17
Sep
Sep
Reflection: Luke 8:4-15
The original listeners of Jesus were mostly rural landholders, farmers and day-labourers, constantly struggling against impossible odds. For them, thought of a hundredfold harvest would have represented life to the full, unthinkable joy and freedom from debt. This parable is often titled as the “parable ofthe sower.” When Jesus said this story to his listeners, perhaps it had a simple meaning – the focus is on the sower. This sower does not care about how the soil would receive the seed. He goes around sowing the seed – He is not discouraged by the lack of results from varied areas, but is hopeful that there would be some place where the seeds would be well received and produce desired results. Focus is totally on the sower. But when Luke narrates the parable for his listeners, he would label the listeners of Jesus as “townspeople”– because the listeners of Luke were mostly living in the towns and not in villages. The townspeople would not totally understand the nuances involved in the process of farming. As it happens even today, majority of the listeners of the Gospel who live in the cities have little knowledge about the lives of farmers and cultivating the land. This is the reason for the evangelists to provide an explanation for the parable, immediately after narrating the parable. The Scripture scholars would explain that this explanation of the parable did not originate from Jesus himself, rather this was how the parable was explained to the communities abroad – who were dwelling in cities, who had little understanding of farming and farmers. The explanation carries the original parable further than its simple message. In the parable the emphasis was on the sower, but in the explanation, the emphasis is shifted to the soil which receives the seed. The overwhelming pagan world around them was just too strong an attraction and their ideologies and way of life represented the birds the ate up the seeds that fell on the path. Many early Christians who must have given up their faith under the pressures of persecution represented the seed that falls on the rock. They were not able to put down any long-lasting roots and, at the first hint of opposition or temptation, they fall away. The seed that falls among the brambles represents those who do hear and accept the word. But, gradually the pressure of the secular world and its values is too much. They try to live in both worlds, but are gradually choked up with concerns about money and material and social wants and the pursuit of pleasure. The evangelist calls on us to prepare our hearts well to receive the Word of God in all openness to be fruitful a hundredfold.