And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed . . .” (Luke 8:4-5)
It’s like a traveling salvation show: one teacher, twelve disciples, a handful of women who supply their material support, and a loose detachment of followers who come and go. Life is good, spring is here, the air is sweet with new grass and moist earth. At every stop a crowd gathers, fanning out around Jesus or packing into a house. Today he stops beside and open field, where a famer with his sons are waking along the rows of black earth, casting seed with broad sweeps. An earthy breeze blows across the field. The Teacher breathes deeply, then begins a story: A sower went out to sow his seed.”
This is the first parable (the same in all three synoptic gospels), and it also might be the quintessential one. It’s not about the speaker; it’s all about the audience: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Four kinds of soil, four kinds of ears, and a roundabout way of getting to them. Truth takes a walk in the field of analogy—why? That’s what the disciples want to know later. What does it mean? is the question they ask, but he understands the Why lurking below it. Why talk in analogies? Why teach by metaphor?
Fact is, the Kingdom is not about facts. It’s not a series of propositions backed up by signs. It is unexpected, secret, often woven so firmly among the threads of ordinary life it’s easy to overlook. Jesus never tells epic stories of the Homeric or Gilgamesh mold—all his stories are about farmers and bankers and housewives, for such is the kingdom. Some will see it, enter it, and flourish in it. Most won’t. “The secrets of the kingdom of God have been given for you to know”—but it seems a bit unfair. Why us, and not them? God knows. And eventually, we will know. Even they will know. When the storyteller tells a story, ultimately the story is Him.
For the original post in this series, go here.