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The Sower > Verses
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The
Parable of “the One” who Sows
Mark
4:1-34
Knowledge
of “the mysteries of the kingdom”…are made known through parables
so that they may look but not see ... and hear but not understand.”
Jesus
Christ, Parable of the Sower, Luke 8:10
The
Parable of the Sower appears in all three synoptic gospels. Matthew
(13:1-23) and Luke (8:4-15) copied Mark’s four-step literary structure
and closely paraphrased his words as well. Mark's first two verses
set the scene, verses 3 to 9 tell the story, verses 10 to 13 declare
the parable a “mystery,” and verses 14 to 20 give the apparent solution
or moral of the riddle.
Each
Gospel version of the Sower emphasizes that it contains “mysteries”
and each one boasts about how well those “mysteries” are hidden.
Matthew even congratulates any person who “saw the mysteries
that prophets and righteous people had longed to see but were not
clever enough to comprehend.” Millions of people over the centuries
have tried to discover the “mysteries” that the gospel authors so
proudly boasted were hidden within their parables and miracle stories.
Everyone has failed because no one could figure out the encryption
method they used to conceal their secrets.
In
Mark’s parable, “the one” goes out to sow but he doesn’t immediately
say what he is sowing. The stem of the Greek verbs speiron and speirai
meaning “sowing” and “to sow” use the same stem as the Greek noun
sperma meaning “seed” so by implication one assumes the Parable
is talking about sowing “seed.” This interpretation is then reinforced
when he later says that “birds ate some” and “others were scorched
by the sun or choked by thorn bushes” but he never actually says
the word “seed.”
Then
Jesus later explains that the Sower is not sowing seed, he is sowing
“the word.” This is one of the most important keys to solving the
riddle because each verse contains key “words” and many of these
key words are innocuous pronouns, words that are used to point at
or refer to words that should be understood by the context of the
story but are never stated. A key word is like a variable in mathematics
such as the expression “x + 2 =3” where by implication “x” is obviously
the number “1.”
The parable of the Sower, is a story with many levels
of interpretation. Mark’s version says that the Sower sows seeds
in “the way” and that they bear fruit ... in thirty, sixty, and
one-hundred. Jesus then says “Who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
When the twelve ask Jesus to explain the parable, he answers them
with the question “Didn’t you understand this parable? How will
you understand any of the parables?”
The
parable of the Sower is really a story about the power of “words.”
The power to say one thing but mean another. “The One” who “sows”
has two identities. On one level, “the Sower” is Jesus, but on another,
the sower is the author of the gospel who is sowing an historical
Jesus into the mind of the reader. Mark wrote his gospel the same
way Jesus taught, through parables sprinkled with metaphors, puns,
synonyms, ironies, allegories, riddles, and words having more than
one meaning so that no one can really understand what either is
talking about.
Mark’s
first three chapters introduce Jesus as an itinerant prophet, teacher,
and healer. In Mark 2:13 for instance, Jesus goes beside a lake,
a crowd comes to him, and he teaches, but Mark gives no details
as to what Jesus taught. That incident sets up the current story
where Jesus returns to the lake to teach a huge crowd. This time
Mark tells the reader what and how Jesus taught in the form of four
parables titled the Sower, the Lamp, the Growing of Seed, and the
Mustard Seed. Each story is a riddle about Jesus and how the Gospel
is written. The chapter ends like it started, with Jesus teaching
by the Sea. Let’s take a closer look at the structure of the first
story and take Mark at his word that the parable is “a mystery”
... meaning “a riddle” ... a Sacred Geometry riddle.
read
the verses
