The parable of the Sower is much appreciated and well loved by the early Christians who encounter opposition as they bravely proclaim the Good News. They, too, experience rejection like Jesus. “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him,” we read in John’s Prologue (1:11). Jesus’ followers see with their own eyes the different pockets of resistance from people with various degrees of intensity.

The good news, however, is that the Sower has looked forward to a bountiful harvest so he scatters seeds indiscriminately and in a prodigal manner. Farmers who lived in first-century Palestine adopted this method of farming. They scattered seeds everywhere in the hope that the seeds would fall on different types of soil and mix with different organisms. After having scattered seeds, the farmers would then break the rocks and solidified mud, then ploughed the ground. Although it was not fertile at the beginning, the soil would eventually be transformed to a fitting seedbed.

God demonstrates the same amount of patience and work for human beings who are indifferent to his Word or those who consider the Word irrelevant to their lives. God always finds a way to touch a person’s heart and bring to the person a hunger for the Word and a thirst for holiness of life.

On another occasion Jesus began to teach by the sea. A very large crowd gathered around him so that he got into a boat on the sea and sat down. And the whole crowd was beside the sea on land. And he taught them at length in parables, and in the course of his instruction he said to them, “Hear this!

A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it produced no grain. And some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit. It came up and grew and yielded 30, 60, and a hundredfold.”

He added, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.” And when he was alone, those present along with the Twelve questioned him about the parables. He answered them, “The mystery of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, so that they may look and see but not perceive, and hear and listen but not understand, in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.”

Jesus said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand any of the parables? The sower sows the word. These are the ones on the path where the word is sown. As soon as they hear, Satan comes at once and takes away the word sown in them.

And these are the ones sown on rocky ground who, when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy. But they have no root; they last only for a time. Then when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Those sown among thorns are another sort. They are the people who hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit. But those sown on rich soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit 30 and 60 and a hundredfold.”