Mark 4:2-20 Parable of the Sower

[jack]

Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. ... 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.”

Narrative device

This is another parable from the J K Rowling school of "try to persuade the listener it's obvious by acting all surprised that they don't know it".

Step one. Everyone agrees Jesus told a parable about a farmer sowing seed, and most of it didn't grow, but the ones that germinated paid for the rest.

Step two. For some reason, Jesus takes the disciples aside later and says "Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?"

Then he explains what it means. Is this so he could talk openly without being arrested? Is it because the "meaning" of the parable was intended to be passed only orally, so the teacher can check the student's understanding or leave it open to multiple interpretations? Or the "official" meaning was only added to the story later?

The puns

After a lot of planting corn, Jesus says “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” That would be a great pun, but presumably "ear" and "ear" are different words in greek? :)

Theology

The theology is actually strange to read about having grown up in a broadly fluffy-christian culture. People who are have a vaguely Christian background but not super-observant often have the impression that "it will all turn out ok". Which I mostly like. And people definitely play up the idea that however much it might be difficult to get saved, God will do Her/His best to make it happen somehow.

But this is one of the passages strongly suggesting most people won't be saved, because of their own choices or bad luck. That you have to try as hard as you can just to have a good chance of being saved, and don't have any leeway to take chances with "maybe I can do this and get away with it".

Which in many ways is a much more powerful message, especially for the leader of a new sect struggling to grow rapidly in the face of persecution from the orthodox majority. "Don't quibble, come follow me now." Even if it's a potentially strange creed for a dominant religion.

I do like that flavour -- try as hard as you can is a compelling message. But even if I like the message for me, I don't like the suggestion that of most people, most will fail, I prefer a more optimistic one.

Comments

[redbird]

Do people talk much about ears of wheat? "Corn" in the Mediterranean in Jesus' time would most likely have been wheat and can't have been maize.

[jack]

I realised when I was writing it that I thought ears of wheat was right, but I wasn't positive.

But when you said that, I looked it up, and Mark 2:23 says "went through the corn fields ... and ... pluck the ears of corn", so it sounds like the canonical version is "yes, there are ears of wheat"? :)

[ptc24]

Matthew 13:1-23 goes into rather more detail about the interpretation bit. Luke is about as brief as Mark on that front, and the parable isn't in John.

The uncharitable reading is that this is "unfair fair warning"; this is a pro forma attempt to discharge an obligation to "communicate" with people while taking care not to actually be understood. See also parts of Exodus where Moses is demonstrating various miracles and then the plagues to Pharaoh; at one point, the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart specifically so that Pharaoh won't relent. On a side point about "fair warning", the story of Jonah post-whale; Jonah goes and warns the people of Nineveh and they repent, and I'd heard one person say that Jonah was displeased by this, almost to the point of "can we destroy them anyway?"; I went and checked the Book of Jonah and... that seems to be a tenable interpretation.

Back to the parable: I often get Calvinist readings from the gospels, and this is one place where I get it. Couple this with "You Are Not Special", and you can see why some people might see the gospels as being something other than good news.

[jack]

I often get Calvinist readings from the gospels, and this is one place where I get it.

That's really interesting. I sort of know what you mean, but I don't really know what constitutes Calvinist, what sort of thing is that?

the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart specifically so that Pharaoh won't relent.

LOL. Yes, that bit. I find a lot of the old testament makes a lot more sense if you replace "the Lord did X" with "and then X happened, but we don't really know why" :)

But that wasn't what I took away from this parable. It seemed like Jesus was genuinely trying to reach as many people as possible (speaking in parables notwithstanding) but consoling them not to give up if most people didn't seem interested, it was still worthwhile.

[ptc24]

There's the parable and the context, and I've known about the parable for longer than the context, and I'm responding to the context really.

The sequel (to the Pharaoh business), of course, is Romans 9:16-21 or thereabouts. It seems that finding those bits of Exodus odd is not an original thought. Looking at it now, that passage really pings my Calvinometer.

Anyway, everything I know about Calvinism and much more besides is on the wikipedia page; really I'm working from the same sort of vague feeling that you are.