Lk 10:1-9 [or Mk 4:1-20]
1On another occasion [Jesus] began to teach by the sea. … 2And he taught them at length in parables, and in the course of his instruction he said to them, 3“Hear this! A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. 6And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots. 7Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it produced no grain. 8And some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit. It came up and grew and yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” 9He added, “Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear.” 10And when he was alone, those present along with the Twelve questioned him about the parables.
11He answered them, “The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. But to those outside everything comes in parables, 12so that ‘they may look and see but not perceive,/ and hear and listen but not understand,/ in order that they may not be converted and be forgiven.’ ” 13Jesus said to them, “... 14The sower sows the word. 15These are the ones on the path where the word is sown. As soon as they hear, Satan comes at once and takes away the word sown in them. 16And these are the ones sown on rocky ground who, when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy. 17But they have no root; they last only for a time. Then when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18Those sown among thorns are another sort. They are the people who hear the word, 19but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit. 20But those sown on rich soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”
Hear this. The parable and the explanation are clear. God is the tireless sower. He never gets frustrated nor does he stop simply because some seeds never get to yield much. God just keeps on sowing, in season and out of season. He never stops forgiving, loving, and creating. It is God’s nature to go on loving and sowing.
That, too, is our calling—to go on loving, even when we are not loved back; to persist in forgiving even when our forgiveness is taken for granted; to continue living, even when everything seems hopeless. We never give up for we have a God who never gives up on us.
Sower: The sower is probably a hired laborer or a tenant farmer struggling with hostile conditions in farming. Much of the land is hilly and has to be terraced in order to be cultivated. Fields are surrounded by intruding rocks and thorns. Normal yields hardly exceed fivefold. The yields in the parable are rather impossible and serve as typical example of parabolic hyperbole. The plentiful yields are gifts of God rather than fruits of human labor.