Luke 8:4-15: The Sower – Living as an Engaged Listener
Thursday, June 26, 2025
This familiar story has much to teach us not only about our capacity to instruct others but about the way we engage the mysteries of God’s kingdom. Commentary tells us that this parable “can serve to encourage those who have looked at their failures and who have forgotten that some seed will yield abundantly. What is important is to realize that this is a parable, and therefore is not a simple illustration of a point being made otherwise. Rather, a parable is the message, and a message offered in such a way as to elicit listener involvement in its meaning. With parables listeners bear heavy responsibility for what is heard and understood; quite often the message is not obvious nor available to casual, unengaged listeners . . . In the interpretation (8:11-15) the parable is made into an allegory, i.e., a story in which each item in the narrative is made to represent something else. Most scholars agree this interpretation represents the situation of the early church in its missionary preaching to a variety of conditions. As an ‘explanation’ of the parable, however, the interpretation is less than clear”. (Mays, 939)
We always want answers to our questions in the same manner as we warm a meal in a microwave oven. We hit a few buttons and we have our desired result. Listening for and to God’s voice is not so swiftly done. In order to hear the wisdom of scripture we must settle ourselves, read the words before us, and then grapple with the “less than clear” interpretation given to us. As the commentary points out, even when we are active, engaged listeners we will not clearly discern the message we know is being placed before us. And so we look for more clues.
In Matthew 13:18 Jesus seems to be saying that the word goes out to four kinds of hearers: those who will never accept the kingdom’s word, those who believe for a little while and then lose heart and fall away, those who believe but who are too anxious to act, and finally those who hear the word and produce fruit abundantly. We see roles defined and demarcations made; the mystery becomes a bit more clear for us and we are less uncomfortable; yet we know there is more. We understand that with this story – as with all stories that Jesus tells – we are given the opportunity to clear away some of the fog that always clutters our view when we are kingdom-seeking. We are given the chance to examine our failures and successes without being judged. Knowing that there is more to be found than these simple equivalents of soil and people, we return to Luke’s Gospel, we concentrate and read again. We lean forward a bit as if to physically engage ourselves with these verses in order to wrestle more clarity from them in order to dispel the fog that impedes our vision. We pray as we read each verse.
Knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God has been granted to you . . . and we offer a quick prayer of thanksgiving for this story that shows us that although we work hard at conveying God’s message of love, we will not always succeed. We marvel at this God who is so patient and willing to give each of us all the time we need to find our way to God. Thus one of the mysteries of the kingdom is revealed.
But to the rest [the mysteries] are made known through parables so that ‘they may look but not see, and hear but not understand’ . . . and we offer a quick prayer of petition that stony hearts be softened and stiff necks unbent. We marvel at this God who is so merciful and loving that God waits endlessly for us to finally listen and hear to finally see and understand. And here is another mystery of the kingdom revealed.
The image of sowing and reaping was common in Jesus’ day and so the story of the sower was easily understood on a practical level. What was challenging for Jesus’ listeners then – and what is just as challenging for us today – is to engage with the mysteries Jesus offers to us, to enter into the inscrutable ways of the kingdom, and to willing accept the heavy responsibility of living in this swirling fog of trust, fear, compassion, mystery, and love. This is a message Jesus gives his kingdom-builders. It is a message we are called to live.
Mays, James L., ed. HARPERCOLLINS BIBLE COMMENTARY. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988. 1203. Print.
Image from: https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficheiro:The_Sower_-_painting_by_Van_Gogh.jpg
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