This is the first set of parables in Mark, and the theme that comes through most clearly is “Listen!” This is something we are not, as a whole particularly good at. Between personal media, social media and all the other distractions of modern life, we have many barriers to listening and building connections with other people.
There is benefit and fruit to living a life that is open. It is a scary thought for many, bringing up fears of rejection, fear of intimacy and often a weariness and lack of time. But if we do open ourselves up, it makes us more rooted, in our relationships with God and others.
The same was true of the crowd gathered around Jesus. He tells them to listen because many of them are not there for that. Some of them are just there to be part of the crowd, others want healing, others just want to see what all the guys is about, but few really want to listen. And so Jesus gives them a story that requires them to listen and engage – “whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.” Active listening requires more than an “uh huh” at the right time.
This is one of the reasons Jesus uses parables and stories. It also gives the message a chance to get past our defenses as we identify with the characters in the story before we put up barriers against the truths we don’t want to hear.
Another reason to use parables is to veil the truth to some degree. Jesus describes it as a “secret” that is revealed to the disciples, who asked Jesus directly, opening up their hearts to the truths Jesus is sharing. Jesus offers us the truths of eternity, the power that created the universe, but asks us to make the effort. “Take up your mat and walk.”
In the parable itself, the seed is the word of God and the sower can be seen as either God Himself or us, His followers, spreading that word. And the soil is those listening – that may be us ourselves, or it may be those we interact with.
So we have to ask ourselves, what is the state of my soil? At different times, we may be the sower of the seeds or any of the various soils, and it is worth considering where we stand.
One notable aspect of this story is that the sower is indiscriminate in his sowing. He does not hoard the seed based on what he thinks the soil is like, and we should not do that either. At don’t control how people receive our messages and we don’t know how God has been preparing the soil.
Let us seek to have the word deeply rooted within us, and let us be open to that word and those around us to bear fruit that nourishes the world we have been sent to.
— Sermon Notes, Dave Sim, Renew Church, Lynnwood WA, November 5, 2023