Mark's Gospel 2: Listening for God – Michele Rizoli – Apr. 25, 2010

With stories there is never only one correct interpretation. There is a whole kaleidoscope of changing possibilities, depending on context, personal response, and the Spirit at work. One of my teachers, Rabbi Aaron Zinger [2]  put it this way: In classical Judaism there are many questions and no one answer. “The greatness is that you don’t try to hammer down with the nails of eternity, things that are in flux, provisional, partial. Therefore, if you are honest, you are wrestling all the time.”

Note that the parable wasn’t a fairy tale, but something taken from their day-to-day life, something they could relate to. Parables are every-day ordinariness along with a God-consciousness. They were used to “define the unknown by using what is known, ” pushing into the realm of imagination.  [3]

One obvious practical aspect of this story came in Israel/Palestine when I pondered ancient farming practices. Not only was this sower scattering seeds by hand, it may likely have been on a terrace, along the slope of a hill. Much of the farming happened like this i
n bible times. In my imagination this planter went from being rather sloppy – getting seeds all over the place, on the path, in the thorns, on the rocks – to facing the challenge of spreading seed on a narrow shelf of land carved out of a hill and held up by rocks, not wasting any seed and still getting a good crop.

Another curious point, is that in the parable there is up to a hundrefold (100 times) harvest return on this investment of seeds. Normally a really good harvest might have yielded 5 to 10 times. So either this person was sowing zucchini or the parable had a surprise ending. Even with all the wasted seed – eaten by birds, planted without depth or smothered by thorns – the sower eventually receives an astonishing crop. At least 10 times more than would normally be expected. Wow. This is the clue that there might be more going on in the story. Maybe it’s about the kingdom of God.

In the subsequent verses Mark has Jesus giving the disciples a lesson on how to interpret parables. But in the gospel at this point (we’re in chapter 4) all those folks at the side of the lake had, was one proclamation at the start of Jesus’ teaching and healing career: (Mark 1:14) “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

There was no sermon on the mount (there isn’t one in Mark), no large chunks of content to Jesus’ teaching, he was just doing a lot of stuff: a few run-ins with skeptical religious authorities, with his family, offers of forgiveness of sins and many, many, many, healings.

So now we’re moving to another level here. Maybe the way Mark is shaping the story offers us further insight.

The next portion reads: Mark 4:10-20

When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that
“they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.” ’

And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word.
These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.
And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.
And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.
And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’

Mark is accepted as the first version of the life and teachings of Jesus, and it is thought that Matthew and Luke used it as a basis to write their own gospels later on. Comparing what each gospel writer chooses to include in the story and how, can give us clues to what they wanted to convey. Yes, the gospels retell actual events, but the narrative is confessional in nature, that is, it is a theological interpretation of events in a literary form.

Nobody really is sure who wrote this gospel (as we heard a couple of weeks ago, Tim seems to favour the guy who runs away naked at Jesus’ arrest). I’ll continue to refer to the author as Mark, but really, we can’t even be sure it was a guy. The early church fathers regarded the gospel of Mark as a stylistically crude narrative and weren’t terribly interested in it.  But the more interpreters have studied it over the years the more there is to find in this gospel. What at first appears as a random string of events is now seen as a very deliberate crafting of a narrative, with interweaving themes.

One idea I find very intriguing is that the parable of the sower is a synopsis, or a key, to the entire gospel of Mark. The placement of this parable in the gospel seems to be a rhetorical device to orient the readers about what they just witnessed or are about to witness in the story. Jesus was using the parable to instigate thinking about the kingdom of God, but Mark is using it to teach about interpretation and faithful response.

Using Lydia’s analysis, let me show you how this premise works:

In the parable of the sower Mark describes the characters (and themes) that we encounter in the rest of the gospel. There’s the idea of a secret, the importance of listening, the obstacles to listening, Jesus himself, then the insiders, the outsiders and the crowd.

To be clear, the seed Jesus calls “the word” does not necessarily refer to the Bible as we know it, but for early listeners, is likely the coming of the Messiah (i.e. his entire ministry) and the lived teachings of the Torah (i.e. parts of the Hebrew scriptures and what we would now understand as discipleship).

Jesus, through his words and especially through his actions is the sower of the word. In the broader narrative he is powerful but does not have control over the results of his ministry. In this way, Jesus is connected to divine power and human vulnerability in the gospel of Mark. He can cast out demons, but can’t really make his disciples understand unless they are willing.

Next we have the insiders who are identified as good seed because of their bountiful harvest. They are the ones who have heard and understood the word and have allowed the word to change their lives. But as we read through the gospel, they’re not necessarily who we would expect.  For instance, in the story of the stormy boat, the disciples are chastised because they have little faith. At the same time a man possessed by demons no less, recognizes Jesus as the Son of God.
   
As the gospel unfolds, other unexpected insiders are commended for their faith. There’s a bleeding woman who touches Jesus’ robe, a dead girl brought back to life, the friends who bring a paralytic to Jesus through a roof, children who get a prime spot in Jesus’ attention.

Jesus does not initiate these healings, his presence mobilizes people of faith to germinate and come to him and
plead with him to produce healing and wholeness. The “little people” give evidence of the kingdom – small seeds that bear much fruit. Faith is the good soil that produces good fruit.

Then there are the outsiders: their hearts are hardened. They don’t see or hear. For them, because they don’t discern God at work, the parables are just little stories, nothing more. Mark even has Jesus refer to them with sarcasm, “Oh, they wouldn’t want to understand the parables, that might mean that they’d be forgiven, and they wouldn’t want that!” (I don’t know about you but I’m always happy to find justification for sarcasm in the Bible.)

In Mark the outsiders are stereotypes. They oppose Jesus from the beginning and they don’t change at the end. Their dialogue with Jesus is disingenuous, they are only trying to trap him, and their questions are more like accusations. Why? Why? Why? Not really wanting an answer.

Then there are the potential fruitful followers, including the disciples. These are the ones that Mark’s readers (we) are being set up to identify with, the target audience. These followers receive special teaching, but the outcome will only be known depending on how well they listen.

Jesus corrects, reprimands and warns. The possibility of fruit is there, but there are concrete obstacles in the way. The harvest is never really clear in the gospel account. As Tim reminded us last Sunday, they need to keep on coming back to the narrative and listening, discerning what God is saying.

Even the obstacles in the parable, serve as a key for other parts of the gospel of Mark.

The idea of Satan as the bird taking away the word, can be seen in the rest of the narrative as disciples misunderstanding Jesus.

The plants that are lacking roots because they fall on rock are clearly evidenced at the end of the gospel when everyone deserts Jesus when he is captured and sent to the cross.

As for the thorny cares of the world and lure of wealth, they make an appearance in Mark 10 where the disciples argue about who gets more honour and glory (10:35-45), and in how they react after Jesus confronts the rich man. (10:17-31).

So the sower parable in the end is about the kind of hearing needed to understand God mysteriously, ambiguously, paradoxically, subversively at work in the world around us. 

We’ve explored what was involved in Jesus’ telling of the parable of the sower and in the gospel of Mark’s ingenious use of this parable to frame the narrative about Jesus. Now we’re on the last layer, me telling the story to you. 

An idea I’ve conveniently left out of my discussion so far is this notion of secret in the gospel of Mark. I’ll be honest, in part it’s because I don’t altogether get it and the commentaries haven’t helped much. More listening is required.
Let me at least give it a shot.

I’m very intrigued by the relative absence of overt theological content on Jesus’ lips in this parable of the sower and in this gospel in general. I’m scratching my head. Does nature teach us about God? What does listening to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection really mean?

I don’t think that Jesus or Mark mean secret in the sense that God’s presence in the world is hidden. After all, we speak of God consistently revealing Godself to us, especially in Jesus.  So this notion of secret means that God at work in the world and our response to God are both mysterious, not altogether amenable to being pinned down, as the rabbi said, with the nails of eternity.

Mennonites like to use the word obedience to describe a faithful response to God. I’m not terribly fond of that particular word, it comes with “baggage.” However, when we think about what this parable is saying to us, through Jesus and through Mark the word obedience offers an interesting possibility. Obedience comes from the Latin ob-audiens [5] , which translates roughly as “towards listening.” In that sense it’s an excellent word to describe what this story is calling us to: a stance of active listening and discernment toward action. Attending to God’s voice.

“Our task in life in every moment is to live in obedient, responsive listening to the living Word of God. If we are thoroughly listening with our whole being or our whole heart we will hear this living Word of God in every person, every thing, and every event.”  [6]

Those who have ears, listen.