Mark 4:1-20 - The Parable of the Sower/Soils

Mark 4:1-20 The Parable of the Sower-Seed-Soils - Summer Hill - 19 July 2020 It is a pleasure to be with you - virtually - to continue in the current sermon series in Mark's gospel. Mark 4 is a great passage for us to be thinking about, at this very unusual time in church life. What should be our priorities as a church as we approach the next season in church life? Our passage today is part of a series of parables, which are about the "secrets" or the "mysteries" of the kingdom of God", as Jesus puts it in verse 11 (depending on the translation you have). For many of us, this will be a familiar parable, and we might think that there isn't much that remains a mystery to us. However, there is more to the parable than meets the eye. In particular, I want you to note that the parable operates at two levels. At the first level, it is a parable about the ways people respond to the word of God. There are 4 soils in the parable, and each soil represents a different response to the word of God. And the message of the parable to us is "be the good soil". But notice that - if that was the sum total of the message - then verses 10 and 12 are redundant. All that is necessary is the parable itself in verses 3-9 and the explanation in verses 13 to 20. Verses 10-12 are there for a reason, because the parable has a second level; a second message. Jesus told this parable to explain to his disciples why some people don't respond to the word of God, and what they are supposed to do about this. Let's take a look at the parable, at these two levels. Firstly, as a parable about different responses to the word of God. The parable is about a farmer who goes out to sow his seed. The seed fa3ls in four different places - "along the path" (v.4), "on rocky places" (v.5) , "among thorns" (.v7), and "on good soil" (v.8). As Jesus explains in v.14, the seed represent the word - that is, the message about the kingdom of God. It is the message that Jesus commenced his public ministry with, which Mark's gospel told us about in the opening chapter - Mark 1:15 'The time has come... The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!' The kingdom of God had "come near" because the king of that kingdom had come near - Jesus had come into this world and was on his way to take up his throne. The message of the kingdom is that Jesus is God's anointed king. The way that someone becomes a member of that kingdom is by following Jesus as king. That means saying to Jesus - "I submit to you as my king - my Lord - my master. I want to follow you; I want to be your disciple." That message of the kingdom is the "seed" in the parable, and the way that the seed is sown is by proclamation. Jesus preached that word, and he commissioned his disciples to do likewise - "Go ... and make disciples of all nations" (Matt 28:19). The disciples of Jesus have been faithfully sowing that seed ever since, by proclaiming to the world that Jesus is the king, and calling all people to repent and become followers of King Jesus. The parable tells us that, when that message is shared, there are 4 responses. The first response is like the seed that "fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up." That seed does not even get a chance to sprout, because (as says Jesus in verses 15) "as soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them". The second response is like the seed that "fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly ...." (v.5). But then it withered, because the soil was shallow and the roots couldn't go deep. Jesus explains in verse 16 and 17 that this presents the person who responds the message readily and joyfully, but this is only a shallow and superficial response. The person quickly falls away as soon as there is trouble or persecution. "Since they have no root, they last only a short time" (v.17) The third response is like the seed "the seed that fell among the thorns" - this represents the person "who hears the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." (vv.18-19) The final response is like the seed that fell on good soil. This represents those who not only hear the word - but "accept it" (v.20). It is only those people who "produce a crop - some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown." (v.20). At the first level, the parable invites us to ask ourselves a question - what kind of soil am I? What is my response to the message of the kingdom? Like each of the people represented by the 4 soils, I've heard the word - that Jesus God's king, and Jesus is calling me to follow him as King - but how have I responded. Am I the hard path, where the seed is given no opportunity to sprout? I've known people like this - the gospel has been clearly explained, and they understand it cognitively, but they reject it. They don't believe that Jesus is the King, and they certainly don't want to follow Jesus, because they want to call the shots in their life. Or am I the rocky soil - a shallow and superficial understanding that won't last. I've know people who have heard the gospel and said - Yes, I want that. I want a free pass to heaven. But then the friends and family mock them and ostracise them for following Jesus, and they give up Christianity as quickly as they took it up. Or I the weedy soil? Sadly, many of my friends who professed Christian faith as teenagers are no longer calling themselves Christians. They didn't wake up one morning with a crisis of faith - it was a gradual drift away. Why? In the parable, Jesus identifies 3 reasons: the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things. I think that our natural response to this list is one of denial - not, this is not my problem. But I want us to go into that uncomfortable place for a moment, and consider the possibility that this might be describing us. Jesus warns about the deceitfulness of wealth -if I am self-deceived about this, my natural instinct is that this isn't an issue for me. So let me encourage us to reflect on our anxieties - what are the things that we look to, to give us security. Where are we led astray by the treasures of this world, where are we prone to selfishness and hoarding. Where does our desires for other things dominate our thinking and action. How does all this us "unfruitful" for the kingdom? Or am I the good soil. We want to this to be us. But note that what defines the good soil is that it is fruitful - it produces a crop - "some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown". That is, the good soil produces seed that is sown to propagate the kingdom. Are we ourselves like the sower in the parable, spreading the seed of the kingdom to others, helping them to understand the message of the gospel? Putting it like this might make us feel discouraged, because which of us can say that 30 or 60 or 100 people have become Christians because of our testimony? And that is why it is important to hear the second-level message from the parable. Verses 10-12 are there to help us understand why some people don't respond to the word of God when we share the gospel with them. According to verse 1, it was a "large crowd" that heard the parable. It is to this large crowd that Jesus is speaking when he says in verse 9 "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." But notice that it is the twelve disciples and some "others around him" - but not the large crowd - who come to Jesus seeking an explanation of the parable in verse 10. The rest of the crowd are simply not interested. Presumably, they did not see any relevance for them in what Jesus had said. The meaning of the parable is only given to those who "have ears to hear", and the crowd do NOT have ears to hear. Whether someone has ears to hear determines whether they are an insider or an outsider. To those on the inside, who have ears to hear; those who come seeking an explanation of the parable - they are "given the secrets of the kingdom" - that is, the parable is explained to them. But those on the outside - who don't want to hear, "everything is said in parables". Jesus explains this with a quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10. It is important to understand this quote in context, because otherwise verse 12 makes it sound like God is deliberately keeping people out of the kingdom. Understanding the original context from Isaiah shows that this is not the case. Isaiah's commission in chapter 6 is preceded by 5 chapters which tell us the spiritual condition of the people of Israel at that time. Chapter 1 describes them as "rebellious" - Isa 1:4 says that they are a "sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers". And, even worse, "they have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him." Isaiah chapters 2-5 then goes on to announce the impending judgment on Jerusalem because of their sins, but with the promise of salvation coming after judgment. In Isaiah chapter 6, the prophet Isaiah is being told - ahead of time - that his prophetic ministry is not going to be able to convert everyone and prevent the coming judgment, because the sins of the people are so great. God's plan for salvation for them can come only after judgment. And it is the same with the ministry of Jesus. God's plan for our salvation can only come about after judgment - that is, our judgment taken by Jesus at the cross, when he dies there to bear the curse that you and I deserve. It comes as no surprise to Jesus that the crowd has rejected his teaching - this is a necessary part of the plan. If all the people had accepted Jesus' message, then the crowds would not be there to cry out "crucify him" at his trial. But, at the same time, is it their hardness of heart that is the fundamental problem. They are just as guilty as the people in Isaiah's day. They won't listen, because they have closed their ears. It is not the case that these people desperately want to repent but God is preventing them. Rather, God is using their hardness of heart to bring about his ultimate purposes of salvation. So what does all this say to us, about why some people don't respond to the word of God? It tells us that, fundamentally, non-response points to spiritual problem. People does see and hear because they don't want to see or hear. We need to remember that we have no control over the response of others. The seed in the good soil didn't grow because the sower was particularly skilled in the delivery of that seed. The sower's job was simply to distribute the seed widely. It was the same seed - the same message in each case - and the quality of the outcome entirely depends on the type of soil in which it lands. The thing is - we can't know in advance what kind of response the gospel message will produce, so all we can do is use every opportunity to share the message widely, and let God determine the outcome. In this COVID season, and in every season, each member of the church should be looking for opportunities to be like the good fruit, and produce gospel fruit in our conversations and interactions with others. And we should do this without discouragement when people fail to respond - or respond negatively - to the message that we share. We are not responsible for the response - or the non-response - of other people to the word of God. But we are responsible, however, for our own response - to produce a crop - a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown - that will further propagate the kingdom. Let me leave you with the challenge from Jesus - Jesus has called us to be fruitful for the Kingdom - "Let the one who has ears to hear, let them hear."