Reading
Matthew 13:1-9
13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
Comment
With the parable of the sower, Jesus exemplifies the way in which the word of God is rejected, finds obstacles, but is also welcomed and bears fruit, spreading everywhere. While the mountain is Jesus' privileged place for prayer and the formation of his disciples, the coast of the Sea of Galilee, or the Lake of Genesaret, is the place where the Gospels present the Lord intent on teaching the crowds.
The Greek verb used to indicate the gathering of people around him is synago, with a reference to the synagogue; perhaps because the listeners are Jews, or because what Jesus forms with his preaching is the new synagogue of believers in the gospel.
Jesus preaches on a boat as if to signify that his message is addressed to Israel, but the crowd looks towards the sea, from where the gospel will set sail towards the lands of the Gentiles. With this discourse begin the seven parables which serve to exemplify the way in which the kingdom of God is made (the sower, the weeds, the mustard seed, the leaven, the hidden treasure, the precious pearls, the net thrown into the sea). Those parables serve to exemplify the way in which the kingdom of God is made.
The use of parables - common in Judaism of the time - serves Jesus to involve and provoke the listener, making him apply what he says to the reality of his own spiritual life. Through examples and comparisons so close to the daily experience of each one, Jesus shakes and invites us to change our mentality and behavior, so that the word of God may penetrate and become the leaven of life.
The listening that bears fruit is a spiritual encounter with the person of Jesus. But the word needs a humble heart, a humus, a soft ground, where the seed can find shelter and nourishment. The yield of sowing was usually eight to one, ten to one in exceptional cases; the growth to one hundred for one that Jesus describes is incredibly great. Sections of both Jewish and Christian literature report exceptionally abundant harvests in the Messianic era.
Although this parable is reported in all three synoptic gospels, only Luke and Matthew explain that the seed is the word of God; a word that is not only air that resounds, but which is Jesus himself, the Word begotten by the father and incarnate in the womb of Mary; a word made "seed", which encounters the harshness of those who despise it among those of his homeland, among his relatives and in his house (Mk 6:4); who meets the thorns of those who scourge his body and crown his head with thorns; that will have to die and be buried to generate fruits of eternal life. A fruit so great as to feed all those who are hungry not for bread, but to listen to the word of the Lord (Am 8:11).
The sower spreads his seed with both hands in all directions, waiting for an abundant harvest. Despite the failures due to opposition and indifference, the proclamation of the kingdom of God will have lasting and extensive efficacy.
Prayer
Create in us, o Lord, a humble heart ready to receive your word; irrigate the furrows, flatten the clods, pour out the rain of your Spirit; so that the fruits of your grace may abound. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
