The Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:4-15) by Miriam Sidrak

“And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Then His disciples asked Him, saying, “What does this parable mean?” And He said, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.’ Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.” - Luke 8:4-15

In the Parable of the sower we learn that the sower has indiscriminately sown his seeds on 4 different environments, so to speak.

And I’m sure most of you have heard many contemplations regarding this parable – where the seeds are the Word of God and that we must have a good foundation for which the word can grow and bear fruit in our lives.

And since this contemplation is very valuable – today we are going to develop on it.

A few weeks ago, when Dave Tadros contemplated on the Gospel, he mentioned that the purpose of the Psalm beforehand was to tune our hearts to hearing the Word, at the time I thought it was just to excite us for the Gospel.

However, I think then we should look at the Psalm – we read “you water its ridges abundantly, you settle its furrows, you make it soft with showers, you bless its growth”.

And I’m going to stop there with the Psalm – the line that resonated with me the most was “you make it soft with showers” – of course we can assume that “it” would be the land since the Psalm is revolved around cultivation of the land.

I read a few perspectives regarding that particular line - I read that without large and heavy showers, no impressions can be made on the land – nor can anything spring from it. And such is the hard heart of a man, which God only can make soft by the means of His Word. Like large showers of rain, He removes the hardness of heart and makes it susceptible to divine impressions and of receiving the seed of the Word whereby it becomes fruitful.

So if we go back to the Gospel, keeping this Psalm in mind, we can then say that the underlying reason of the seeds failing to grow in the first 3 environments would be because of a hardness of heart.

Often part of the reason why we struggle in our spiritual lives is because of our hearts.

In Ephesians, we read “they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them – due to their hardness of heart”. We often come to this state of having a hard heart because of our expectations of God’s power. And when we expect things that’s when we fall.

There are 3 practical aspects to being more receptive to the Word.

1. The environment - surrounding yourself with people who are worried about your salvation just as much as they are worried about their own.

Whether it be falling by the wayside, falling on the rock, or falling among the thorns – in each of those instances we can learn something and understand how to avoid it. I will focus on the seeds that fell on the rock and among the thorns.

In this passage we read that those who fell on the rock are those who when they hear, receive the Word with joy – but in time fall into temptation because there was no root. Which leads us to the next practical way of going about this…

2. Make the conscious decision to seek God and be receptive to His word.

It’s a matter of being aware and holding yourself accountable to things. It’s a matter of consciously prioritising what is right. And in the same way that you do it for yourself – help your brothers and sisters also for we know that “iron sharpens iron”.

The seeds that fell among the thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures.

“You cannot serve God and mammon” and, practically, tackling this is by…

3. Understanding the superiority of God – it’s a matter of humbling ourselves and remembering our divine purpose in this world.

We are very privileged because we have actually heard the Word – and so our hearts must be in tune and receptive to those around us with honest hearts.

Our relationship with God should not be temporary, and I know we all know this, and I used to always struggle with this - but often we associate spiritual highs, our emotions, “feeling prayer or Tasbeha” with God’s presence - and while indeed these aspects are tokens of God’s grace for us – these feelings are to some extent fleeting.

Rather, I think our lives as Christians should be a struggle, in Timothy we read “no one engaged with warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life”. And it’s only through understanding our warfare as a source of growing closer to Christ that we are able to develop the patience and ultimately nurture the seeds to bear fruit in our lives.