The Parable of the Sower - Mark 4:1-20

4 1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge. 2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”

9 Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that,  

“‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’[a]”

13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

Footnotes:
a. Mark 4:12 Isaiah 6:9,10 


"Again Jesus began to teach by the lake", and yet again we have another story about the huge crowds that gathered around Jesus. This is the second time in which we are told that Jesus had to speak from a boat off the shore to keep from being mobbed by the massive press of people attracted by his fame. I can't help but wonder if the writer, "doth protest too much".

The community of Mark represented a minor sect at a time when there was an increased pressure in the Jewish community to conform to the mainstream institutional interpretation of the religion.  Religious authority stressed increased diligence in the practice of orthodoxy as a way of appealing to God to fulfil His part of the Covenant and deliver the nation from the Romans.  If, as we suspect, this community was living in the Jewish diaspora as part of a larger Jewish enclave in southern Syria or Antioch, then there would be an even greater pressure to conform to "traditional" religious norms and an increased need to defend and explain both to others and themselves why they were different and why they were legitimate.

I can imagine that the larger Jewish community challenged them with the fact that their teacher, Jesus, was so little known and left so little a mark on the Jewish people during his lifetime.  Jesus was just one of many self proclaimed prophets that arose during the Roman occupation many of whom created enough of a stir that they were recorded in the historic records of the time.  Jesus, besides the testament of the Gospels written generations after his death, was not one of them.

Wayne A. Meeks, Woolsey Professor of Biblical Studies Yale University, explains:

Christianity begins really as a sect among Judaism. One of several sects that we know of from about the same time. Josephus tells us about a number of prophets who appeared and gathered followers and were wiped out by the Roman Governors and their followers were disbursed, and if you read the series of revolts that Josephus talks about, and about the prophets that come and promise to part the waters of the Jordan or whatever, make the walls of Jerusalem fall down, and they gather followers and then their leader is captured and he dies and that's the end of it, of the story that we have about Jesus and the gospel fits rather nicely in that succession.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/themovement.html

One of the most popular and best known prophets of the time, as recorded by the Jewish historian Josephus, was John the Baptist.  His popularity was seen as enough of a threat to the legitimacy of this fledgling Jesus sect that the very first scene of their Gospel is a story that has John testify that Jesus is greater than himself and the true Messiah for which he himself was only preparing the way.

The Gospel community tries to enhance Jesus' legitimacy  (and their own) by telling a story that includes Jesus having a large populist impact.  However, given the facts of his relative popularity during his ministry, they have a contradiction to explain.  People would be wondering why if he drew such crowds they had never heard of him, or why he left so little mark.  The Gospel writers addressed this through their "hardened heart" and "secret identity" narratives.  

The "hardened heart" narrative was looked at in the post on the previous passage.  This narrative in the Gospel contends that the Jewish people, the Religious/Political elite in particular, had hearts hardened to God and this is why they did not recognize Jesus as speaking God’s words and respond accordingly.  I would think that it was also implied that the popularity of Jesus and the crowds that he attracted had been downplayed and erased by these same elites.

The narrative was also a way to legitimize Jesus' teaching in spiritual terms.  It stated that those with a pure heart and are in tune with the spiritual plane will recognize that his teaching has the authority of God and is true.  This was important in order to establish some form of legitimacy for a teacher who was not "certified" by semicha, rabbinic ordination, and did not have, s'mikhahto, "authority" to interpret the Law or have his own teaching under the traditional Jewish religious institution.

This narrative is stated somewhat more explicitly in the Gospel of John.

16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." (John 7:16-17)

This story line is also part of the purpose behind the inclusion in the Gospel at several points of exorcised spirits testifying to Jesus' identity as the Son of God.  The implication is that those who are in tune with the spiritual plane will also recognize this truth.  

This device takes the legitimacy of Jesus outside of the realm of traditional systems of authority, logic, and reason, and allows the author to suggest that those who do not accept it have a personal deficit and are not in right heart or relationship with God.  I have experienced this sort of justification for dogma in "Evangelical" groups.  There is often an, "Emperor's new clothes", aspect.  If everyone in the group ascribes to a certain view of reality and those who don't are labelled as less spiritual or out of tune with the Spirit of God, then people come to believe that questioning and doubt are signs of something wrong with them and stop seeking after truth.

I may seem to be critical of this narrative in the Gospel.  This is partly because I find it out of step with the narrative we have explored earlier in the Gospel that God is primarily inclusive and that the kingdom of God is extended to all, period.  I also struggle with the honesty and legitimacy of this mode of thought since I use it myself.  I affirm many of the teachings and themes we have explored in the Gospel because they resonate with the Spirit of love, generosity, and fairness they touch within myself (not that this is all that fills my heart).  However, the fact that these themes are recognized by the best of my heart does not mean that I give blanket endorsement to all the teachings of Jesus as presented by this Gospel community.  I don't then assume that all of the writings are then God's inerrant and dictated word, beyond question, criticism, or debate.

So, let's move to the aspect of this narrative introduced in this passage that I find even more problematic. The explanation the writer has Jesus give for teaching using parables appears to be that God deliberately hides him/herself and the secrets of the kingdom of God and that these are only available to a select minority.  

The passage cited as part of the explanation is from Isaiah 6:9-10:

“Go and tell this people:

“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
    be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused;
    make their ears dull
    and close their eyes.[a]
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
    hear with their ears,
    understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”

This passage is part of Isaiah's vision of God in the Temple and begins with the phrase, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord,...".  Uzziah had mainly been a "righteous" king, but towards the end of his reign had become proud and usurped the role of priest in the Temple which was seen by the Prophet to be a desecration and the cause of his being, "struck down by God".  The son who succeeded him was also considered to be wicked.  This gave the writers of the Tanakh, looking back, the opportunity to explain the wars that followed and the destruction of the Temple in 587 BCE in terms of Covenant.  The logic of the histories of the Tanakh is that when bad things happen to Israel it is because they had previously been wicked and not upheld their side of the Covenant with God.  

As is the case with the Prophets, God is shown to be merciful and sends a Prophet to inform the nation of its infraction and give it opportunity to repent and forestall punishment, and to squarely convince the reader that the punishment meted out after the inevitable refusal to listen is just.  However, in this passage, God is portrayed as being at war with His own nature.  His own principles of mercy require that He warn the people and give the opportunity to repent, but the sin is apparently grievous enough that He would prefer not to and so makes the hearts of the people calloused so that they will not receive the Prophet's message, repent and evoke the merciful side of His nature.  So God, who is portrayed as primarily merciful and compassionate, is also portrayed as having a shadow side prone to vengefulness and spite.

In the Gospel passage, Jesus is being likened to the figure of Isaiah and the people of Israel are cast in a similar scenario as this story from Isaiah.  Looking back on their own recent history as the writers of Isaiah's story did, they interpret the Roman destruction of the Temple as God's punishment for the people straying from God with Jesus cast as the Prophet sent with the message of warning and repentance beforehand. Moreover, like in Isaiah's case, God has calloused the people's hearts, so, like Isaiah, Jesus is rejected and ignored.

This narrative fits well with the popular Jewish doctrines of the times on the Messiah.  The Messiah was expected to punish the unrighteous of the people so that past breaches of the Covenant could be made right and then drive out the foreign oppressors and re-Institute the nation of Israel.  The destruction of the Temple  (which later in the Gospel Jesus is given as foretelling) could be viewed as part of that earthly purge.  Jesus is more explicitly placed in that role in the Gospel of Luke where John the Baptist's testimony on the coming Messiah  includes,

17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Luke 3:17 NIV

This explains why the Gospel writers used the motif of a God that deliberately hardens people’s hearts, but it doesn't make me any more comfortable with their use of it.  However, if I step back, maybe it is only a problem if one literalizes the anthropomorphic images of God.  What does this say if God is seen as the characterization of what we hold up to be legitimate and true?  In that case we can ask if truth in the manner of condemnation of wrong action and a call to change does in fact in some cases harden people’s hearts.  I think that this is indeed the case and that many times when people are directly confronted with behaviour and attitudes they have displayed that are unjust or cruel they react defensively and reject this characterization of themselves.

This is where the wonder of parable and fiction lies in "hiding" the truth in a manner in which it can be gradually accepted and integrated as the heart becomes ready through exposure to a different perspective.  In a story about a remote situation removed from your personal bias and need for self defence, you can have your perception shifted and problems or injustices presented in the story are more easily accepted allowing one to then gradually see the parallels with the the ones you may be in the middle of.  This has aways been the glory of good story and literature from Aesop's fables using talking animals to Fantasy and Science Fiction.  

I've read that Martin Luther King Jr. once gave a speech on racism in the United States to a less than receptive audience.  He began by not talking about he situation in America at all, but the caste system in India and the injustice and indignity done to those born into the lower castes.  It was only after the crowd had empathised with a similar injustice removed from their context and not threatening to themselves could they begin to see the parallels with their own situation and admit to themselves that things were not right.

Parable, fiction, and good literature can be like the seed in Jesus' parable, the word of God.  They can sprout change in people, but often only over time as the soil of the heart is made ready.