“Parables in Mark” Mark 4: 1-34

I have spent enough time trying to get crowds attentions, that I have picked up some tips and tricks along the way. When we are at camp and we need everyone to focus their attention on one person, especially if it is in a crowded setting like the dining hall, we raise our hand. As campers and staff see the raised hand, they raise they hand too and stop their conversations, until everyone is silent, with their hand in the air. 

With smaller children, as well as with crowds in larger settings, like outdoors, I have said if you can hear me clap your hands once…. If you can heard me clap your hands twice… if you can hear me claps your hands three times, all in hopes that by the third time, everyone is quiet. 

And of course many of you have heard me down in the fellowship hall, preparing to pray over a meal saying, “the Lord be with you” and hoping that you reply “and also with you.”

Jesus found himself trying to teach a large crowd by the sea. He wouldn’t have just been hearing their chattering, but also the sounds of the sea behind him. Then he got into a boat, pushed off from the shoreline, and his voice carried over the waters and into the people’s ears. But he starts with this little word that we often overlook, “Listen!”

I know just enough about grammar to be dangerous, but not enough to always be accurate. But I do know this - when Jesus was saying listen it would be the equivalent of “you all listen” or collaquely, “listen up everyone”. He wants to make sure that people zero I on what he is saying. He is trying to get their attention. 

Then Jesus enters into the parable that he has to tell. A parable about a sower (think farmer) who went out into the field to sow (seeds for crops). As he was throwing the seed, it landed in all sorts of different places. Some landed right on the dirt path and the birds gobbled it right up. Others fell on rocky, hard ground, where it sprang up quickly since there wasn’t much depth to the roots, but the sun’s heat quickly scorched it. Still other seeds fell in thorns that choked the life out of the grain. And some fell on the good soil and brought forth not just grain, but an abundance of grain. 

And then Jesus ends like he began - if you have ears, listen. 

The problem wasn’t that people weren’t listening though. It was that they didn’t understand. In fact, Jesus’s own disciples were listening attentively to his words, but when they got a moment where they were with Jesus on their own, they asked Jesus to explain the parable and what it meant - confessing that they didn’t understand. 

In Mark 4, we find this Gospel’s first expanded explanation of the Kingdom of God. Up to this point, things have been moving so quickly, that the disciples have probably just been caught up in all of it - without a moment to slow down and ask Jesus about what he means when he teachers about the Kingdom of God. 

In Sunday school recently, someone was sharing about how we can have a bad habit in the church of assuming that everyone understands what we are teaching and the language we use, but the truth is it can be confusing. So, we like the disciples, need a moment to slow down and not just unpack what we believe, but also the implications of those beliefs. 

Jesus is telling a parable, a story with a deeper meaning, that starts with a context that most people would understand. A sower who sows. Remember that these are folks who worked the land and fished so they could eat. They knew what it was like to have some grain seeds that never matured. 

But Jesus was trying to connect that context, something they knew, with a deeper spiritual truth - and that they weren’t getting. Or at least, we can confidently say that the disciples didn’t get, because they need a moment alone to ask Jesus about it. 

The problem, church, is that sometimes we become so familiar with these texts that we do one of two things. First, we don’t listen. In our day and age when we emphasize speaking and talking more than listening, and we are poorer for it. 

Perhaps, ever as adults, we need to remember that old adage that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. But we often get caught up in the trap of thinking that we need to appear a certain way and as a result, we can nod our heads like we understand what Jesus is saying, but never really dig into the meaning, here and now today, for our lives. 

The second problem is that we assume we know the meaning. We are so confident in our particular understanding that we think we are the one who knows it all. We think we know what Jesus is saying, which leads us to assume that we know what Jesus is going to say. Putting ourselves and our understanding at the center of our faith and not Jesus. 

The disciples come looking for clarification in one of the most beautiful displays of faithful discipleship - continuing to seek, ask, and listen. We know that there will be moments when the disciples look and listen, but don’t see and hear, but in this moment, they are modeling for us what it looks like to draw close to Jesus. 

And all of the sudden, Jesus breaks the whole parable open for them - its not about actual soil, but instead is about the human heart. 

Which leads us to ask different questions with a renewed sense of urgency. 

So let’s step into the parable from a different way, a corporate way, and see what may be new for us today. 

Jesus said, “And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, but the cares of the age and the lure of wealth and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing.”

Even with Jesus laying out the meaning for the disciples, which has been passed down to us, we are meant to ask, what chokes out the Word in our lives? Or where do we feel choked and what is leading to that?

And, that, friends, isn’t just a question for individuals, but for us as a church as well. Where do we let discouragement based on our own expectations choke the life out of us? Where are the places where we fail to spread the Word, inviting others to come and hear, because we can’t catch our breath because of the pace of the world? 

All of a sudden, a new meaning can break open in our hearts, when we sit with the text and ask not just what is it saying to us, but what is it asking of us?

Engaging scripture is not a one time thing, church. We return to it again and again, because we are always growing closer to Jesus and in doing so, new pieces of truth are being revealed to us. 

But we have to listen. And listen without saying “I already know what this means, I’ve heard it before.” 

So may we be people who engage this text like the first disciples, asking Jesus to reveal his truth to us in new and profound ways. Amen.