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| The Sower by Van Gogh |
Matthew 13:1–23
1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat there; and the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6 but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears, let him hear.”
10 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” 11 And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12 For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. 14 With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says:
‘You shall indeed hear but never understand,
and you shall indeed see but never perceive. 15 For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and their ears are heavy of hearing,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should perceive with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their heart,
and turn for me to heal them.’ 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17 Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
18 “Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 23 As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
Catholic Exegesis:
The Second Vatican Council teaches that if we are to derive the true meaning from the sacred texts, attention must be devoted “not only to their content but to the unity of the whole of Scripture, the living tradition of the entire Church, and the analogy of faith. […] Everything to do with the interpretation of Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgment of the Church, which exercises the divinely conferred communion and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God” (Dei Verbum, 12).
St. John Paul II, when he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church, explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium." He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum).
Cited in the Catechism:
Commentary
Parable of the sower. The meaning of parables
13:3. Chapter 13 of St Matthew includes as many as seven of Jesus’ parables, which is the reason why it is usually called “the parable discourse” or the “parabolic discourse”. Because of their similarity of content and setting these parables are often called the “Kingdom parables”, and also the “parables of the Lake”, because Jesus taught them on the shore of Lake Gennesaret. Jesus uses these elaborate comparisons (parables) to explain certain features of the Kingdom of God, which he has come to establish (cf. Mt 3:2)—its tiny, humble origins; its steady growth; its worldwide scope; its salvific force. God calls everyone to salvation but only those attain it who receive God’s call with good dispositions and who do not change their attitude; the value of the spiritual benefits the Kingdom brings—so valuable that one should give up everything to obtain them; the fact that good and bad are all mixed together until the harvest-time, or the time of God’s judgment; the intimate connexion between earthly and heavenly aspects of the Kingdom, until it reaches its point of full development at the end of time.
On Jesus’ lips, parables are exceptionally effective. By using parables he keeps his listeners’ attention, whether they are uneducated or not, and by means of the most ordinary things of daily life he sheds light on the deepest supernatural mysteries. He used the parable device in a masterly way; his parables are quite unique; they carry the seal of his personality; through them he has graphically shown us the riches of grace, the life of the Church, the demands of the faith and even the mystery of God’s own inner life.
Jesus’ teaching continues to provide every generation with light and guidance on moral conduct. By reading and reflecting on his parables one can savour the adorable humanity of the Saviour, who showed such kindness to the people who crowded around to hear him—and who shows the same readiness to listen to our prayers, despite our dullness, and to reply to our healthy curiosity when we try to make out his meaning.
13:3–8. Anyone who has visited the fertile plain to the west of the lake of Gennesaret will appreciate Jesus’ touching description in the parable of the sower. The plain is crisscrossed by paths; it is streaked with rocky ground, often with the rocks lying just beneath the surface, and with the courses of rivulets, dry for most of the year but still retaining some moisture. Here and there are clumps of large thorn bushes. When the agricultural worker sows seed in this mixed kind of land, he knows that some seed will fare better than others.
13:9. Jesus did not explain this parable there and then. It was quite usual for parables to be presented in the first instance as a kind of puzzle to gain the listener’s attention, excite his curiosity and fix the parable in his memory. It may well be that Jesus wanted to allow his more interested listeners to identify themselves by coming back to hear him again—as happened with his disciples. The rest—who listened out of idle curiosity or for too human reasons (to see him work miracles)—would not benefit from hearing a more detailed and deeper explanation of the parable.
13:10–13. The kind of kingdom Jesus was going to establish did not suit the Judaism of his time, largely because of the Jews’ nationalistic, earthbound idea of the Messiah to come. In his preaching Jesus takes account of the different outlooks of his listeners, as can be seen in the attitudes described in the parable of the sower. If people were well disposed to him, the enigmatic nature of the parable would stimulate their interest; and Jesus later did give his many disciples a fuller explanation of its meaning; but there was no point in doing this if people were not ready to listen.
Besides, parables—as indeed any type of comparison or analogy—are used to reveal or explain something that is not easy to understand, as was the case with the supernatural things Jesus was explaining. One has to shade one’s eyes to see things if the sun is too bright; otherwise, one is blinded and sees nothing. Similarly, parables help to shade supernatural brightness to allow the listener to grasp meaning without being blinded by it.
These verses also raise a very interesting question: how can divine revelation and grace produce such widely differing responses in people? What is at work here is the mystery of divine grace—which is an unmerited gift—and of man’s response to this grace. What Jesus says here underlines man’s responsibility to be ready to accept God’s grace and to respond to it. Jesus’ reference to Isaiah (Mt 13:14–15) is a prophecy of that hardness of heart which is a punishment meted out to those who resist grace.
These verses need to be interpreted in the light of three points: 1) Jesus Christ loved everyone, including the people of his own hometown: he gave his life in order to save all men; 2) the parable is a literary form designed to get ideas across clearly: its ultimate aim is to teach, not to mislead or obscure; 3) lack of appreciation for divine grace is something blameworthy, which does merit punishment; however, Jesus did not come directly to punish anyone, but rather to save everyone.
13:12. Jesus is telling his disciples that, precisely because they have faith in him and want to have a good grasp of his teaching, they will be given a deeper understanding of divine truths. But those who do not “follow him” (cf. the note on Mt 4:18–22) will later lose interest in the things of God and will grow ever blinder: it is as if the little they have is being taken away from them.
This verse also helps us understand the meaning of the parable of the sower, a parable which gives a wonderful explanation of the supernatural economy of divine grace: God gives grace, and man freely responds to that grace. The result is that those who respond to grace generously receive additional grace and so grow steadily in grace and holiness; whereas those who reject God’s gifts become closed up within themselves; through their selfishness and attachment to sin they eventually lose God’s grace entirely. In this verse, then, our Lord gives a clear warning: with the full weight of his divine authority he exhorts us—without taking away our freedom—to act responsibly: the gifts God keeps sending us should yield fruit; we should make good use of the opportunities for Christian sanctification which are offered us in the course of our lives.
13:14–15. Only well-disposed people grasp the meaning of God’s words. It is not enough just to hear them physically. In the course of Jesus’ preaching the prophetic words of Isaiah come true once again.
However, we should not think that not wanting to hear or to understand was something exclusive to certain contemporaries of Jesus; each one of us is at times hard of hearing, hard-hearted and dull-minded in the presence of God’s grace and saving word.
Moreover, it is not enough to be familiar with the teaching of the Church: it is absolutely necessary to put the faith into practice, with all that that implies, morally and ascetically. Jesus was fixed to the wood of the cross not only by nails and by the sins of certain Jews but also by our sins—sins committed centuries later but which afflicted the most sacred humanity of Jesus Christ, who bore the burden of our sins. See the note on Mk 4:11–12.
13:16–17. In contrast with the closed attitude of many Jews who witnessed Jesus’ life but did not believe in him, the disciples are praised by our Lord for their docility to grace, their openness to recognizing him as the Messiah and to accepting his teaching.
He calls his disciples blessed, happy. As he says, the prophets and just men and women of the Old Testament had for centuries lived in hope of enjoying one day the peace the future Messiah would bring, but they had died without experiencing this good fortune. Simeon, towards the end of his long life, was filled with joy on seeing the infant Jesus when he was presented in the temple: “he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation’ ” (Lk 2:28–30). During our Lord’s public life, his disciples were fortunate enough to see and be on close terms with him; later they would recall that incomparable gift, and one of them would begin his first letter in these words: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life; […] that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our [or: your] joy may be complete” (1 Jn 1:1–4).
This exceptional good fortune was, obviously, not theirs because of special merit: God planned it; it was he who decided that the time had come for the Old Testament prophecies to be fulfilled. In any event, God gives every soul opportunities to meet him: each of us has to be sensitive enough to grasp them and not let them pass. There were many men and women in Palestine who saw and heard the Incarnate Son of God but did not have the spiritual sensitivity to see in him what the apostles and disciples saw.
13:19. He does not understand because he does not love—not because he is not clever enough: lack of love opens the door of the soul to the devil..
Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.
"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome
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