Hearing the questions - Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 - Living by the Word - Column

Christian Century, June 16, 1993 by Beverly R. Gaventa

ELLIS PETERS'S recent novel about the exploits of Brother Cadfael, 12th-century sleuth, describes a heated dispute over the resting place for the bones of St. Winifred. Rival Benedictine houses at Shrewsbury and Ramsey, as well as Earl Robert Beaumont, contend for possession of these highly prized remains. They finally agree to settle the dispute by the method of sortes. Each claimant for the relics approaches the Bible with eyes averted, randomly turns the pages and points to a passage. The verse provides some clue as to how the dispute ought to be resolved.

That use of the Bible provides a fresh twist in the delightful chronicle of Brother Cadfael and the murderous goings-on at his abbey. Christians today may not so directly employ the Bible to solve disputes, but the notion that the Bible serves as an answer book is alive and well. Ronald Reagan told religious broadcasters in 1983 that the Bible contains "all the answers to all the problems man has ever known."

The Bible does provide us with certain answers to profound questions about who we are and to whom we belong. On the whole, however, the Bible presents more questions than solutions. Jesus' parables are especially notorious for refusing to play the answer game. Instead, they stir up new questions each time they are read. In The Parables of the Kingdom C. H. Dodd wrote that a parable "leaves the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought." Parables have more in common with probing, uncompromising, puzzling questions than they do with answers.

Despite its utter familiarity, the parable of the sower still comes to us as a question. In Matthew, it begins predictably enough. Not all seeds produce grain for the final harvest (see 2 Esdras 8:41 for a similar saying). Astonishingly, however, the parable veers off in an unanticipated direction--the seeds that do produce do so in quantities that can exist only in the farmer's sweetest dreams. What can this wildly improbable story mean? Jesus begins this parable by calling for the crowd's attention and ends it with another admonition to listen, but little in the parable allows us to know what we are to hear. When Jesus retells the parable in 13:18-23, several things have shifted. He introduces it as the "parable of the sower," which prepares us to think that the parable centers on the sower. The retelling, however, elaborates on the various seeds and what becomes of them. The extravagant harvest of 13:8 reappears, but its significance has faded. The focus is on the interpretation of the different soils.

Scholars have tried to illumine the shifts from the first to the second versions of the parable. The second appears to be an early Christian attempt to explain the first, to resolve the tension surrounding the uninterpreted parable. This interpretation of the parable by no means answers the questions the parable poses. In fact, new questions enter, and not just the critic's questions: Why the apparent soft-pedaling of the harvest's size? Who is the sower in the parable? And the most uncomfortable question: Where might we be among the seeds that have been cast across the landscape? If we are the soil that is fit for bringing the seed to harvest, where then is the superabundant harvest?

Along with these new questions, the parable's retelling introduces the theme of understanding. The first seed is compared with the one who "hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it." The seed that gives forth the dramatic produce is "the one who hears the word and understands it."

These statements should not come as a surprise to Matthew's readers. In the passage that stands between the two tellings of the parable, Jesus tells his disciples that the parables are not for outsiders who do not understand, invoking Isaiah 6:9-10 ("You will indeed listen, but never understand"). By contrast, the disciples are blessed with eyes and ears that function as they should (13:16). At the end of this collection of parables, Jesus asks the disciples whether they have understood. Elsewhere in Matthew's Gospel, understanding is again associated with a fitting response to the gospel (15:10,16:12, 17:13).

Does this "understanding" mean that the disciples have the answers? Can they solve the riddle that is the parable of the sower? Probably not. In this context, at least, understanding has less to do with having the right answers than it does with being willing to continue to listen. Later, Jesus' disciples abandon him in a way that suggests they do not have the right answers. Even after the resurrection some of Jesus' disciples are said to "doubt" what they see. Their understanding is limited, but they still listen for the words of the parabler.

A friend once said that listening to Jesus tell a parable must have been a little like watching someone throw a ball into the air. Instead of reaching its apex and returning directly to earth, this particular ball starts back down and then veers off at a right angle. We watch astonished, and search for answers. The answers may not come, but now we watch more carefully the one who tosses the ball, understanding at least that he commands our attention. The parable of the sower scarcely offers new ground for the preacher and teacher. Perhaps the reason the parable neglects to mention the need for plowing is that Jesus knew the church would plow this particular ground often. Despite its familiarity, the parable still surprises us when it veers off in new directions. The astonishing growth of the seed teases us to thought once more.