Hello everyone. Welcome back to Logical Bible
Study. We're all about taking a look at
the literal sense of Scripture and particularly the Gospel
reading for today's Mass. What was Jesus trying to
communicate in the original context?
What does the text mean when we let it speak on its own terms
and we try and do this in a rigorous Catholic academic way?
So today we're going to look at 2 passages, Matthew 13 versus 1
to 9 and then versus 18 to 23. Now this episode is going to be
the same on two days this week. So the reason for that is the
parable is given in Wednesday's lectionary reading.
So Wednesday of week 16 in ordinary time, we get to hear
the parable versus 1:00 to 9:00 and then the parable is actually
explained by Jesus later in the chapter.
So in verses 18 to 23, which we hear on Friday of week 16, we
get to hear Jesus own explanation of the parables.
So I've combined both of those together and we'll look at both
of those at the same time, which means this episode is going to
be exactly the same on Wednesday of week 16 in ordinary time and
also Friday of week 16. So you might have already heard
this episode, depending on when you're what day you're
listening. So here's today's text.
Matthew, chapter 13, verses 1 to 9 and verses 18 to 23.
Jesus left the house and sat by the lakeside, but such large
crowds gathered round him that he got into a boat and sat
there. The people all stood on the
beach and he told them many things in parables, he said.
Imagine a seller going out to sow as he sowed.
Some seeds fell on the edge of the path, and the birds came and
ate them up. Others fell on patches of rock,
where they found little soil and sprang up straight away because
there was no depth of earth. But as soon as the sun came up
they were scorched and not having any roots, they withered
away. Others fell among thorns, and
the thorns grew up and choked them.
Others fell on rich soil and produced their crop, some a
hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Listen, anyone who has ears,
Jesus said to his disciples, You are to hear the parable of the
sower. When anyone hears the word of
the Kingdom without understanding, the evil one
comes and carries off what was sown in his heart.
This is the man who received the seed on the edge of the path.
The one who received it on patches of rock is the man who
hears the word and welcomes it at once with joy.
But he has no root in him. He does not last, Let some trial
come or some persecution on account of the Word, and he
falls away at once. The one who received the seed in
thorns is the man who hears the Word.
But the worries of this world and the law of riches choke the
Word. And so he produces nothing.
And the one who received the seed in rich soil is the man who
hears the word and understands it.
He is the one who yields a harvest and produces now a
hundredfold, Now 60, now 30. So here we are at the start of
Matthew, chapter 13. And that's often called the
parables chapter of Matthew. So here Matthew has assembled 7
Kingdom parables. It's possible that Jesus spoke
them all on the one day as Matthew presents it here.
Or they could have been ones that he spoke at different
times. But Matthew has assembled them
and put them all in one chapter. Some of the parables will see in
the coming days. As we look at Matthew 13, they
only appear in the Gospel of Matthew.
So there's going to be some ones in here that you won't hear all
that often. But of course, today we have one
that's very well known, the parable of the sower.
Some scholars call Matthew, Chapter 13, the para, the Sermon
on the Sea. So you know how there's the
sermon on the plane and the Sermon on the Mount.
This is kind of like a sermon on the sea.
Now we're going to look at parables, and this is where I
think the science of exegesis becomes really focused and
really useful. We need to do proper, solid
exegesis on the parables. Many would say that parables
have lots of hidden meanings, and you can make of parables,
you know, draw lots of different meanings out of parables.
And that is true to an extent. Jesus probably did deliberately
choose parables that had multiple spiritual meanings, but
still, it's generally the case. In fact, almost always the case
that when Jesus picks a parable, he has one specific, literal
meaning in mind. He means one specific thing.
There's one thing he's trying to say about the Kingdom of God to
his audience, and that's what we want to get at in this podcast.
We want to look at what is probably the literal sense of
the text. What did Jesus mean?
Now we're lucky because for this parable, Jesus actually gives us
the interpretation. He tells us what he means,
though most of the time we don't get to hear that.
So in verses 1 to 9, Jesus gives the parable of the sower, and
that's read on Wednesday of week 16 in ordinary time.
And then there's a gap where he talks about something else.
For verses 10 to 17, the disciples ask him about parables
in general. And that discussion about
parables is we hear that in the electionary on Thursday of week
16 in ordinary time. And then he comes back to
interpreting the parable of the Sowa in verses 18 to 23.
And we hear that on Friday of week 16 in ordinary time.
So today's episode is going to look at the Wednesday and the
Friday and there will be a separate one for Thursday of
week 16. This podcast is all about
getting at the literal sense, and for parables that means what
did Jesus intend when he gave that parable?
And as I said, we're going to see that Jesus actually gave us
the interpretation. So that's why we want to read
the parable with the interpretation rather than
trying to just read the parable and then coming up with our own
interpretation. So we started first one.
Jesus left the house. What it actually says there is
on that same day Jesus went out of the house.
So it's on the same day that he finished up at the end of
chapter 12. So if you read the end of
chapter 12, he was in the house in Capernum speaking to the
crowds, and that's when his relatives come and they want to
speak to him. They're waiting outside the
house in Capernum. Now, it's significant that
Matthew mentions this. He wants his readers to notice
that this occurs on the same day.
What else happened in chapter 12 on the same day?
Well, he had the confrontation with the Pharisees in chapter
12, and many of the parables, as we'll see, continue this same
theme of division. It says he sat by the lakeside,
so he's sitting down, which is the common teaching position of
a rabbi. Verse two, such large crowds
gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there.
So they've become so many people by the lakeside that he has to
get out into a boat so that they don't press in too hard against
him. And this boat would have been
like a large canoe. And they've actually found a 1st
century fishing boat in Israel that you can look at online if
you'd like to, which is very similar to probably what what he
would have sat on. And so he's sitting in the boat
and the people who stood on the beach.
Now sound carries quite well over water.
So when Jesus is speaking here on the boat, it's not just to
get away from the crowd. It's also so that they can hear
him better as he speaks over the crowd.
There would have been thousands on the slope going down to the
sea, and they could probably hear him speaking from the boat.
Verse three, he told them many things in parables.
So what's a parable? Well, it's from the Greek
paraboli, and that basically means comparison.
And when we look at the Thursday episode, which is a discussion
about why does Jesus speak in parables, we'll look at this in
more detail. There were some parables in the
Old Testament, but Jesus uses them in quite a specific way.
They're basically a short, memorable story from daily life
that confounds profound, conveys profound spiritual truth.
In most of Jesus parables, Jesus sets up some sort of familiar
situation that everyone in the crowd would be familiar with,
and then he basically says the Kingdom of God is like this.
So Jesus hope is that by setting things up this way, people will
understand a bit more about how the Kingdom of God works by
seeing kind of an analogy of how something similar works in
everyday daily life. But of course it's a bit more
complicated than that. We can't just stop at saying it
helps make the Kingdom of God clearer, because Jesus actually
says that he chooses to speak in parables because he wants to
make things less clear, which is quite surprising.
And we'll see that when we look at the Thursday episode, which
is verses 10 to 17. We'll discuss more about the
purpose of parables. Now, Jesus has done parables
earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, but now Matthew here in
verse three says he begins to speak to them at length in
parables. So he gives the crowd rapid fire
parables and that confuses the disciples.
They wonder why he starts talking in parables.
As we'll see when we look at verse 10, there's probably some
parables that Jesus spoke that we don't get to hear.
But Matthew just gives his audience the ones that he feels
the most appropriate for his purpose, which is to show that
Jesus is the Messiah. So he starts by saying this,
imagine a sower going out to sow.
So we're talking here about a farmer planting seed.
Remember, he's speaking to the Jews in Galilee.
He's by the Sea of Galilee. And they probably could have
looked around and seen fields, and they probably could have
seen farmers sowing seeds just as Jesus is speaking.
They live in quite an agricultural area now.
When a farmer was sowing seed, the general strategy was to
plant seed everywhere and then play out the ground when he
plants some on the path and then the rocky ground and the thorns.
As we'll see, he's not being careless.
He knows that some of his seed is not going to work, but his
strategy is to scatter it everywhere and then ploughed
into the ground. He knows that some of it won't
work and some of it will miss the mark.
But he knows the strategy is the wider the space he can cover
with the seeds, the more crop he's able to produce.
And that's an interesting metaphor for the Kingdom, isn't
it? Also, this image of a sower
sowing seed would also have been familiar from the Old Testament.
There's a few times in the Old Testament where God is depicted
as a sower. So you see that in Isaiah 55 and
Jeremiah 31 and Hosea chapter 2 and in the Old Testament, the
seed of the Sower represents God's word that God hopes will
produce an abundant crop. Interestingly, now in this
parable, the seed is Jesus own word, not God's word.
It's actually kind of Jesus word.
So this could be a subtle reference to Jesus claiming to
be God. Perhaps because certainly
Matthew's readers would have recognized the similarity to
what God says about sowing seeds in the Old Testament.
So that's an interesting thing we often miss here.
Now as we go on versus 4 to 8, Jesus tells the parable, and
we're all pretty familiar with the parable.
So the sea gets spread into four places, so it falls on the edge
of the path. And that's eaten by the birds
because it's quite visible, so easily accessible to the birds.
Some of it falls on rocky ground.
And Israel did have quite rocky volcanic rock that was not good
for growing soil. And Jesus says the seed on rocky
ground finds little soil and sprang up straight away.
It had no depth of earth and when the sun came up it was
scorched and not having any roots it with it away.
So in other words, the seed wasn't properly grounded.
It wasn't in good soil, so it didn't last very long.
Even though it did spring up quickly, it doesn't last long.
In verse 7 there's another group of seeds that are sown among
thorns. So the thorns grow up and they
choke it, and even though it has good soil and good roots, it
produces no fruit. And then in verse 8, some seed
falls on the good rich soil. It grows tall and strong, and as
the parable says, it yields 3060 and a hundredfold.
Now, for a farmer working in ancient Galilee, thirtyfold is
an excellent harvest. That's great.
And then sixtyfold is awesome. You would only get that a couple
of times in your career as a farmer.
To get a hundredfold would be miraculous.
And that's kind of the point, isn't it, When Jesus says
yielding A hundredfold, that's incredible.
That can't be done by man alone. So already we have hints here
that we're dealing here with the work of God.
Now notice what the measure of success here is in this parable.
How do we tell whether the seed was successful or not?
Well, it's how much grain or fruit it produces.
This is something people often miss in order of most productive
seed to least productive. The most productive in the
parable is the rich soil, obviously.
Then the next most productive, interestingly, is the rocky
ground, the sea that falls on rocky ground because they
produce fruit for a short time, which is interesting.
It's just the fruit doesn't last.
And then the next most productive would be the thorns.
So in a way we could say it doesn't produce any fruit.
Even though it looked promising, as though it was going to
produce fruit, it doesn't actually produce any.
And then lastly, those on the path, they don't even start the
process of producing fruit at all.
So that's interesting. Verse 9, Jesus finishes the
Powerball by saying, listen, anyone who has ears, or most
translations here say he who has ears, let him hear basically
means absorb into one's heart. That's what it means to hear.
It means to really reflect on and meditate on.
So Jesus here is signaling that what he's just said is
important. He wants the crowd to go away
and reflect on it, to think about their place and the
Kingdom and whether they really do understand the Kingdom or
not. When the crowd heard this
parable, they don't get to hear the interpretation that we get
to hear in a few verses time. So they would not have
necessarily known straight away what he meant.
The point was, Jesus wants them to go away and think about the
parable and think about what it means.
And hopefully it will force them to not be neutral, it will force
them to be challenged and to make a decisive response and
commit to the Kingdom. So then we have the gap, verse
10 to 17, which we look at Thursday in week 6IN week 16
where the disciples asked Jesus about parables in general, Then
we get to verse 18. So Jesus is still speaking to
his disciples. He says remember he's just
speaking to his 12 disciples. The crowds are gone now.
You are to hear the parable of the sower.
So Jesus perceives that they don't understand the parable and
he wants to help them. He wants to make sure that they
do understand the parable. He gives them the inside scoop
and he tells them the meaning of the parable.
And we're very thankful that he does that because now thanks to
Matthew writing it down what he says, we get to hear what Jesus
meant when he gave the parable, which we don't get to hear for
most of the parables. So here's what he says is the
meaning of the parable of the sower.
Let's keep in mind this is Jesus own interpretation.
In Marc's version we get a bit more.
Here Jesus tells us a bit more about what each of the specific
elements represents. So if you look at Mark chapter 4
verses 1 to 20, Jesus specifically says to the
apostles here the seed represents the word.
And in fact, Matthew calls this the message of the Kingdom.
So Matthew tells us this is specifically about the Kingdom
of God, the information that Jesus is providing about the
Kingdom of God. So that's the seed.
The sower represents those spreading the message of the
Kingdom of God. So that's what Mark's version
tells us. So we get the seed and the
sower. Now what might the roots mean?
This is just my interpretation because Jesus doesn't tell us
exactly what the roots are. But I think this is a decent
interpretation. Roots, we can say, is something
like intellectual understanding. So it's understanding the basics
of the Kingdom of God and what it costs.
I think that's a decent understanding of what the roots
would be, understanding what the Kingdom of God is about and what
it requires. And then fruit, I think we can
reasonably say that means acting on the message of the Kingdom
and producing good works. Fruit is often a metaphor that
Jesus uses for good work. So I think we can safely assume
that's what fruit is here, producing good works in response
to the Kingdom. So I'll say those four elements
again and then we'll try them on for size here.
So seed represents the word, the message of the Kingdom of God.
The sower represents those spreading the message of the
Kingdom. Roots is understanding the
Kingdom of God and what it costs, and fruit is acting on
the message of the Kingdom and producing good works.
So Jesus now tells the disciples what that means in terms of each
of the four kinds of seed. Who do the four types of seeds
represent? So firstly, the seed that fell
on path basically represents, and this is what Jesus says
here, it's the people who hear the word, the message of the
Kingdom without understanding. And Mark's version actually says
that Satan is involved here, that Satan immediately takes
away the word from their heart, so they don't perceive it at
all. What does that mean for Satan to
take away the word from their heart?
And Matthew's version calls it the Evil One as well.
It probably means something like they hear the message of the
Kingdom, but through fear or faulty human reasoning, they
don't actually absorb the message of the Kingdom at all.
Now that would certainly apply to the Pharisees who so
misunderstand him that they think his message is not from
God at all, so they dismiss his message.
And it could also apply to the towns that Jesus has been
condemning in earlier chapters. Remember, he's been condemning
these local Galilee towns because they see his works, but
they do not repent. So that would be a reasonable
approximation of the seed that falls on the path.
You could also possibly think about who this might apply to in
society today. Certainly that would apply to
people who hear the message of the Gospel that but then dismiss
it straight away. That would be the seed falling
on the path verse 20. This is those on rocky ground
and this is a really interesting group.
Jesus says the rocky ground soil are people who welcome the
Kingdom with joy, but they have no root.
So when the persecution arises because of the word, they fall
away. Now the Greek word therefore
fall away is scandalize. My so it has this idea of
completely getting rid of the faith, falling away from it and
causing scandal. So notice what it says about the
people in the rocky ground. It's people who do well at the
start. They receive the message of the
Kingdom with joy, but they leave the Kingdom when they're
persecuted for it. Notice it's being persecuted on
account of the word, not just tough times in life in general.
You'll often hear sermons that make it sound like the rocky
ground is people who struggle with life, so they give up on
Christianity. It's not quite right.
It's people who give up because they're persecuted for being a
Christian or for being a part of the Kingdom.
And we know that there were many Christians in the time of Jesus
who did this in the early years of the Jewish and Christian
persecution. Many people did give up the
faith when they were at the point of death so that they
could survive. Many were persecuted for their
own families and they gave in. So that would be people in the
rocky ground. Notice they did produce some
good fruit, but then they fall away.
Verse 22 This is the thorny soil.
It's people who hear the word, but the cares of the world,
delight in riches and desire for other things enter in and choke
the word and it proves unfruitful.
What it actually says here in Greek is the deceit of riches.
So there's strong echoes here of basically the world.
The flesh and the devil is what gets to this group.
So I think we can say these are people who understand the
message of the Kingdom. Notice they're specifically said
to have roots here. They do sort of take root in the
soil, but other things choke them out.
So they probably understand the Kingdom, but they're more
interested in other earthly things.
So in the end, they produce no fruit.
Who would this apply to? Well, we know that it probably
applies very well to the rich young man.
We'll see him later in the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 19.
Remember, the rich young man comes and says what else do I
have to do to get into the Kingdom?
Jesus says give up your riches and he won't do it.
That would probably apply to a lot of society today as well,
who perhaps have a basic understanding of what
Christianity is on about, although certainly not everyone
has this. But they're more interested in
other things. And then lastly, verse 23 is the
seed that falls on rich soil. So that's those who receive the
word and understand it. He is the one who yields a
harvest and produces thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.
So those who meditate on the message of the Kingdom and
cooperate with God's grace. In other words, they act on
Jesus commandments. That's who the rich soil is.
These are the ones who advance in the Kingdom and to understand
the meaning of the parables, which hopefully would be Jesus,
apostles, and other people in the crowd as well, who go away
and meditate on the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.
Through God's grace he helps them produce fruit and progress
further in the Kingdom. Notice though, that not everyone
in the category produces the same amount of yield, so there's
thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold.
So the expectation is not that everyone in the Kingdom produces
exactly the same kind of fruit, or even the same amount of
fruit. And that's an important teaching
for the Kingdom of God. It's possible to be in the
Kingdom, but not to produce as much fruit as someone else, and
therefore there's different levels of reward as well.
And that's certainly part of Catholic teaching about
cooperating with God's grace. So it's not the perfection is
required to get into the Kingdom, but perfection is an
element that helps people progress further once they're
already in the Kingdom. We need to keep that in mind
when we deal with Matthew's Gospel.
Notice that Jesus has only told this interpretation to his
apostles. The crowd does not get to hear
these last few verses where he's interpreted the parable for
them. So the crowd, if they're to
understand the meaning of the parable, they have to go away
and meditate on it. Now we're lucky because we're
not in the crowd. We can.
We have access to the interpretation that Jesus meant.
We should still meditate on it, but we don't have to guess about
the meaning of the interpretation, and we're quite
privileged in that sense. But in the original context,
those in the crowd who do meditate on it would be guided
by God through His grace to find the meaning of the parable.
But those in the crowd who couldn't be bothered going away
and thinking about it would not have received any extra grace
from God. They wouldn't find the meaning
and in that sense they wouldn't progress further in the Kingdom.
It's interesting, isn't it, the dynamics of the parable and what
Jesus expects them to do with it.
We often don't hear it praise in those terms.
So in this sense, Jesus is able to impart information about the
Kingdom of God only to those who are worthy of it and who really
think about it and cooperate with God.
Not to everyone. We're in a different position
because the apostles and the gospel writers tell us directly
what the meaning of many of the parables are, not all of them.
And that's why we still need to do exegesis, because there's
some parables that we can't get the full interpretation of that
we can get close. But for the crowd, it's
different. So overall, from the parable of
the Sower Jesus message to his original audience, the crowd was
for them to examine their response to the call of the
Kingdom of God and honestly evaluate what obstacles might be
hindering them from bearing the abundant harvest that God
desires of them. Now let's turn to the catechism.
Where do we see the parable of the solar referenced?
Well, it's referenced in a couple of places.
Paragraph 546 is about parables in general, and we'll look at
this paragraph specifically when we look at the Thursday of week
16. But in that paragraph it does
mention good soil, bad soil as a metaphor that Jesus uses.
Paragraph 29. There's a really interesting
reference to it here, early in the Catechism, and this is in
the section about desire for God.
It says the intimate and vital bond of man to God can be
forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man.
Such attitudes can have different causes.
Revolt against evil in the world.
Religious ignorance or indifference, the cares and
riches of this world. The scandal of bad example on
the part of believers. Currents of thought hostile to
religion. Finally that attitude of sinful
man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his
cool really important paragraph. And I actually think this early
part of the Catechism is one of the most important but and it
needs more attention. We should learn the early part
of the Catechism because it tells us how we can come to know
God and why some people don't come to know God.
This paragraph in particular lists several reasons why people
don't ever come to know God, even though they could if they
thought about it, and at least one of the reasons as the cares
and riches of this world, which is referenced directly in the
parable of the Sower. So we'll leave it there for
today. One of the most commonly known
parables is the parable of the Sower that we've looked at
today. But I'll I'm sure you agree that
when you look at it with a bit more depth, there's a bit more
going on here. If you think others would
benefit from hearing this podcast, this episode where we
dive into The Parable of the Sower, please share it with
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We'll continue in the Gospel of Matthew tomorrow.