24 January 2011 Devotion for Today "Parable of the Sower" Mark 4: 1-9


1 And again He began to teach by the sea. And a great multitude was gathered to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole multitude was on the land facing the sea. 2 Then He taught them many things by parables, and said to them in His teaching:

3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air[a] came and devoured it. 5 Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. 7 And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

9 And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (Mark 4:1-9)





Last week I reflected on a series of meditations of the Parable of the Mustard Seed, but this week I would like to also reflect upon the parable which probably inspired it: Jesus' Parable of the Sower. Like the Parable of the Mustard Seed, it too is found in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and is told with some variation in all three books. For today, I just want to relay some background to this and other parables.



In this gospel, Jesus taught such a great crowd of people beside the sea (a multitude) that He needed to innovate in order to speak loud enough to be heard by them. He pushed a small boat out to the water so that he could speak to them. Remember that Jesus is God. He knew about the principles of physics and acoustic thousands of years before churches began installing expensive audio equipment into their sanctuaries. This also shows us that Jesus was not above innovation or doing some unusual things to enable the Word to be heard. He did not focus upon the innovation, however- or use it to impress others. This was only incidental to getting His teaching heard by those who had come out hungry to hear it. What is more, Jesus did not speak academically or pompously above their heads. Jesus spoke directly to the people with colorful illustrations and stories that they could understand. But He did not insult their intelligence and He challenged them in ways that broadened their understanding and appealed to their growing rational abilities.



This is why Jesus often taught in parables. The word parable is from the Greek language parabola, meaning- "that which is placed beside in comparison". Parables were also used as an innovation to translate all kinds of thoughts so that they could be grasped by a world that was mostly illiterate in a manner in which most people could never forget. But Jesus' parables also required understanding that came by the illumination by the Holy Spirit. The people who understood them not only grasped the principles in their minds, but the Holy Spirit allowed them to take root in their hearts. This was what caused the parables to come to come alive, and translated them not only into facts but into life.



The one statement at the end of this, as well as many of Jesus' other parables sums it up for all of us: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" (Mark 4:9) Its obvious that Jesus was not only speaking to the fact that most people have two ears or a natural hearing apparatus. Your hearing may be working just fine, but the thing that causes most people not to hear is because of their inattention to what is being said to them. This is usually because they are distracted by other thoughts that they think are more important than what they are listening to or that they are filtering what's being spoken by their own perspective or circumstances of life. In other words, they are hearing, but not listening.



I hope that this week you will be listening. You may not be hearing my audible voice as I write to you today, but you can listen with your heart. A person who is physically deaf has this capability as well as is even more keenly perceptive than most in order to compensate for what he cannot physically hear. I hope that this will be the case for you as well. Until tomorrow, keep your ears- and your heart- open for God to speak to you.



Have a blessed day!