In the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, after exhorting us to support each other in love, and reminding us of the humility and obedience demonstrated by Christ, he tells us (Philippians 2:12-13) … my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to [his] good pleasure.
Paul worked very hard at writing his letters to the Churches, doing everything he could to make his points clear, understandable, and logical. But that doesn’t mean that the resulting teachings are simple or trivial. On the contrary, it takes work on our part to follow his arguments and to convince ourselves that what he is saying is right, true, and in accord to the whole counsel of God.
It takes work. Should we expect otherwise?
You see, it is easy for us to forget things that we consider unimportant; we don’t waste time on them. But those things that we care about – the important things – for those things we are willing to work hard. That is the way it should be with the Word of God.
We cannot expect its revelations to be obvious to us because we all have been born and reared up inside the kingdom of the world. That means that the way we think, and the values we assign to many things in our life, are the result of conditioning by that kingdom.
It doesn’t mean that we are stuck thinking that way… That is why I used the word “conditioning”. Our conditioned response and initial reactions (our paradigms – the glasses through which we view the world) belong to that kingdom. But just like we can break any (bad) habit by making purposeful choices, we can certainly break out of the world’s mould.
Breaking out is not going to be easy… That is why Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It will take work on our part; and the rulers of the kingdom of the world won’t like it. And so we will end up fighting against the flesh, the world, and the devil… or as it says somewhere in scripture, against the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”. But we should never lose heart because we can win.
How do we know we can win? Because the very desire to change, to break out of the grip of the world, was given to us by God. If you feel that desire in you, then know that you are feeling God’s touch. And if He has already stepped up to give me that desire, then He has also promised to give me the strength to do the work required: for it is God who works in you both the willing and the working according to [his] good pleasure.
Paul knows this to be true because this is the way God worked in his life.
He knows this to be true because that is how Jesus taught us.
The Parable of the Sower
Mark 4:1-10 And again he began to teach by the sea. And a great crowd was gathered together to him, so that going on board ship he sat in the sea, and all the crowd were close to the sea on the land. And he taught them many things in parables. And he said to them in his doctrine,
Hearken: Behold, the sower went forth to sow. And it came to pass as he sowed, one fell by the wayside, and the birds came and devoured it. And another fell on the rocky ground, where it had not much earth, and immediately it sprung up out [of the ground] because it had no depth of earth; and when the sun arose it was burnt up, and because of its not having any root, it withered. And another fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. And another fell into the good ground, and yielded fruit, growing up and increasing; and bore, one thirty, and one sixty, and one a hundred.
And he said, He that has ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone, those about him with the twelve asked him [as to] the parables.
This is one of Jesus’ most famous parables. If you are familiar with it, then you already know what it means. But if we had been there, in that crowd on the shore, would we have understood? Probably not. See the reaction there in verse 10: When He was all done teaching, and the crowd had gone away, some of the people remained behind, gathered around Him with the apostles, and asked Him what it meant.
Mark 4:11 And he said to them, To you is given [to know] the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to them who are without, all things are done in parables,
As is usual with Jesus, when you ask Him a question, He either asks you a question or gives you the answer to a question you haven’t asked yet. The point is to get us thinking. What is your initial reaction to this answer?
If I react to it according to the paradigms that I learned from the world, my fist reaction would be: ‘Wait a minute; that’s not fair. You are playing favorites here. Why are you going to explain it only to us and leave all those people out there in ignorance? Isn’t this about saving their souls? Why are You condemning them to ignorance then? Ignorance… and eventually Hell?’
If that sounds a little bit over the top, I’m glad for you… that means you have never been faced with that reaction. But the fact is that there are plenty of people in this world that react like that, especially when there is the slightest hint that we are gong to declare that Jesus is the (only) Way.
Strangely enough, I believe one of the reasons Jesus gave that reply is precisely because it can elicit that defensive reaction from people in the world. There is no better way to help us break out of the paradigms that enslave us than to force us to face them head on. So, Jesus makes it even worse, more blatant:
Mark 4:12 that beholding they may behold and not see, and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest it may be, they should be converted and they should be forgiven.
Wow. That is a quote from Isaiah. But doesn’t that support that accusation about Jesus arbitrarily condemning people to Hell? So, what are we going to do about it? He is challenging us to keep listening (if we dare).
Mark 4:13 And He says to them, Do ye not know this parable? and how will ye be acquainted with all the parables?
Now we are finally going to get the direct answer. But before doing that, He stays in “indirect teaching mode” for one more editorial comment: He tells us it is a good thing we acknowledged that we don’t know what the parable means because this parable is key to understanding them all.
Mark 4:14-20 The sower sows the word: and these are they by the wayside where the word is sown, and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. And these are they in like manner who are sown upon the rocky places, who when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy, and they have no root in themselves, but are for a time: then, tribulation arising, or persecution on account of the word, immediately they are offended. And others are they who are sown among the thorns: these are they who have heard the word, and the cares of life, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things, entering in, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
And these are they who have been sown on the good ground, such as hear the word and receive it, and bear fruit; one thirty, and one sixty, and one a hundred [fold].
The four soils are four kinds of people. If you have ever planted a garden, you know it is important to have the right kind of soil: that it have the nutrients required, and good drainage. We know the soil plays a key role in helping that seed to germinate. But I don ‘t think we give it much thought beyond that. We soon switch our attention to the seed and assume that the rest, all the “hard work” (growing the stalk, growing the leaves, forming the plant, and eventually the fruit), is all due to the seed. But in Hebrew thinking it is the soil that brings up the plant almost in the sense of giving it birth:
Genesis 1:11-12 And God said, Let the earth cause grass to spring up, herb producing seed, fruit-trees yielding fruit after their kind, the seed of which is in them, on the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, herb producing seed after its kind, and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which is in them, after their kind. And God saw that it was good.
The seed without the soil cannot become what it was meant to be. The soil without the seed cannot bring forth fruit. The tree can only exist if each does its work… almost 50-50.
The soil of the wayside, trampled down by the traffic of the earth, has become hard, impenetrable, it represents a heart that has become hard as stone. So hard, that it doesn’t even feel the seed bounce on it. It doesn’t care. The Word is so unimportant to it that it just, like we say, “goes in one ear and out the other”. And that is precisely what the prince of this world wants to happen.
The soil on rocky ground looks, at first glance, good from the outside. This happens a lot around where I live in Arizona. There may be a layer of what looks like good, soft soil. But below that layer, three to twelve inches down, there is another layer of caliche. That is a mixture of clay and slate, impenetrable to water. If you plant seeds in that topsoil, they will sprout. But every time you water them, as the water seeps down, it hits the caliche and slides along it downhill, away from your plants. They never get enough water. Their roots may grow but they cannot penetrate the caliche and thus remain shallow. And when the summer heat comes, they cannot survive.
We can be very much like that soil. We look good from the outside. We seem to be doing fine; we may even do some charity work, volunteer here and there, help our friends, take care of our family… We may be doing all that because the Word of God we hear every Sunday at Church makes sense to us, and we want to do our best. But that is as far as our relationship with the Word goes: One day a week is all the claim God has on our attention. And that works as long as things are going well.
But that means we never get ready for the storms that are bound to come. Jesus warned us about them in the Sermon on the Mount:
Matthew 7:24-25 Whoever therefore hears these my words and does them, I will liken him to a prudent man, who built his house upon the rock; and the rain came down, and the streams came, and the winds blew and fell upon that house, and it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.
And the rain came down…That is not an “if” The storms will come. Why? Because we are still living in the world. And the powers of the kingdom of the world do not want us serving the Kingdom of God. To survive the storms takes listening to Jesus’ words and putting them to practice, daily. That is what strengthens us and prepares us for the attack that is sure to come.
But the saddest thing about being this soil is that, because it knows the Lord, because it has “tasted and seen that the Lord is good” (as the Psalmist says), when the storm hits and the going gets harder than we are prepared to deal with, we can end up blaming God for the troubles and for not rescuing us the way we want to be rescued.
…then, tribulation arising, or persecution on account of the word,
immediately they are offended…
We can end up offended, worse than where we started.
Then there is the soil already full of thorns: Notice that: The seeds of the thorns were already everywhere in that soil. And what are those thorns? Jesus tells us they are the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. Again, it comes from having grown up in the kingdom of the world. All the things that the world says are worth it, are seeds that have been planted in our hearts already: The desire for comfort, the ability to get what we want, when we want it… the desire to be admired, to be the one with the power rather than the one that gets bossed around… to be catered to rather than serving others.
The reality is that we humans have a finite amount of energy and time in every day to spend. And the question is, what are we going to do with it? If we get seduced to pursue all the things that the world says are valuable, all the things that, like the commercials say, we deserve, then we will eventually run dry. And when the time comes to serve God, the time when we actually hear the Holy Spirit point out something that we can do, we are too tired, too emotionally spent to think about it, much less focus on it.
That seed becomes unfruitful. And that is truly sad because, what is the point of planting a fruit tree if not to get the fruit?
Those are the soils that miss out on their destiny. But if that is the explanation of what they represent, attitudes of our heart, that means they are the result of choices we make.
Those soils are not unchangeable.
The soil by the wayside can be broken and turned over by the plow. The rocky ground, the caliche, hiding below the topsoil, can be broken by the point of a pickaxe. The choking thorns can be hacked down to the ground with shears. Sounds violent? Sometimes that is what it takes. Sometimes that is the only way to get rid of those worldly habits that only want to enslave us.
And this is the reason why this is the foundational parable: In the end, what kind of soil I am is up to me. The choice is mine: to hear, to do what it takes, or to ignore it all.
It won’t be easy, but it is worth it: Because all of us can be, all of us were made to be, the good soil, that hears the Word, receives it, internalizes it, makes it part of our being, and then, as the natural result, bears fruit.
Why have we been given this revelation?
Jesus hasn’t yet addressed his initial shocking reply. He will do that now.
Mark 4:21 And he said to them, Does the lamp come that it should be put under the bushel or under the couch? [Is it] not that it should be set upon the lamp-stand?
What is the purpose of a lamp? Don’t you light it to illuminate a room? No one would light a lamp and then hide it under a basket or a couch…
Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
The Word of God, Jesus’ words, are that lamp. They are meant to give light to everyone in the room. But more than that, like the simile that accompanies the mention of the lamp in The Sermon – the city on the hilltop – that light is meant to be visible from afar, visible at night, visible from the outside, shining through the windows of the house, telling anyone that is out there wandering in the dark that there is light and warmth and life in this house.
If that is so, then there is no way Jesus is on purpose keeping this light from anybody. And then He explains how it is not being kept from anybody:
Mark 4:22-23 For there is nothing hidden which shall not be made manifest; nor does any secret thing take place, but that it should come to light. If any one have ears to hear, let him hear.
Everyone who has ears to hear can hear. God does not keep His Plan of salvation hidden from anybody. The reason He crafted that Plan was to save everybody… whosoever will, as it says in John 3:16. But that is the catch! I have to will it.
God will not force anyone to accept Salvation. He gave us free will from the very beginning. To force or coerce anyone would be a violation of that free will. But He did the next best thing, the only thing he could do: He let His Son pay the ultimate price to open the way of Salvation and then He made sure that the spirit that He put inside us at the very beginning would be able to hear His voice and choose to follow it.
Mark 4:24 And he said to them, Take heed what ye hear; with what measure ye mete, it shall be meted to you; and there shall be [more] added to you.
All of us have ears to hear. But it is up to us to decide how we hear. Do we take it seriously and choose to follow? Or do we shrug our shoulders and say, “sounds good… maybe some day… and then forget about it.”
The choice has consequences. That is just the way it is:
Mark 4: 25 For whosoever has, to him shall be given; and he who has not, even what he has shall be taken from him.
Isn‘t this the way it is with everything? If I want to stay healthy and I know I need to exercise, the more I do it, the more I pay the price in sweat and time, the easier it gets to keep doing it, and I reap the benefits. If I want to learn how to do something, I need to study it. I need to put the time, do the homework, practice. And guess what? Eventually it starts to make sense and the more I learn on the subject, the more I can learn of the subject.
And now we see the explanation of that shocking reply:
To you is given [to know] the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to them who are without, all things are done in parables…
Who is the “you” in that declaration?
All those who stayed behind and asked.
Notice that Mark makes it clear that it wasn’t only the apostles that came to Jesus to ask for the explanation. There were others there from the crowd.
They wanted to know what it meant. Why? Because if Jesus said it, they knew it had to be important. It takes work to try to figure it out, it takes work and humility to ask, but they were willing to do that work because it was valuable to them. We will not work for something we do not value; that is the way we are. And so, their asking singled them out as people who wanted to be that good soil.
But those who walked away having heard the same Word, the same parable, what does that say about them? They heard something; probably thought it was wise; maybe thought it could be important… but did they want it to be part of their lives? If so, walking away doesn’t show it. And, sadly, the more we get used to walking away, the easier it will get.
It is hard work… but God does most of it
It is not 50-50.
Mark 4:26-29 And He said, Thus is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast the seed upon the earth, and should sleep and rise up night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth bears fruit of itself, first [the] blade, then an ear, then full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is produced, immediately he sends the sickle, for the harvest is come.
It is hard work to get the field ready and plant the seed. But after that, the farmer can do nothing else. He is now at the mercy of the weather and the power of the forces of nature: the sun, the air, the rain. But he doesn’t have to try to control those, and he doesn’t even have to understand how they work. That is good news. That ought to give us Hope… For the fact is that God set it all up so that it just works. All the farmer has to do is be ready, notice when the time for the harvest is here, and then reap the fruit… all to his benefit.
Mark 4:30-32 And he said, How should we liken the kingdom of God, or with what comparison should we compare it? As to a grain of mustard [seed], which, when it is sown upon the earth, is less than all seeds which are upon the earth, and when it has been sown, mounts up and becomes greater than all herbs, and produces great branches, so that the birds of heaven can roost under its shadow.
It is hard work to get “the field” of our life ready and keep it that way, moist, soft, fed, ready for the seed. And we all know what it takes to keep doing it: It takes faith, trusting in God. But here in the next parable is, again, Hope. For Jesus had this saying: that all the faith we need, the faith that is sufficient to follow Him and serve in His kingdom, is no more than would fit inside the tiny mustard seed. That is it. And here the parable tells us why: It may look small to us, but God – who made it – decreed that when it is planted in the (good) soil, it will sprout into a huge bush, with branches so big that birds can even use it as a tree.
Mark 4:3-34 And with many such parables He spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear, but without a parable spoke He not to them; and in private He explained all things to His disciples.
So, always remember Mark 4:10: And when he was alone, those about him with the twelve asked him [as to] the parables… Those were His disciples.
Who are His disciples?
Every single one of us who chooses to go to Him and asks Him to explain.