners to become the good soil, to open their hearts to the seed so that it can bear fruit. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”