Probably one of the hardest things for most modern Christians to
do is to take the humanity of Jesus seriously. We confess him to
be God, so he can’t really have been much like us, except
in appearances. It is an ancient heresy. Yet the Letter to the Hebrews
insists that he was human like us in all things except sin. Even
in Matthew’s time, when this Gospel was written, little more
than a generation after the resurrection, Jesus’ divine nature
had come to dominate community understanding. After all, it was
the resurrected Lord that was the basis of their belief. So Parables
like this one came to be allegorized. The rocky ground stands for
this temperament; the weeds for that temperament; etc. And what
kind of soil are we? Does the Word bear fruit in us?
Scripture scholars tell us that there was a simpler, more direct
meaning, and that Jesus told this Parable in response to a challenge
from his critics. Jesus then, as now, didn’t overwhelm people.
He showed them what his Father was like and invited them to change
their priorities. Some did, and followed Him – mostly hoping
that He would somehow throw off the Roman yoke. Many got discouraged
and dropped away. After an auspicious start, the movement seemed
to be going nowhere. We read in St. John’s Gospel that “many
walked with Him no longer.”
The challenge, from his critics, was in effect “How come you
are not making any progress? How come you are losing followers as
fast as You are gaining them? Some Messiah you are!” Jesus’
response was to use a familiar example from daily life. Fields were,
apparently, sown exactly as described – indiscriminately (or
so it would seem to us). Yet, Jesus says, despite the losses to
the foot path and the rocks and the weeds “Look at the yield!”
The only unrealistic part of the Parable is the yield – much
more than His hearers would have expected. This is an eloquent expression
of his absolute trust in his Father. The Father brings miraculous
results out of seeming failures. The Kingdom will come in God’s
time, in God’s way, through God’s power. That is what
Jesus believed.
Trust, total reliance on God – right up to Calvary. Jesus
was divine, yes, but fully human like us. As human, Jesus could
not know; He had to trust.
We get discouraged, too, especially when we are working in the fields
of the Lord. The problems the Church faces today are just one example.
This parable is meant for us, not just because its words are reassuring,
but precisely because Jesus himself believed it to be the way things
are. It’s Jesus’ expression of trust in his Father –
trust despite the faltering, apparently not very successful status
of his attempt to call Israel back to its vocation. It must be our
expression of trust, too.