TRANSLATION MATTHEW 13:1

On that day Jesus went out of his house and sat down by the sea. And a crowd gathered round him, so numerous that he stepped into a boat and sat down, while the whole crowd stood on the shore, and he spoke many teachings to them in parables.

He said, “See this!- a sower went out to the sowing. And in his sowing, some seeds fell upon the path, and the birds came and ate them up. But some fell on stony ground where they had little soil, and they sprang up immediately because they had no depth of soil. When the sun rose, they were scorched, and having no root, they withered. Then some fell amongst the briers, which grew and throttled them. But some fell on good ground and bore grain, some a hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty.

If you have ears, use them!

Scholars have had an argument about the method of sowing in Palestine, some suggesting that the soil was ploughed after sowing, others that it was ploughed before the sowing. The truth seems to be that while there would be a preliminary ploughing in advance of sowing, paths and weeds would be common on the land when the sowing took place. This was followed by a main ploughing. The sower is not careless but confident that ploughing would turn in most of his seed. I think Jesus is describing the ordinary process of sowing.

His argument is that, in spite of losses, the sower is right to trust the process: seed and good ground work the miracle of abundant life. The kingdom of heaven, it grows in this way. There is difficulty, opposition, failure, but there is also, always, the creation of life. Even in the midst of difficulty life springs up, as it does in the huge crowd which is listening to Jesus.

Yes, there follows an official interpretation of the parable which makes it into an allegory of human response to the message, but it should be seen as a (not very profound) application of the parable. The original, a description of how God works, is a marvel of dissident understanding of God’s way: not the omnipotent, not the irresistible will, but the sower of life, casting promiscuously, but knowing waste, failure and opposition. How beautiful this picture is!