Just a Thought.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the “Discourse in the Parables” constitutes a well-defined unit. “On the day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables.” Thus begins Chapter Thirteen. And at the end, Jesus asks: “Do you understand all these things? It is rare enough to find in biblical books a whole so clearly recognisable as a unit: Matthew shows originality by placing six parables in the framework of a Discourse on the Kingdom of Heaven: The sower and its explanation, the weeds and its explanation, the mustard seed, the leaven, the treasure and the pearl, and the net to which he adds two remarks on the reasons why Jesus uses this form of teaching all of which we shall hear today and over the next two Sundays. Over this period Chapter Thirteen is read in its entirety in Year A. Therefore, we see an obvious sequence in this succession on Sunday liturgies emerge.
Nothing more fitting than the two verses from the Book of Isaiah that opens today’s liturgy of the word could be placed as an epigraph to the sequence constituted by the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Sundays in Ordinary Time. These verses prepare us to understand well the parable of the Sower.
“Words, words, words!” Hamlet’s exclamation aptly expresses human experience. How many vain words, lacking in substance leaving those who pronounce them uncommitted! How many words that do not stand the test of time, forgotten as soon as spoken or heard! How many deceitful words that hide, distort, or contradict truth! How many ineffectual words, how many hurtful or killing words!
God’s word is totally other; it reveals and acts, it is truth and effectiveness. The brief text that we read today stresses this latter characteristic in the clearest and most precise way by using a particular evocative image: “For just as from the heavens the rain and the snow come down and do not return there until they have watered the earth…..So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”
The Bible unceasingly attests to the conviction that God means what he says. This conviction is the foundation of the people’s hope in time of trial, in this case, in particular, the trial of dispersion and exile. It is impossible to doubt the efficacy of God’s word, since it has created everything: “God said…..and it happened.” The wise men, the prophets, the psalmists never tire of reminding us of this: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made; by the breath of his mouth all their hosts….. For he spoke, and it was made; he commanded, and it stood forth.”
Everything else flows from this: God’s word creates history. At every instant, it has the power to create anew, to restore life—the power to save.
“The seed that falls to the ground will yield a fruitful harvest.”
The integral reading of the Discourse in the Parables, as it is called, is a good opportunity to further uncover the inexhaustible wealth and the variety of this teaching device that Jesus has renewed and perfected by using it to speak of the deepest and highest realities.
This literary genre and form of teaching that we call parables are not found exclusively in the New Testament, but the Gospel parables are the best known. Although simple and familiar, these usually crisp and skillfully composed little narratives must not be taken lightly, although they were pleasant but inconsequential stories, One feels that each is rich in meaning, even if this meaning is not immediately evident, at least not in all its depth. This is because the parables speak of the highest realities of faith, beginning with the mystery of Jesus’ own person and of God. Parables unveil some of these realities but halftone or a subdued light. It takes time to understand exactly what Jesus means when he teaches in parables. He himself explains this: “Knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted….. This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see, and hear but do not listen or understand.” In order to understand parables hearers must be attentive and open to the things of God.
Besides — and this is not their least original trait — parables are aimed at hearers who accept confrontation and questioning. Often, the story leads hearers to bare the depths of their hearts, to manifest how they spontaneously respond to the situation described in the story. They then become aware that by following their bent, they think, act, and react in a manner contrary to God. Finally, “parables direct the listeners to their life experience and derive their efficacy from that experience which we must own…..But to understand them, we must allow ourselves to go through the personal experience of Jesus, to which they direct us….and endeavour to comprehend the manner in which Jesus spoke of himself….to see reality as Jesus saw it.”
Apparently, the parable of the sower is very simple and does not raise any problem of interpretation. What it describes is commonplace; those who have seen people sow when the wind blows don’t give too much thought to the soil onto which the seed falls, trusting that a good proportion of the seed will fall on favourable ground.
And here is what is admirable. On this mixed soil, close to a path where the birds come to eat everything, on this field of stoney outcroppings, where briers grow, one sees, a few months after the sowing, ears of wheat that have grown vigorously as soon as the seed found a little dirt. Really the sower was right to sow liberally, without worrying much about the ground. The extraordinary potency of the seed has succeeded in producing fruit with an unusual yield—up to a hundredfold.
Jesus is this confident sower who has thrown his word, a seed of high quality, to the four winds. When we see the “large crowds” gathering around him, how can we help but be struck by the success of his generous sowing? But in this parable that underscores the fecundity of the seed, Jesus does not hide the fact that part of it is lost. We cannot avoid asking the question “Why don’t all receive the word so that it may fruit in them?” The question was asked during Jesus’ ministry, and even more afterwards, when his passion and death had swept everything away. Then, a handful of apostles had to sow anew and without knowing the success of Jesus that had, at times exhilarated them. Why? The question is not a theoretical one. It is a source of anguish for the indefatigable sowers, for the whole Church. The explanation given to the disciples is an answer, and the evangelical tradition has not forgotten it.
In the parable of the sower, what is in question is the word of the kingdom. It is lavishly sown because the Lord wants to address all without discrimination. “Jesus said this to show he was addressing everybody. The sower does not make distinctions between different soils; he simply throws the seed. Similarly, Jesus does not distinguish between rich and poor, learned and unschooled, careless and fervent, courageous and timid. His word concerns everybody. He does all he can, although he perfectly knows the future, so that he may say, ‘what more was there for me to do?’” The explanation is clear: the word can develop it potentialities only if it falls on favourable ground. After the word has been heard, it must descend into the heart. Unable to take root or choked by the cares of this world and the inducements of riches, even though first received with joy, the word does not bear fruit.
Without reading more into the parable than what it does say, we shall keep in mind that it places the emphasis on the listeners’ responsibility. The parable warns us against being“the person of the moment.” What proves difficult is to keep on, to remain the man or woman of all hours, of all seasons, of an entire lifetime.
Both creating history, and playing a leading part in it, the word attests to God’s obstinate faithfulness, long patience, and assiduous labour for the unfolding of salvation offered to all humankind. The word comes from God, who created human beings, and who made with them a covenant of love. Efficacious, indescribably fecund, this word demands from human beings a willing response made of openness, conversion, and ever-renewed trust in him who speaks it. And this, in spite of appearances of failure, of trials besetting missionaries and all the believers, tempting them to lose trust and become discouraged.
In fact, everyone sees opposition, indifference, defections, etc., in the very places where the word should manifest its effectiveness. Jesus himself knew this fact, the disciples around him must have confronted it too; It remains the great test of believers and of the Church through all time when they hear it said, with sadness and irony, “Where is your God?” We must then re-read, study, and ponder the parable of the seed and the sower.
Yes it is true, part of the seed is lost because the sower throws it by the handful to the four winds so that every nook and cranny may receive its share. And it is a fact that, thanks to the generous manner in which the seed is sown, we see the extraordinary fecundity of a single seed encountering a bit of good soil; it gives fruit “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”
Are these different yields due to chance or luck? Absolutely not, for it is in the human heart that the word is sown. Stones and thorns allude to the hardness of heart and the cares of the world that encumber it. If the seed remains on the surface, abandoned to the appetite of birds of the sky, it is because we do not let it enter our beings. Therefore if the word is not fruitful, it is due to the listeners’ poor dispositions.
The urgent appeal to each one’s responsibility must be welcomed with immense hope. Our time of long patience and assiduous labour, of sufferings also, is the time of “labourpains even until now,” they will soon end in the joyful hour of deliverance. Then what was hidden will come to light, and “the glorious freedom of the children of God’ will be revealed, with that of Christ, who escaped from the shadow of the grave and will appear in the clouds in radiant splendour.
“I hardened myself like a rock; I became like a path; the thorns of the world have choked me and have made my soul unfruitful. But, O Lord, Sower of the good, Make the seedling of the Word grow in me so that I may yield fruit in one of these three: Hundredfold, sixtyfold, or even thirtyfold. Amen.
