Parable Of The Sower
PARABLE OF THE SOWER
MATTHEW 13:1-9
The parables show some truth about God’s reign and how he relates to us.
Chapter 13 brings together seven “parables of the kingdom,” two of which (the sower and the mustard seed) are paralleled in Mark and Luke and one (the leaven) in Luke, while four (the weeds, the hidden treasure, the pearl and the dragnet) are peculiar to Matthew.
By his statement that Jesus “went out of the house” (13:1) before he spoke in parables, Matthew indicates that the context of the parables—at least of these parables—is the situation following on Jesus’ rejection by the synagogue (cf. 12:15). The “crowds” (13:2) are distinct both from the religious authorities and the disciples; they are still relatively uncommitted.
The first parable (13:3-9) is one of the “parables of growth,” describing an experience familiar to all Galileans. From 13:18 it is commonly called “the parable of the sower”; its main point, however, has to do with the four kinds of soil on which the seed was sown. If the modern reader in the west feels that the waste of so much seed is due to the carelessness of the sower in not avoiding unpromising patches of ground, it must be remembered that in traditional Palestinian procedure sowing precedes plowing. The sower therefore deliberately scatters his seed on the track beaten by the feet of passers-by and on the thorny ground because path and thorns alike are to be plowed up; as for the rocky ground, this was concealed by a thin covering of soil and would be detected only when the plowshare struck it. So the message of the kingdom had been broadcast indiscriminately, to receptive and unreceptive hearers alike; the fact that some hearers were unreceptive did not mean that the proclamation was in vain, for the fruit that it produced in the lives of the receptive hearers made it abundantly worthwhile.
The threefold figures of 13:8 may indicate the yield in different parts of the good soil: the harvest was plentiful over its whole area, though even more plentiful in some parts than in others. A “hundredfold” crop would certainly be exceptional, but not at all miraculous. Matthew may have thought of the dimensions of the Church of his day by contrast with the small beginnings of Jesus’ ministry, as a result of gospel preaching (cf. Colossians 1:6, “bearing fruit and growing”).