The parable of the sower
It is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time and today's gospel reading is a parable that our Lord Jesus has given to his disciples. You can find it in Matt.13: 1-9 while this is a short version, we can continue with this story for the purpose of explaining why our Lord Jesus talks in parables.
"13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop-a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear."
***
You must have noticed that when our Lord Jesus Christ spoke in parables his story was very agricultural. Indeed, the Lord wanted his listeners to easily understand the meaning of his story; hence for this particular passage about the Parable of the Sower, he knew that most of his listeners were farmers who could easily understand what he was talking about.
Basically this parable has four different scenarios. For instance what the sower sows is the seed, which is the Word of God. When it falls on hard ground, it really meant that the Word of God falls on a very sinful man who is deaf to God's message. This is why the seed is wasted, as the hard ground cannot certainly get the seed to take root, hence the birds ate the seed.
In the next verse we read on 5 some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root." The rocky ground allows the seed to germinate and grow, but the soil has no depth and so when the seed grows as it takes root, it gets withered in the sun and dies. Then the next verse says, 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants." In this scenario, the seed falls on fertile soil, except that it is surrounded by thorns and when the plant grows, the thorns choke the plant and it dies.
Then in the last verse, it says, "Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop -a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." In this scenario, the Word of God falls on the ears of a man who embraces God's message and he transmits them to his friends and relatives who in turn also tell the others about the Good News of the Gospel.
For our message today, the sower is our parish priest in whose sermon, gives us the message of God taken from the Bible. So the question we ought to ask ourselves is: How do we perceive the message of God as given by our parish priest? Do we receive it like we are on hard ground or footpath where nothing grows? Or do we take the message like we are on stony ground, we receive and welcome God's message to us, but as the day goes on, we forget what that message was all about? Hence God's message might as well fall on soil surrounded by thorns.
But there are those inside the church who accept God's message and when they go home, they explains it to their family and when their friends come they also explain it to them. Then they go to their church-based community and spread the Good News of the Gospel. In short these persons bear much fruit because if you don't, remember our Lord Jesus cursed the fig tree!
***
For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.
- Latest
