NOTES for Mat 13:4-9

While concluding the Parable of the Sower, the Lord says: «Who has ears to hear, let him hear!» These Christ’s words immediately remind us the 6th chapter of Isaiah, where the Lord calling Isaiah to preach says with bitterness: «Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed» (Isaiah 6:10). Referring to this place from Isaiah the Lord says that right now when He talks to us this critical moment has come and it should be heard or not.

The fact is that we justify ourselves when telling that we don’t hear God's will, we don’t feel and see His presence and action. That is how our psychology is – it is a usual sinner’s reaction. It’s about this that the prophet Isaiah wrote. But if we listen carefully to the Parable of the Sower it’ll be evident that the harvest depends on nothing, as on the soil. And the sower in the Parable isn’t guilty; on the contrary he could have not sowed where nothing will grow in the first place. However, the Lord sows His word, giving us the opportunity to accept it or not.

When parents or teachers pester their children, the latter often listen obediently and wait not estimating that the educator’s grief will stop and give them an opportunity to do or say something. They {children} are used to, that we {adults} are like that. But God’s pedagogy is different: after the Gospel, after Christ’s death and resurrection, we have nothing to say because the fulfillment of the Lord’s body is really revealed in the Christ. The matter now is not in discussions and interpretations but in our response: «Who has ears to hear, let him hear».

While concluding the Parable of the Sower, the Lord says: «Who has ears to hear, let him hear!» These Christ’s words immediately remind us the 6th chapter of Isaiah, where the Lord calling Isaiah to preach says with bitterness: «Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed» (Isaiah 6:10). Referring to this place from Isaiah the Lord says that right now when He talks to us this critical moment has come and it should be heard or not.

The fact is that we justify ourselves when telling that we don’t hear God's will, we don’t feel and see His presence and action. That is how our psychology is – it is a usual sinner’s reaction. It’s about this that the prophet Isaiah wrote. But if we listen carefully to the Parable of the Sower it’ll be evident that the harvest depends on nothing, as on the soil. And the sower in the Parable isn’t guilty; on the contrary he could have not sowed where nothing will grow in the first place. However, the Lord sows His word, giving us the opportunity to accept it or not.

When parents or teachers pester their children, the latter often listen obediently and wait not estimating that the educator’s grief will stop and give them an opportunity to do or say something. They {children} are used to, that we {adults} are like that. But God’s pedagogy is different: after the Gospel, after Christ’s death and resurrection, we have nothing to say because the fulfillment of the Lord’s body is really revealed in the Christ. The matter now is not in discussions and interpretations but in our response: «Who has ears to hear, let him hear».

The people surrounding Jesus must have listened with bewilderment to this story about a farmer who did not spare seed for roads, weeds, and rocks. After all, a normal farmer sows where he hopes to get a harvest. And this moment of bewilderment and surprise was meant to lead them to a strange thought: a harvest is expected from every seed, wherever it falls. God addresses everyone, not the chosen, not the most capable and perceptive, not the worthy, but everyone. And then He gives a person an amazing ability: to choose for himself who he will turn out to be in relation to the Word, where it will be found, on pavement, among burdocks, or somewhere else. And He does not spare effort or words, because the riskiest sowing can turn out to be the most fruitful, if only a person sees in God's actions a hope for success.

Why does the Lord speak to us in parables? After all, He could simply tell each person what is required of them to enter the Kingdom of God, say it plainly, and then at the Judgment ask how we carried out His assignment. But will we be able to hear, will we be able to understand His call? We read condescendingly about the Jews who "seeing, do not see" and "hearing, do not understand," but are we ready to hear the Word addressed to us and carry it out without delay or doubt?

And so, in His mercy, the Lord paints for us (and for the listeners around Him) a scene from everyday life: a sower sows seed. This picture will let us take from the Savior's words exactly as much as we are able to understand and accept. Therefore, the more we grow, the more "words about the Kingdom" we are able to put into practice, the more will be revealed to us through these parables. But if we do not want to understand and put into practice what we have already grown into, we face spiritual regression, stagnation of the spirit: whoever has will be given more, and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

Thanks to the evangelists, we have access not only to the parable of the sower itself, but also to its interpretation, which the disciples heard directly from Jesus. But every parable He spoke is so many-sided that all its depths cannot be exhausted by a single interpretation, even the wisest one. We grasp the meaning of what the Lord said layer by layer. Therefore it is not a stretch to read this parable not only as a story about how different people receive the Word of God, responding differently to preaching, but also as an account of different states of the soul in one and the same person. Each of us, throughout life, has responded very differently to what we have heard. Many of those who today, like good soil, receive and carry the seed of the good News were once rocky ground. And conversely, many of those who today are overgrown with thorns can be cleared of them.

And sometimes even good soil unexpectedly turns stony or becomes wildly overgrown with weeds, so we should not relax by prematurely taking stock of the successes of our spiritual life...

The disciples ask Christ a completely natural question: why does He speak in parables? Indeed, if parables are so difficult for people to understand, why not give them instruction directly? In answer to this, Christ cites the words of Isaiah, who foretold that the hearts of those who heard would become so dull that what they heard would pass by their ears. But then why say anything at all before such people? Is Christ casting words to the wind?

No, He does nothing in vain. Apparently this is precisely why Christ addresses people through parables: so that the seed hidden in figurative speech may still fall into their souls and begin to sprout, even if below the surface. Yes, the consciousness of a considerable part of the listeners is still closed, but their souls in their depths are far more receptive than superficial reason. And if what they hear finds even a small response in the soul, it will begin spiritual growth, that is, the increase of what the Lord had given such people. Those who are confident in the sufficiency of their "spiritual level" and have no intention of increasing it will lose it simply because spiritual life excludes complacency and self-satisfaction.

Among the parables about the Kingdom, the parables of the sower occupy a special place. In today's Gospel reading Jesus speaks of what prevents a person from entering the Kingdom. And the first obstacle on this path is the "road," the lack of attention to the words of the One who bears witness to the Kingdom (vv. 4, 19). It would seem that distraction is not characteristic of everyone. But in this case the matter is evidently attention of a special kind, that inner sensitivity which makes a person listen and stop before what he usually passes by without thinking.

In the Gospel period, words about the Kingdom and about the Messiah sounded often, and for many people, especially those living an intense religious life, they had probably already become somewhat stale. Perhaps this is precisely what moved Jesus to address the people in parables: such language always attracts attention, often forcing people to look at well-known and familiar things from an unexpected side, allowing them to see what would otherwise have remained unnoticed. But it is not enough merely to notice and turn; one must also remain faithful even when the enthusiasm of the newly converted passes and the world demands its own, so that the matter may even come to persecution (vv. 5-6, 20-21). Here feelings alone will not suffice, nor reason alone; faith not rooted in the will will hardly withstand strong external pressure, for feelings pass away and reason is pliable.

Yet there is something in the world more dangerous for spiritual life than pressure and even persecution, although compared with them this danger appears unserious: worldly cares and everyday bustle (vv. 7, 22). Can cares and bustle break those whom persecutions did not break?

But during persecutions the situation usually looks completely clear, and the will gathers itself into one by itself. Times of peace and quiet are another matter, when there seems to be no danger and one can relax, drifting with a current that promises no rapids or whirlpools ahead. Meanwhile everyday bustle quietly shifts attention to itself and, if one does not catch oneself in time, easily swallows a person whole, gradually forcing him, if not entirely to forget God and spiritual life, then at least to push them into the background. Only the one who can withstand both persecutions and everyday bustle becomes good soil that bears abundant spiritual fruit (vv. 8, 23).