NOTES for Luk 8:5-15

Like many other parables of the Savior, the parable of the sower is a parable about the Kingdom and about spiritual life. Or, more precisely, it is a parable about what hinders a person on the way to the Kingdom. Of course, if the field into which the sower goes is understood as the whole world (and in that case the sower should, of course, be understood as the Savior Himself), then the parable could also be interpreted as a parable about different people, each of whom has his own problems in spiritual life.

And yet, on closer examination, it is hard not to notice that the parable speaks of the most typical problems, and it often turns out that all of them appear in the spiritual life of one and the same person at different stages. Of course, if a person cannot resolve the next problem that has arisen before him, he will have to forget about any further spiritual path. If he does succeed, a new stage will begin in his spiritual life. But in order to speak at all about any kind of spiritual life, a person must learn to listen to and hear God and God's witnesses.

To hear not superficially, not the way we usually listen today out of the corner of our ear to the sounds and words that reach us on the street, but to listen by entering into what is heard, allowing it to penetrate the heart and touch that deep "I" which is the spiritual center of our personality. But hearing is not everything. Resolve is needed in order to fulfill what has been heard. The decision accepted, the choice made, inevitably changes the whole life of the one who has made that choice; and if the choice is made in favor of Christ and the Kingdom, the opposition of the world is inevitable.

Of course, it does not always take the form of open persecution, but opposition in one degree or another and in one form or another takes place in every case. This is where spiritual wholeness is important, enabling a person to remain firm in regard to the choice he has made. But there is something in the world more dangerous for spiritual life than persecution: everyday bustle. Indeed, any external pressure, and all the more persecution, under normal circumstances contributes to the inner psychological mobilization of those being persecuted, and psychological mobilization almost always contributes to a more intense spiritual life as well.

Everyday worldly bustle, however, does not contribute to any psychological mobilization; on the contrary, it only relaxes a person psychologically. And preserving the necessary intensity of spiritual life in such a situation is more difficult than during trials; for this, special attention must be paid to the problem. But if the seeker of the Kingdom overcomes this obstacle as well, he will find himself at the threshold he was seeking. Of course, coming to the threshold of the Kingdom is not yet the end of the road; ahead of the seeker lies the life of the Kingdom and the path of a witness. But that is already a spiritually different, new life.