Mark 4:1 – 34 Jesus’ Words of Power

Mark 4:1-9 The Parable of the Sower

An aside about parables.
What can I say about the parables of Jesus? “Much in every way!” Jesus was not the only teller of parables of his time; his are just the most enduring. They are either a simple (e.g. the parable of the mustard seed), or an extended (e.g. the parable of the father who had two sons) , metaphor. They do not so much give information about, but also allow participation in, the Kingdom of God. They are not teaching illustrations. They often tease out, or shock, the mind in order to convey the reality of the kingdom. Parables do not spell out the reality they are conveying: allegories spell out the reality, often in great detail. Allegories are often parables that have gone to seed: they become a code which is to be cracked and then thrown away. Our current chapter in Mark gives an example, the allegory of the seeds. (Who would have ever thought that the Satan is the birds that came and ate the seeds?) St Augustine shows agility for interpreting parables allegorically that beggars belief.

Parables can be echoes of the voice of the historical Jesus and also exercises in the history of interpretation, interpreting away the troubling voice of Jesus. Some parables tell us more about how parables were used at the time of the writing of the gospel; this neither shocks nor worries us.

In recent times, the “Chicago School” of Norman Perrin, John Donahue, Mary Ann Tolbert, John Dominic Crossan, Bernhard Brandon Scott and Robert Funk have been our most helpful guides into the parables. From a pervious era, CH Dodd has given a definition of parables that is still a good starting point for discussion:

“A metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearers by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought” (The Parables of the Kingdom, p. 5)

Mark chapter four is not a “Parables 101”course. On the contrary, it contains some of the most difficult text to read intelligently.

Reading the parable:
Who are the “great crowd” who hear the parable? Possibly the combination of the inside and the outside groups. Verse 10 will reduce the crowd down to a subset that seems to correspond to the inside group. Mark takes some time to arrange his characters on the stage. Jesus is in a boat out on the sea (where did we come across that booking being made?) and he is sitting, as is appropriate for a teacher. Jesus is sitting on the waters just as he will soon be walking on them, exercising his authority over the evil spirits of the deep. The crowd, in contrast, are standing on the land, facing out to the sea; they are the soils (good, bad and indifferent) onto which the seed will fall.

"He used to teach them in many ways by means of parables" may point to a characteristic mode of teaching by Jesus. However, there are relatively few parables in Mark’s story. Both Matthew’s and Luke’s stories have more parables and more of the more memorable narrative parables (e.g. the parable of the man who fell among thieves).than does Mark. This chapter, and chapter 13, are the two major teaching blocks that come from the mouth of the one who teaches with power and authority.

This current “extended metaphor” seems to be extended into lengthy and even boring detail of the failures of three soil types before a fourth type brings abundant and repeated success. We allow that a parable might “tease the mind” in several different directions: there is not one, simple, correct interpretation. Parables can be “multivalent.” We can see how the slow build up of the soil types would suggest a variety of responses, initially mostly negative, before unbelievable success amongst the vast crowd standing on the land.

Another way in which our minds might be led is from the seemingly random scattering of the seed to the exaggerated 100-fold yield out of the good soil: so too is it with the preaching of the kingdom. As Struthers Malbon notes: “About eightfold would be a normal harvest. So a hundredfold is ridiculous; this is a stretch. This is hyperbole. This is not a farmer’s almanac but a parable of the kingdom of God.” (p.29) The final “let him hear” forms an inclusio with the initial “list up”.

Mark 4:10-12 The Mystery of the Kingdom of God

Jesus is alone, but surrounded by the twelve and a lager group of people. We probably think back to the insiders, those inside Jesus’ home, those who do the will of God.

The problem we have with the suggestion of determinism of the “so that” of verse 12 (he taught in parables so that those who are “outside” might not perceive and might not understand and might not turn and be forgiven) is our problem and not that of Mark.

The problem is why do people hear but only a proportion of them respond positively; why do some people just not get it? It goes back as least as far as the prophets. It is a “mystery”, something hidden in the plan and purposes of God to be revealed at a later date. The “hina clause” is to be read as beginning “with the result that” rather than “in order that” As with the so-called “sin against the Holy Spirit” saying, we make choices that effect our future: other people make different choices. None of us is locked into the choices we make. There is no determinism here.

Mark 4:13-20 The Allegory of the Seeds

The allegory lines up two lists (A, B, C, …& a, b, c, …) and draws lines of correspondence (A corresponds with a, B with b and so on.) once these (often bizarre and non-intuitive) correspondences have been made we have cracked the code; the parable can be thrown away. It has no further use; we have the real kernels and the husks can be dispensed with.

In contrast, the worth of the parable is in the ongoing process it takes us through whereby we see the real world in a new way. Breath through (and through) the strange pain of the world in which the laborer who only works the last hour is paid the same as the one who works through the heat pf the day. So too, the world in which the cunning, immoral, steward who rewrites his master’s accounts and is then praised, is the “upside down is up” world of the Kingdom of God. Perhaps the cross is the master parable of the Kingdom.

Allowing for parables being multivalent, having more than one meaning, the allegory presents the view that the parable of the sower can, as the allegory of the seeds/soils, explain the mystery of the preaching of the Kingdom. One such explanation of the attention given to the rocky soil (“… not much soil, …no depth of soil, … no roots …) is that it is a paradigm for the impetuous but shallow behavior of Peter (“Rocky1”)

Mark 4:21-34 Sayings on Revelation & Parables of the Kingdom

Four sayings on Revelation and two Kingdom parables precede the final statement of the mystery: to those inside he explained everything but to those outside it was all in riddles.

The revelation sayings: anything that is now hidden will ultimately be revealed. Neither a lamp nor the mystery of the kingdom nor a parable can be permanently covered over: the light will be put on the lampstand and the hidden thing will be revealed. The second two sayings seem to require some effort or commitment on the part of the hearer – the measure you use and he who has – which in turn will be rewarded by God. See what you hear, pay attention to what you hear, is not a call to watch the rich get richer. Presumably Mark uses these four sayings to illuminate the preaching of the parables.

This illumination continues with the two small parables. The seed growing of itself The sower scatters the seed, the mystery continues as God causes the growth, the sower then becomes the harvester: so it is with the preaching of the Kingdom of God. The mustard seed grows into a modest shrub that parodies Ezekiel’s lofty cedar tree (Ezek. 17:22-23) Mark makes this a contrast between a tiny beginning and a not so tiny end; It doesn’t work quite so well for Mark! Struthers Malbon suggests the point is that the mustard seen is like (enter your weed of choice – mine is ginger) that, once planted, grows out of control. “Planted” implies too much order and intent, but to call the Kingdom of God “a weed that grows out of control” is way too pernicious a metaphor! Live with the pain.