Review

Thus far Mark’s narrative has been filled with lots of fast-paced action:  healings, exorcisms, and plenty of “arky conflict” in the form of dramatic confrontations between Christ and the Powers that Be.  In this section we step into what one commentator calls “the first main block of Jesus’ teaching.”[i]  In Chapter 4 the Master returns to His central message of The Kingdom of God, explicating it by way of three parables and two analogies.  The first of these parables is perhaps the most famous of them all:  the Parable of the Sower, the Seed, and the Soils.         

The Subtlety of Seed and Soils:  Verses 1-9

1 And He began to teach again by the seashore.  And such a very great multitude gathered before Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and all the multitude were by the seashore on the land. 2 And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, 3 “Listen to this!  Behold, the sower went out to sow; 4 and it came about that as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 And other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. 6 And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. 7 And other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 And other seeds fell into the good soil and as they grew up and increased, they were yielding a crop and were producing thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” 9 And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”[ii]           

So much has been written, preached, and taught on this parable that it almost seems presumptuous to try to add anything to the discussion.  But a few salient points may be worth mentioning.

First, it’s difficult to divide this passage into smaller segments.  The section hangs together as a whole:  Jesus gives us the parable, then provides the interpretation; and sandwiched in between these two inseparable halves of the discourse He offers some explosive comments on the purpose of His parables in general and how they work.  It seems important to keep all this together.

The story Jesus sketches out for us here is so straightforward and familiar as to seem almost banal.  Most of us have heard it so many times that we could recite it and its interpretation in our sleep.  Nevertheless, as with most of Christ’s teaching, there are things about this parable that aren’t readily apparent to the eye; and, as usual, it’s these hidden gems that merit the most attention. 

As we’ve already indicated, the parable is designed to give us a picture of the coming of the Kingdom.  This was a subject of great concern to all of Jesus’ listeners:  everybody from the common folk to the tax collectors to the Pharisees to the politically potent Herodians and Romans.  Each of these groups had ideas, hopes, dreams, fears, and expectations of its own connected with the coming of the Kingdom.  What’s significant about Jesus’ representation of the matter is that it doesn’t match any of these popularly held notions. 

Most people looked for the Kingdom to arrive in a sudden flash.  The Messiah would appear, marshal His forces, oust the enemies and oppressors, and instantly establish God’s reign on earth.  It would be a top-down, overnight, indisputable military and political victory – a sudden paradigm shift at which every knee would bow, just as Paul assures us it will be at the end of the age (Philippians 2:10, 11).  That’s what the Jews were hoping for – a hope very much like that entertained by many American evangelicals today.  That’s the vision that caused the Roman overlords so much unease and gave them so many sleepless nights.  But it’s not the scene that Jesus envisions here.

As Jesus sees it, the coming of the Kingdom is not the result of military or political conquest, but of the sowing of the Word.  And it is anything but sudden, stark, instantaneous, total, and undeniable.  On the contrary, it can be more accurately described in terms of a series of modifiers we’ve used before:  ironic, ambiguous, subtle, and paradoxical.  Instead of an overnight victory, “It’s more like a farmer sowing seed, much of which apparently goes to waste because the soil isn’t fit for it, can’t sustain it.”[iii] It does not come with its own set of unanswerable self-validating proofs.  Some see what’s happening and respond positively.  Others simply don’t get it.  Not a particularly hopeful scenario from the perspective of the average Messianic enthusiast.               

Paradoxical Purpose:  Verses 10-12

10 And as soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables. 11 And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God; but those who are outside get everything in parables; 12 in order that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE; AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND; LEST THEY RETURN AGAIN AND BE FORGIVEN.”   

By way of explanation – or perhaps consolation – Jesus now gives His closest followers – and us – a primer on the subject of parables.  And here again the words that come most readily to mind are paradox and ambiguity.

The typical Sunday-school definition of a “parable” is “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”  A parable, we are often led to believe, is a “helpful illustration” of a spiritual truth expressed in an easily accessible narrative form.  It’s a teaching device calculated to “put the cookies on the bottom shelf,” as a colleague of mine used to express it.  But that’s not what Jesus says here. 

According to Jesus, a parable has the effect of dividing insiders from outsiders – an idea that surfaced last week in the story of Christ’s mother and brothers.  What’s worse, a parable is actually designed to conceal the truth rather than revealing it.  Jesus backs this up with a quotation from the prophet Isaiah (6:9-10).  He asserts that “outsiders” get the message “in parables” in order that “they may see and not see, hear and not hear.”  He expressly tells us that the purpose behind all this is that they should not “repent and be forgiven.”            

Some commentators have called this “one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament.”  It certainly isn’t easy to understand – at least not according to our normal categories of biblical interpretation.  “Doesn’t Jesus want everybody to get the message?” asks Wright.  The answer, he suggests, is “Yes and no.”  Why?  Because “what He is saying is such dynamite that it can’t be said straightforwardly, out on the street.”  It’s something so “subversive and unexpected” that it has to be communicated in a “code” that only insiders will fully be able to grasp.[iv]

We may not be able to wrap our brains around this concept – at least not apart from a long and hard process of careful and prayerful contemplation.  But there’s one thing we can say with certainty:  this is not a good marketing strategy.  Unlike Henry Ford and Steve Jobs, Jesus does not “try to figure out what consumers are going to want and then find a way to give it to them.”  Instead, He “puts the cookies on the highest shelf of all” – almost beyond their reach.  He makes us stretch until we’re almost ready to break; for it’s only at that point that we’ll be ready to cast ourselves upon His grace.           

Diversity and Division:  Verses 13-20

13 And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable?  And how will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. 16 And in a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, 19 and the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good ground; and they hear the word and accept it, and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. 

Obviously there’s a great deal that could be said about this interpretation of the parable.  I’m going to limit myself to a single reflection.  In contrast to first-century Jewish expectations, the coming of the Kingdom, on Jesus’ representation, does not lead to some sort of instantaneous “theocratic solidarity”; “one nation under God,” if you will.  Instead, it produces even more division and confusion.  Of the four types of soil identified in the story, only one receives the seed of the Word and grows an abundant crop.  The rest fail to respond.  And there’s nothing that the Sower or you or I or anybody else can do about it.

Final Thoughts 

This, then, is Christ’s portrayal of the Kingdom’s arrival on earth.  It’s not a picture of a monolithic “Christian Empire” where eternal truths are universally accepted, where God enjoys the backing of the White House and the Supreme Court, and where everybody shares a common commitment to “traditional biblical values.”  Instead, it’s a picture of a small but potent force surviving, thriving, and pushing its way to the surface through hostility, adversity, and widespread diversity.  This is our situation today.  It’s the environment in which we must learn to function in this “already-but-not-yet” period of our Christian experience.           

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[i] Schnabel, The Tyndale New Testament Commentary on Mark, p. 98.

[ii] This week’s Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible. 

[iii] N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, p. 43.

[iv] Ibid., p. 44.