I have said before that the interpretations given to the parables of Jesus are almost certainly not those of Jesus himself, but a process of allegorization by which the early church has tried to understand them. Such a process has in fact often distorted them as is seen in the explanation of the parable of the sower.

Each point of the parable takes on special significance, but as so often happens in allegory, the explanation cannot be carried through with consistency. Thus, in vs.18-23 at first the soil is the one who hears, the seed is the word, and the enemy is the evil one. Yet suddenly the hearers are compared with the seed sown on rocky ground. The inconsistency continues with the hearers compared with the soil and then with the seed or the plant. The content of the parable becomes a word of warning addressed to the church, in other words, ‘receive the word with fruitfulness or fear the outcome.’ In contrast, let us see what Jesus actually said in the parable of the sower as recorded in vs.1-9.

As it stands its point lies in the contrast between the mixed results that the beginning of the sharing of the good news brings forth and the astonishingly fruitful outcome in the harvest. The parable, then, is an encouragement by Jesus to his followers, warning them that much of their work in proclaiming the coming kingdom will be wasted effort. However he goes on to promise them that God will bring forth results far exceeding their expectations. The parable is told against the background of what are to us strange farming methods, such as sowing before ploughing or before the ground has been cleared. Yet clearly the message of the parable is ‘sow with assurance.’

So we can see that even within the gospels, written within 70 years of the events of the life of Jesus, distortions shaped by the political and social climate in which the church existed are applied to the sayings of Jesus. Any attempt to define belief, or to conceptualise God, whether it be at a meeting of the General Synod or in a parish bible study is subject to the potential distortions experienced by the church throughout the ages. Belief has an inbuilt insistence to declare that reality is as we say it is, whilst faith is a full openness to truth. Belief clings like ivy to the wall, but faith lets go like dandelion seeds into the endless possibilities of the God presence.

Imagine trying to capture running water in a bucket. It is clear that if we tried to do so then we clearly do not understand it and we will always be disappointed, because in the bucket the water does not run. To have running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of God. Belief is used like a bucket in the hope of capturing God and declaring this is what God is. Yet as soon as you do that you no longer have God. Settling for concepts or images about God is like going into a restaurant when we are hungry and eating the menu!

Only those who have ears to listen can understand the parables of Jesus. Where we do that listening? We have to do it in our heart with faith, which is the interior centre of our being from which all life flows. There are those who fear to make that inner journey to the heart or listen to those who say that such a journey is unhelpful or simply an illusion. I remember on a holiday in Edinburgh going on an inner journey beneath the streets of the modern city to be taken on a tour of the old city beneath those streets. There I discovered things about Edinburgh I never knew existed and heard stories I had never been told. In the heart by faith we discover the dwelling of God and we discover that God is the ultimate storyteller, because we learn what our personal story is. Everything else is window dressing, displaying the fashions of the day, but in the heart we hear the unchanging truth that we are made in the image of God and that our true identity is to live in God and for God to dwell in us.

1 Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the lake.

2 Such great crowds gathered around him

that he got into a boat and sat there,

while the whole crowd stood on the beach.

3 And he told them many things in parables, saying:

‘Listen! A sower went out to sow.

4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path,

and the birds came and ate them up.

5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly,

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 among 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 Let anyone with ears listen!

18 Hear then the parable of the sower.

19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom

and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart;

this is what was sown on the path.

20 As for what was sown on rocky ground,

this is the one who hears the word

and immediately receives it with joy;

21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises

on account of the word,

that person immediately falls away.

22 As for what was sown among thorns,

this is the one who hears the word,

but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth

choke the word, and it yields nothing.

23 But as for what was sown on good soil,

this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit

and yields, in one case a hundredfold,

in another sixty, and in another thirty.’