The Parable of the Soils Mark 4:12-20
In
the course of my life I have heard countless sermons on this parable. The sermons have generally focused on the various
responses to the gospel that are made by the people (the soil) who hear it. The
sermons also provided examples of the types of people and their responses. Each message then concluded with a plea to be
sure that you were not one of those hearers described in the first three soils. But for me, taking the four soil types personally,
doesn’t yet answer the question that the disciples asked, “what does the parable mean?”
The
parable may very well reveal to us the different type of responses to the
hearing of the Gospel, but is that the
main point? What is Jesus getting at primarily?
Why did the disciples not understand the meaning if it is that simple? Is there something we have missed? What is it about the Kingdom of God Jesus
was trying to tell us?
Take
yourself back to the day when Jesus first taught this parable sitting in that
boat just off the shore. Jesus said at
the beginning of His ministry that the kingdom of God
was at hand. But, Christ wasn’t crowned
as king, He didn’t gather an army, He didn’t go and defeat all of Israel’s
enemies.
And
just as worrisome is that if the coming of the kingdom of God was indeed good news then why was it not
embraced by everyone? Why did the Jewish leadership not welcome Jesus? Why all the opposition? Why did some feel that Jesus was demonic. After all, the time of the arrival of the
Messiah was to be a time of rejoicing and welcome and not a time of division
and arguing.
Granted,
there were some who marveled at the authority of His teaching and wept with joy
over His miraculous healings, but it wasn’t obvious to all people that this man
from Nazareth
was the Son of God. If Jesus was the
Messiah, why did people respond to Him so differently? Mark tells stories of the various responses of
indifference, curiosity, hostility, and yes acceptance by some people.
That
is the mystery. The kingdom of God
turns out to be nothing like people expected and for Jesus’ disciples and
subsequent followers that continues to be the mystery. Certainly very few people were expecting that
when the Son of God came into the world He would be rejected by His own people
and executed.
This
parable confused the disciples for the very same reason that the coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus confused them and us today.
It described a situation utterly unlike
what they were expecting. The
message that Jesus preached about the kingdom of God, the good news, turned out
to be a message that some found uncomfortable, or threatening, or offensive and,
for that reason, opposed it. While
others simply failed to see the point at all. Even those who accepted the good news, Jesus’ disciples,
were in need of education, as their expectations needed readjusted and their
understanding of God and faith rebuilt. Very
little has changed from those days.
What
is the problem with the Christian gospel? We are promising people eternal life and
everlasting joy. What is not to like
about that? In
Hollywood you can hang out a shingle, charge people ridiculous amounts of money
to tell them things that they like to hear, and make a fortune. Isn’t this a message people want to hear? Christians are proclaiming a desired message
and we are offering it for free. What is
not to like?
Truth is many people don’t like it and others remain wholly
indifferent and uninterested by it. The seed
is picked up before it ever takes root, or people seem to embrace the message
only to abandon it shortly thereafter. Others
embrace the message, or say they do, but subsequently live utterly unimpressive
lives, indistinguishable from those who rejected the message. Who would have thought this would be the result of God
coming into the world as a man and offering forgiveness of sins and eternal
life to all people?
This is the mystery and it is only because you and I are so used to
it that we are not constantly wondering how could God come into this world and
seem to make so little difference?
How
could God come among us and we not notice that He was there? How could God come
into the world and we hate Him such that we put Him to death? This was not supposed to happen! This was not to be the story of the Kingdom of God. Nobody
thought that when the kingdom
of God came that it would
travel the way of a seed tossed by a farmer.
IT was to come by the way of design in the hand of a Heavenly Host. People were expecting sudden and glorious change
and instead they got a farmer going out to sow seed. And the mysterious, secret nature, of the kingdom of God is no less obvious today.
The
responses to the kingdom are made by people today just as Jesus described in the
parable at that time. Think about
it. Some Christians are powerful
recommendations of the gospel. Others
much less so. It has been said that
Christians are at the same time the best and the worst recommendations for
faith in Jesus Christ.
Have we not all been amazed more than a
few times in our lives that the church, and it’s people, are not better, more
faithful, more appealing than it is to those people outside the church?
Why
in the world is the kingdom of God like this?
And why have we yet to figure it out?
The gospel
today still suffers primarily from its failure to meet the expectations of the
people who hear it. Why don’t people believe this wonderful message? For precisely the same reasons they did not
believe it when Jesus preached it Himself and authenticated it with His
miracles. He didn’t meet their expectations. He didn’t say what they expected Him to say
and do what they expected Him to do. Oh, they loved the healings, but they
wanted more than that. They wanted a
king who would lead them in triumph over their enemies, not a king who would
die for their sins. They wanted
prosperity; He offered them a wealth of forgiveness for their sins.
It is easy to not believe the gospel and it is easy to
not believe in Jesus Christ. Multitudes do not believe. They are offended by
its requirement that they acknowledge their guilt before God and that they
forsake their self-sufficiency. They are
still unwilling to surrender the lordship of their lives to Christ Jesus. Their
hearts are unfit to receive the gospel because they remain so full of pride. They comfort themselves with the fact that
there are multitudes of others who do not believe either.
What is more, they don’t see the promised harvest. They aren’t impressed with Christians. They don’t think we prove the Gospel true. But that is proof of nothing. God has not yet
revealed to them the secret of the kingdom
of God. Until he does all remains a mystery to them. But for us, all is precisely unfolding as our Savior
said it would and the harvest time gets ever closer.
Now some application of this understanding for us in
the story: First, notice the word “hear” is repeated often in
these verses. The first three groups hear
the word only in a superficial way. The
last group not only hears, but accepts, and bases their life upon the word that
was sown. The Lord gives us an interpretation of the parable, but He doesn’t reveal
all that is implied in the interpretation. That is left for us to do: “He who
has ears to hear, let him hear.”
We do not need to judge the soil. The soil is what it
is. Perhaps the rocky soil could have some rocks removed and that would make it
more fertile. Perhaps some weeds can be pulled from the other soil to help
growth. That is work for the farmer, but
the primary work is to scatter seed
and the harvest is not going to come by planting seeds in just the best soil.
The place where the seed needs to be scattered is outside of the church walls –
into all of the types of soil – and then the harvest will come.
Finally, we must remember that we face the same
temptations, the same worries, the same fears, the same opposition, the same
discouragements, the same questions as believers always have. We face the same obstacles within and without
that have withered and destroyed the commitment of those who for a time we took
to be Christians.
But you of faith should keep on! Do not throw away
your confidence of faith for it will be rewarded. Do not become weary in doing good; for at the
proper time you will
reap a harvest - if you persevere. The
good soil always produces a harvest! So, test yourself by the parable. Find yourself in the four soils of the story. Discover the mark of a disciple. Did you miss
the mark of a disciple? Hearing,
receiving, and bearing fruit are the Marks of a disciple.
Have you the mark?
In the words of Christ, "Are you listening to this? Really
listening?"
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