The longest sequence of parables of Jesus is found in Matthew 13. It opens with the story of the sower and ends with a short saying about the father who takes new and old things from his deposit. A common feature of most parables of the sequence is representing the kingdom of heaven by agricultural practices. That is what we see in the texts on the sower, the wheat and the tare, the grain of mustard, the leaven and the flour.
In his wisdom, the sower does not throw the grains only on good ground, but also by the roadside and on the ground that has thorns and stones. And he does not do it carelessly. The parable does not give the smallest hint that the farmer sows all these various soils by chance. No word indicates that some grains fall from his hands on the wayside and others are voluntarily thrown on the good soil. The same words are used to describe both acts of sowing.
And it is easy to understand why, when we turn to the agricultural practices of Ancient Palestine. The theologian Joachim Jeremias wrote in his famous book on the parables: "The sower walks on a field that was not yet plowed [...] He sows on purpose on the path that the villagers opened through the stubble field, because this path will be plowed together with the rest of the ground. He also seeds on purpose among parched thorns of the uncultivated land, because they will also be included in the plowing. And the grains that fall on the stony ground should not surprise us, for the limestone [...] does not stand out of the field that was not plowed until the ploughshare, creaking, strikes against it"(JEREMIAH, Joachim. Parables of Jesus. São Paulo: Paulinas, 1976).
The custom mentioned by Jeremiah is exactly opposite to modern agricultural practices. Today’s farmers first plow, then sow. At the time of Jesus, the husbandmen first sowed, then plowed. And when they sowed, they turned the precarious ways of the field into farm. They also did not take in account if some parts of the field had rocks or thorns, for the plough would latter prepare them to grow plants.
We are used to hearing and repeating that the three kinds of soil that did not bring forth fruits are negative, if not cursed, but Jesus taught another thing. He meant he did not carry out his mission as a sower with partiality. He did not go into the world saying "yes to this, no to that, yes to this, no to that". On the contrary, he brought the kingdom of heavens to all types of men. The fact that some soils did not bring forth fruits does not mean they were to be rejected. According to the agricultural practice of the time, they were not. Rather, when the next sowing season came, they would receive new seeds and be ploughed again. Maybe they would grow the expected vegetables, maybe not. If they did not, they would still be sown again.
This is the meaning of the parable strictly speaking. It has been expounded several times, though in a way that excludes the chance of the three bad soils coming to produce fruit. The deficiencies of the three soils are indeed obvious and should not be denied. But we must also learn the lesson implicit in the agricultural methods of the time that they would be sown and ploughed again and again in the future. This is the strict meaning of the sower`s story.
But the parable also has a broad meaning, which Jesus expounded when the disciples asked him "Why do you speak in parables to them?" (Matthew 13:10). It is meaningful that this question is connected to the parable in all three synoptic Gospels, though Mark and Luke present it differently from Matthew. Mark says: "When He was alone, those around Him, with the twelve, asked Him about the parables" (Mark 4:10). In Luke we read: "His disciples questioned Him as to what this parable [the sower's] might be" (Luke 8:9).
In all cases, Jesus answered that "to you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens, but to them [the crowds] it has not been given" (Matthew 13:11). And in all three Gospels the quote from Isaiah was added: "In them the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, In hearing you shall hear and by no means understand, and seeing you shall see and by no means perceive. For the heart of this people has become fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and their eyes have closed, lest they perceive with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and they turn around, and I will heal them" (Matthew 13:14-15).
These last words are not only a teaching about parables, but about the parable of the sower in particular. They unveil that Jesus’ ministry brought in the terrible crisis Isaiah had predicted. From the viewpoint of the prophetic ministry which was Isaiah's, nothing could be more dramatic than people hear and do not understand, see and do not perceive. No crisis could be more extreme than the one that led God to harden people's heart, so that they did not understand what was preached to them. That was the consummate denial of the prophetic ministry and its total failure.
It is astonishing that, in John 12:12, the crowd of Matthew reappears. And so does the grain of wheat, in John 12:24, which is again said to fall on the ground and bear much fruit: "Truly, truly I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit". These verses are the parable repeated in all that concerns the good land. And the prophecy of Isaiah is also seen once more: "That the word of the prophet Isaiah which he said might be fulfilled [...] He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart" etc. (John 12:38,40).
John 12 really shows that the parable of the sower remained in the heart of Jesus much after he taught it in Matthew 13. But in both passages it may be read as a disclosure of the Jews' negative situation. And it truly is, but not only. It is even more a teaching about the solution of the problem of the people's hardening. Throughout the Bible, we see the children of Israel being unfaithful and God being faithful, up to a point when God gets tired of them and abandons them. Not few times, this abandonment seems to be definite and irreversible. In all this, God's feelings seem like those of the best men, who can be faithful and loyal to other people, but not indefinitely. For men, the time always comes when they leave those who are unfaithful and disloyal to them.
These feelings that God has in common with men explain much of the judgment and of the suffering we find in human life. But the Bible shows that God also has feelings that are quite different from man's. And that these different feelings are God's last word to man. As Jeremiah wrote: "If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man`s wife, will he return to her again? Will not that land be utterly polluted? But you have committed fornication with many lovers. Yet return to Me, declares Jehovah" (Jer 3:1). And Isaiah: "For a short moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In a flood of wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with eternal lovingkindness I will have mercy on you, says Jehovah your Redeemer. For this is like the waters of Noah to Me, when I swore that the waters of Noah would not overflow the earth ever again, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor will I rebuke you. For the mountains may depart, and the hills may shake, but my lovingkindness will not depart from you, and my covenant of peace will not shake" (Isa 54:7-10).
The dying of the grain and its bearing much fruit are the symbols of God`s unchanging mercy towards men. They are no longer the problem that Isaiah presented, but its solution, the fulfillment of Isaiah`s words of peace to Israel. The parable of the sower was pronounced to bring in the solution. "The seed is the word of God" (Luke 8:11), said Jesus. When the word falls in the heart and dies, which means is opened up, the power of its life fully renews man.
But how we want the word to be sown only in one kind of people! How we want all believers to be alike! And how we also want the seed to grow into tree right away! We want to convince people and vanquish their understanding immediately. Thus we transform the preaching of the gospel in conflict, in an effort to disintegrate ways of thinking, feeling and acting. Such are the Crusades we see in today's Christian world.
Jesus did nothing comparable to this. He was and still is a mere sower. Two thousand years ago, he launched the grains to the soil. And as a good sower, he left all the rest to nature. That means to the nature of the word and of the heart. God's plan of salvation and lovingkindness is not implanting trees, but this grain of the word in the heart. And in spite of all the discrimination of men, in the heart does not mean in a certain kind of heart or in a certain standard of men, but in all kinds of hearts and in all kinds of men.
