The
Seed, the Sower, and the Four Types of the Ground
Now, what is to grow into the Kingdom, like the
seed?
This also can be more than one possibility, as
whatever God the Father sends to establish the Kingdom can be considered to be
the seed. It means that the seed can be the Holy Spirit and Jesus, the Son.
And, as popularly understood, it can mean the Word of God. If Jesus is considered as the sower, then the
seed can be his word, kerygma.
If we regard the seed as the Word of God, then, the
seed itself can be the very one who sow it, to follow the logic of John 1:1-2
and 14, as the word (logos) was not
only with God but also was God and became flesh, making his dwelling among us.
This Johannine description of the divine nature of the word reminds that the
Hebrew word, dabah, can mean both a
word spoken and the one who speaks the word, as the word, logos, in John 1, has the dual meaning, the Word of God and
God. Therefore, the seed that grows into
the Kingdom of God can be understood as the Word of God, which incarnated as
Jesus, the Son, the Christ, who is God, and the Word he spoke. The seed in the
parable has deep manifold meaning and is not limited to the word Jesus spoke.
Now, what did Jesus mean by these various grounds,
where the seed is sown in the Parable of the Sower? In other words, who or what
can be the recipients of the seed in the parable?
In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus presents four
different types of the ground, where the seed is sown: the path with hardened
soil (Matthew 13:4), the rocky ground with shallow soil (Matthew 13:5), the
ground infested with thorns (Matthew 13:7), and the rich soil (Matthew
13:8). These metaphorically represent
different conditions of the recipients of the seed – the Word, the Incarnated
Word, who is Jesus, and his word, kerygma.
Of course, the recipients can be both us and the
world. The four different types of the ground (path, rocky ground, ground
plagued with thorns, and rich soil) in the parable correspond to various
conditions of our hearts and the states of the world. These are not to profile
different types of personalities and the societies. Any person may experience various conditions of
the heart, sometimes being like the path in the parable, while being like the
rich soil in the parable other times. Likewise, the condition of any society
can varies from being like the path in the parable to the rich soil in the
parable.
...............................
We tend to think that these four
different kinds of the ground are different entities, representing
four different persons, who receive
the word of God. But, given the agricultural practice in Galilee at the time of
Jesus, these different types of the ground represents various conditions of the
same heart, as the same fertile field can become a hardened path, rocky ground,
and plagued with thorns – depending on how it is treated.
A path is formed in the same rich
soil field as people walk frequently as the soil becomes firm as they step on
repeatedly. Even it was once a soft and rich soil, it becomes a hard-ground
path as it was always stepped upon.
The fertile soil may become a rocky
ground if a rain storm carry rocks into the field, and thorns can grow in the
rich soil, just as weeds can grow.
It all depends on what affects the
soil, even the rich fertile farm soil can turn into a hard path, where the seed
can be taken away by birds, or into a rocky ground, where the seed may grow
fast but die soon because of its shallow soil, or into a ground infested with
thorns, where the sprouts from the seed die from choking. And, this reality of
a farm ground in Galilee at the time of Jesus reminded farmers of their need to
take a good care of the farm soil to keep it always fertile and suitable for
the seed to grow healthily.
Jesus used this farming metaphor to
teach us that we need to work on ourselves – on our hearts, to keep the condition
of our hearts always suitable for the seed, which is what God sow in us. It is
because God want us to provide the seed He sow the fertile soil so that it will
grow into the Kingdom of God – as a tiny mustard seed will grow into a great
tree or a grain of wheat will grow into manifold harvest of wheat for the bread
of life.
Sometimes, our hearts are like the
hard soil path, not suitable at all for the seed to grow. Perhaps, it is when
we reject God or let Devil snatch the seed that God sow by easily giving into
temptations.
At times, our relationship with God
become weak and superficial. On the surface, we may make ourselves look pious.
But, we do not put our hearts committed to our relationship with God. In such a
weak or superficial relationship with God, we are likely to commit apostasy,
when keeping our faith no longer satisfy our own ego. Thus, the condition of
the rocky ground can be a metaphor of our narcissistic take on our faith.
Our hearts may become plagued by
growing and overwhelming anxieties. In such an anxious condition, we often find
it difficult to keep our faith – our relationship with God. Doubt kicks in and
tries to kill our hope, which is associated with faith (i.e. 1 Corinthians 13:
13), as thorns can choke and kill the sprouting seed. Thus, the thorn in the Parable of the Sower
represents our anxieties and other psychological conditions that can kill our
faith and what it is related to, such as hope and love. When our anxieties
become out of control, our relationships suffer as hope and love in the
relationships begin to die.
Of course, the rich soil in the
Parable of the Sower represents an idealistic condition of our hearts, free
from anxiety. It symbolizes the willing hearts for the seed that God sow –
whatever God bestow on us. It also represents a deeply committed relationship
with God, because it is not our own ego, our own will that matters, but it is
the will of God that matters most. Thus, as there is no anxiety in this, there
is no narcissism, either. And, the roots that grow out of the seed indicates
the degree of secure attachment with God, which is an indicator of the quality
and strengths of our faith in God. As the further the roots from the seed
spread, the stronger our faith become – because it means our trust-filled
secure attachment with God. This is the kind of attachment that Jesus has with
the Father (i.e. John 10:30).
We all go through these types of
conditions of hearts, metaphorically mentioned as the four types of the ground
in the Parable of the Sower. Our desire is to be what the rich soil represents
for the seed that God sow in us. So, if we find ourselves to be in conditions
other than this, such as not being receptive to God and what God offers, being
superficial or narcissistic, or being so anxious, then, we need to work hard to
turn our hearts’ conditions into an idealistic condition, like the rich soil.
If our hearts are too hardened to
accept God or what God offers, as the hardened path does not allow the seed to
sprout at all, we just need to till the earth, turning the hard soil into soft
soil. Likewise, we can convert our hardened hearts into soft and rich hearts
through the circumcision of the hearts. The circumcision of the hearts requires
appropriate spiritual disciples, because, as Paul indicates in Romans 2:29, it
can be done by the Holy Spirit.
When our hearts are too
self-concerned or too anxious to let God and what He offers grow in our hearts
and in our relationship with Him, then, we also need to prow some layers of our
hearts to remove the “rocks” and “thorns” out of our hearts. For this, we also
need suitable spiritual disciples.
One effective spiritual discipline
to turn our unsuitable hearts’ condition for the seed into a suitable condition
is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises
are also helpful to keep our hearts condition as good as the rich soil, because
this spiritual discipline was developed through St. Ignatius of Loyola’s own
struggles with his own hardened heart, like a pardoned path, with his own
superficial and narcissistic heart, like a rocky ground, and with his own
anxious heart, like a ground plagued with thorns.
So, the Parable of the Sower invites us to examine our hearts’
condition at this moment and work on whatever the necessary spiritual
disciplines to turn and to keep our hearts conditions suitable for the seed to
grow and takes its roots, just as the rich soil in the Parable does.
Below, I show a spectrum of these
different hearts’ conditions, corresponding to the four types of the soil that
Jesus uses in his Parable of the Sower.
We need to constantly assess our hearts with this spectrum so that we
can take appropriate actions to turn our hearts to an ideal condition for the
seed and to keep this way.
The numbers in the spectrum indicate
degrees of the strengths of faith. It suggests the likelihood of the secure
attachment with God, symbolized with the probability of the seed to germinate
and takes its roots, because the roots represent the secure attachment with God
– an indicator of the strengths of faith. These numbers also reflect the degree
of the growth of seed, as well as the extent and durability of the roots growing
from the germinated seed, as the growth of the roots can be understood as a
metaphor of the degree of attachment to God or Jesus.
The secure the attachment with God
we develop, the greater extent the germinated seed spreads its seed. And, the
degree of this secure attachment with God – the extent of the roots from the
seed – is an indication of the strength of the faith. That is why the seed on
the rocky ground (1), which may sprout quickly but dies soon for its shallow
soil, is a symbolic representation of a weak attachment to God – weak faith.
Likewise, the seed on the ground plagued with thorns, also metaphor of the weak
faith because it lets anxieties (thorns) choke to death, preventing it from
spreading its roots wide enough to overcome obstacles (anxieties – thorns).
|
←
|
0
|
1
|
2
|
3
|
→
|
|
Separation
from God
|
Path
(13:4)
|
Rocky
ground (13:5)
|
Thorns
(13:7)
|
Rich
soil (13:8)
|
Secure
attachment with God
|
|
Ego-centric
, narcissistic
|
No
faith, very little faith
|
Superficial
faith
|
Weak faith
– prone to be plagued with anxieties and doubts
|
Mature
faith
|
God-centered,
altruistic
|
So, I did not limit the
interpretation of the seed in the Parable of the Sower to the Word of the Lord.
Below, I suggest two possibilities, including the word, for understanding what
Jesus could have meant by the “seed” in the parable.
The
Seed as the Word
Perhaps, you have read or heard that
the seed in the Parable of the Sower means the word of God that Jesus spoke – kerygma. And, it has been a popular
interpretation.
The Father in heaven sent the Son,
Jesus Christ, to sow His word through the teaching of Jesus. Thus, Jesus has
been sowing the seed in us throughout the history. And we are called to provide
a good soil for the seed to grow and take its roots so that the seed will bear
manifold fruits for harvest.
So, you can imagine Jesus sowing the
seed when he preached. Can you see Jesus planting the good seed during the
Sermon of the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and how the seed being received in each
audience there?
The sacred scripture, the Word of
the Lord, written by human hands as inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the holy
book of the sacred seed. Even though Jesus does not sow his word in our hearts
as he did to the crowds and the disciples, he continues to do so through the
Holy Spirit and the word in the scriptures, which has been written as inspired
by the Holy Spirit. When Jesus said, “receive the Holy Spirit” to the
frightened disciples in the Upper Room (John 20:22), he was also sowing the
seed into the hearts of the disciples – even though these were hearts hardened
with fear and some skepticism.
The
Seed as the Holy Spirit, the Divine Sperm, for Jesus
Now, with this contextual
understanding, we know that the seed in the Parable of the Sower is the good
seed in the Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat. Thus, the seed can be
understood as a grain of wheat. In fact, when Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless
a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it dies, it produces many seeds (John 12:24), he refers
himself as a kernel of wheat, as this sentence was said by Jesus to predict his
own death to bring salvation.
In this interpretation of mine, the
seed, as a grain of wheat, can be what is to become Jesus, the “divine sperm”, sowed by the Father in
the World. As Matthew 1:18 reports, Mary was impregnated not by virginal
intercourse but by the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit, as a will of the
Father for the Kingdom of God. Given Jesus’ self-identified Christological
description in John 6:35, 51 and Matthew 26:26, Jesus as the bread of life (pan de vida), being made out of
harvested wheat, the sacred seed sowed in Mary a seed of “wheat” to be made
into the bread of life.
Obviously, Mary was the rich soil
for this seed, as her immaculate body let this sacred seed grow healthily in
her womb to bring the bread of life, Jesus Christ, to this world. And, the
ultimate result of nurturing the sacred seed that the Father planted in Mary’s
fertile and pure flesh is the Kingdom of God, on earth, as it is in heaven! The
Sacrament of the Eucharist, Corporis et
Sanguinis Christi, which is the bread of life, Jesus Christ, who states, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me
will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst” (John 6:35).
Bread is made from harvested wheat.
As the Jewish festival, Shavuot (Jewish Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks) suggest,
a festival of harvest values the first harvest. Given John 12:24 and 1 Corinthians
15:23, Jesus is the bread made with the first harvest, as the wheat that make Corporis et Sanguinis Christi is the
first fruits out of the grain of wheat that once fell on the ground and died.
 |
| Vincent Van Gogh "The Sower" (1888) |
………..
Whether we regard the seed as the
word, which became Jesus (John 1:14), or the Holy Spirit, these are sent by the
Father in heaven (i.e. John 6:39, 20:21,14:26). Thus, both the word and the
Holy Spirit can be understood as the seed that Jesus refers to in the parable.
What is important to us is what we are doing with the seed that God sow with us
– in particular, with our hearts.
Are we the good fertile soil for the
seed to grow? Or, are we too hardened to let the seed sowed or plagued with
obstacles for the seed to grow, because we are so self-concerned and too
anxious?
After all, we are called to be good steward of the seed that God sow.
No comments:
Post a Comment