Mark 5 1-20

and they came over unto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes

and when he was come out of the ship, 
immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
who had his dwelling among the tombs;

and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains,
and the chains had been plucked asunder by him,
and the fetters broken in pieces:
neither could any man tame him.

and always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones

but when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,
and cried with a loud voice,
and said, "what have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God?
I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not."
for he said unto him,
"come out of the man, thou unclean spirit"
and he asked him,
"what is thy name?"
and he answered, saying,
"my name is Legion: for we are many"
and he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

mow there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
and all the devils besought him, saying,
"send us into the swine, that we may enter into them"
and forthwith Jesus gave them leave.
and the unclean spirits went out,
and entered into the swine:
and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea,
(they were about two thousand;)
and were choked in the sea

and they that fed the swine fled,
and told it in the city, and in the country.
and they went out to see what it was that was done.
and they come to Jesus,
and see him that was possessed with the devil,
and had the legion,
sitting, and clothed,
and in his right mind:
and they were afraid.
and they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil,
and also concerning the swine
and they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts

and when he was come into the ship,
he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.
howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him,
"Go home to thy friends,
and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee,
and hath had compassion on thee."
and he departed,
and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him:
and all men did marvel.

Capernaum is on the west side of Galilee. Anything on the East could be said to be "on the other side", although the lake is only about eight miles across. No-one knows where "the country of the Gardarenes" is: even the various manuscripts of Mark don't agree. Some say "Gadarenes"; some say "Gergesenes", some say "Geresenes". Some people would like it to be "the country of Girgashites" because that might make it a place where some of the original, pagan inhabitants of Israel still lived. Pilgrims have settled on a place called Kursi, which was once near a town called Gergasa.

But for the purposes of the story, it doesn't matter a great deal. The Country of the Gadarenes is foreign; far away; different; a place where no-one has heard of Jesus; a place where they farm disgusting animals. I said that chapter one of Mark felt like the opening of a movie and chapter three more like a cinematic montage. Chapter five feels a little like a dream sequence. We go from Capernaum, where there is a house and a boat and a synagogue, and pass through a storm, and end up in this strange place, full of pigs and demons.

The tone of Mark's story telling changes. We heard how Jesus healed a leper: but we weren't invited to look at his skin or his disease or the rags. We have been told that Jesus healed a man with a withered hand, but we don't actually look at the stump. But this story is full of poetry and description. A strong man; a man who smashes chains; a man who makes a lot of noise and self harms; very probably a naked man; a man who prefers the company of the dead to the company of the living; a man who is by Jewish standards, unclean. Mark really wants us to imagine what he looks like.

The narrative feels like a stream of consciousness: it jumps forwards and backwards. A man came from the tombs who couldn't be tied up. He couldn't be tied up with chains. Because did I mention that people kept on trying to chain him up? But when they tried to chain him up he just broke the chains and ran away. To the graveyard; which is in the hills. Did I mention he lived in a graveyard? Like I said he came down from the tombs and begged Jesus not to punish him. That's because, I forgot to say, that Jesus spoke first and told the demon to come out of the guy. He even asked the demon's name. But it wasn't just a single demon, it was loads and loads...

King James says that the mob of demons worshiped Jesus; but that makes it sound too much as if they were engaging in a rousing chorus of Kum-By-Ya. What they actually did was fall on their knees and beg for mercy. "What do you want with me? Please don't punish me…."

One has to assume that Jesus's disciples are on the boat, and don't hear any of this. They have just witnessed the weather-miracle and are presumably still wondering who Jesus is. The regiment of demons is yelling the solution to the mystery. "Jesus, Son of God in heaven!" But they don't hear or aren't listening.

Legion is very specifically a Latin word, denoting a unit of the Roman Army -- maybe as many as six thousand men. "My name is Legion" is on a level with "My name is Panzer Division" or "My name is S.A.S". The Good News Bible has no excuse whatsoever to make the demon say "My name is Mob, there are so many of us." The American Bible Society produces a document called the Contemporary English Bible which hugely improves "My name is Legion" to "My name is 'Lots'". (If Contemporary Americans don't know what a legion is. couldn't he have said "My name is Army.")

Jesus orders the demons to leave the man, but gives them permission to go into a drove of pigs. Are demons like Nazgul and hate the idea of being disembodied? Or are they going to inhabit the pigs for a few years as an alternative to heading back down to hell and reporting their failure to Beelzebub? Did Jesus trick the demons? Or was he honestly showing them mercy by letting them go into the pigs? Demon-possessed people seem to know they are demon-possessed and to dislike it; I suppose the man was cutting himself with stones to try to get the devils to leave him. The pigs take a more drastic approach, and commit mass porcine suicide, presumably depriving the devils of their host body. The man ran down from the mountains when he saw Jesus, so the beach must have hills and cliffs all round it. I think we often imagine the pigs running off a cliff into the water, like so many curly-tailed lemmings, but the story only requires them to run down a hill into the water.

The news that something amazing has happened on the beach flies round town, and people come to have a look. The reporters have decided that the headline is "Two Thousand Pigs Jump Into Sea For No Reason". But when they arrive, they discover that the real story is "Graveyard Lunatic Totally Cured". Mark mentions that he has put some clothes on. This obviously struck Luke as important, because when he retells the story, he adds the detail that the demon-possessed man was naked. Presumably, Peter or James kept a change of clothes on the boat in case anyone fell in the water on a fishing trip. The reaction of the onlookers is not "Thank goodness! You've cured that poor man." It is "Please go away. We can't afford to lose any more livestock."

It seems a bit hard on the swineherds, I must admit. I suppose Jesus' disciples would have said "If you will raise non-kosher beasts, you can't expect much sympathy from us. "

The local people want Jesus to leave. The demon-free man wants to come with Jesus and be one of his students. But for some reason, Jesus won't have him. (You don't think the boat was already overloaded with disciples, do you?)

Howbeit is a peculiar choice of words. Pretentious people still occasionally say "albeit" when they want to say "even though". (It would never occur to them to say "all be it" but they are happy to lapse into Middle English.) But howbeit is completely obsolete. It isn't clear why King James's men preferred it to "however" or "but" or simply another "and". This is why some people like Contemporary American texts.

In a few pages Jesus will send his special twelve out to extend the reach of his message; but he wants this man to start spreading the good news on this side of the lake right away. (Remember that fact: one of these days it will turn up in a religious themed pub quiz. The first Apostle to the Gentiles was not St Paul, but the Gardarene demoniac.) I don't how much proclaiming he was able to do. He hasn't heard any of the Jesus' preaching. All he knows is that out in Capernaum there is a supremely powerful exorcist.

Maybe we have to see miracles and exorcisms as a kind of theological loss-leader. The man goes round the city saying "Jesus can control demons! Jesus controls demons!" And some of the people who hear will cross over to Capernaum to find out for themselves…..

FUN FACT: 

Pigs can swim.

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Mark 4 21-45

is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed?

and not to be set on a candlestick?

for there is nothing hid,

which shall not be manifested;

neither was any thing kept secret,

but that it should come abroad.

if any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

Annoying people love to point out that popular proverbs sometimes contradict each other. It is undoubtedly true that many hands make light work but it is equally true that too many cooks spoil the broth. So the consensus of homely folk wisdom appears to be that you should have lots of helpers for jobs that need lots of helpers and fewer helpers for jobs that need fewer helpers, or, put another way, the right number of people for the job.

Thanks, homely folk wisdom.

But there can be deeper ways in which things can be contradictory but also true. A teacher may very well assert one truth; and then assert an apparently different truth; and hope that his students will tease out a third truth somewhere in the space between them. Casting the I-Ching involves randomly generating two different pieces of advise and trying to understand how the transition from one to the other describes your present situation.

Jesus has just said that he preaches in parables in order to hide and conceal his true meaning. He now says "Do you think anyone would light a candle or a lamp and then cover it up? And do you think anything can really stay a secret forever?" He says it twice. Everything which is hidden (krypton) will be revealed; and every thing  — every event  — which is secret (apokryphon) will come to light.

So we have two different teachings, placed next to each other either by Jesus himself, or by Mark. "The Gospel is a big secret. Shhh...don't tell anyone." "There is no such thing as a secret. Everything eventually gets out into the open."

and he said unto them,

take heed what ye hear:

with what measure ye mete,

it shall be measured to you:

and unto you that hear shall more be given.

A literal translation of this passage would go something like "With whatever measure you measure shall it be measured unto you, and more will be added to you." With what measure / you measure / it will it be measured are three single words in Greek: metro metreite metrethesatai. "Metron" is literally a "measure" — a measuring device — but it could also be taken to mean "standard". It's where we get our word metric from. So: "The same measuring device you use to measure and weigh with will be used to measure and weigh you — and even more so."

The Good News Bible chooses to render this as: “The same rules you use to judge others will be used by God to judge you — but with even greater severity." This is not a translation, but a commentary, and a tendentious one. Metron is a literal or figurative measuring device, so I suppose they went looking for an English word which could be used in both senses. And they came up with the word "rule" which could refer to either a piece of wood with feet and inches marked on it, or the  regulations of a game or an organisation. (The word "rule" in the first sense has been completely superseded by "ruler". School teachers occasionally refer to "meter rules" because "meter rulers" would have been a bit of a mouthful.) But having said "rule" the first time the word comes up, they decide to say "judge" the second and third time. The Bible never uses metron in the sense of "judgement"; it turns in contexts like "go and measure the walls of the city." And prostithémi doesn't mean "treat with greater severity": it simply means add, or increase. You could just as well gloss the passage as "The same standard you use to decide what gifts to give others will be used by God to decide what gifts to give you — but with even greater generosity." Except there is no need to bring God into it. Mark doesn't. It could be a general piece of advice: "If you are mean you will experience meanness — even more so. If you are generous, you will experience generosity — even more so."

People have asked me why I have a bee in my bonnet about the Good News Bible. This is why. 

Jesus has not, up to this point, been talking about rules or gifts or punishments. He has been talking about listening and understanding. So surely the verse is actually saying: "You will understand in proportion to how carefully you listen — even more so, in fact."

for he that hath,

to him shall be given:

and he that hath not,

from him shall be taken

even that which he hath

It is certainly true that poor people tend to get poorer and end up with nothing, while rich people carry on getting richer. But Jesus is presumably not talking about economics. He is still talking about preaching, and understanding, and listening. You have to understand Jesus' sayings before you can understand Jesus' sayings. If you start out understanding, you'll understand more. If you don't understand to start with, you'll get to the end of a parable understanding less than you did before. Grasp a little bit? That's great. We can work with that. Fail to grasp even the simplest parable? Sorry, but there is nothing that can be done for you.

and he said,

so is the kingdom of God,

as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

and should sleep, and rise night and day,

and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

for the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself;

first the blade,

then the ear,

after that the full corn in the ear.

but when the fruit is brought forth

immediately he putteth in the sickle,

because the harvest is come.

For a moment, it sounds as if Jesus is going to tell us the secret. This is the kingdom of God... The kingdom of God is like this... But anyone expecting a Big Reveal will be sorely disappointed. 

"This is the kingdom... a man planted some seeds, and they grew into a plants."

This man is an ever bigger idiot than the sower in the first story. He has some valuable seed corn, but he doesn't realize that that is what he has. Maybe he was going to feed it to his chickens. Maybe it's what was left over after the miller made it into flour. For all I know, he has stupidly swapped his cow for a bag of beans. But for whatever reason, he just throws or drops the seed outside his house and forgets all about it. And then a few weeks later corn or sunflowers or a beanstalk pop up outside his front door — to his complete surprise. It seems to him as if the ground outside his house has suddenly come to life all by itself. Not that he's complaining. He picks the flowers or harvests the corn right away.

The first story was an allegory. The sower was Jesus, or perhaps one of Jesus's envoys; the seed was the Word; the Soil were different types of listener. But it is a cardinal mistake to assume that you can take the key to one story and use it to unlock a different story. This second story is not allegorical in the way the first one was. The seed is not the Kingdom of God; the crop is not the Kingdom of God; the man, his house, and the soil are not the Kingdom of God. What is like the Kingdom of God is the whole situation. The Kingdom of God is — will be — a complete surprise. It will just suddenly appear. And it will look as it it had just popped up out of the ground all by itself.

and he said,

whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God?

or with what comparison shall we compare it?

it is like a grain of mustard seed,

which, when it is sown in the earth,

is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:

but when it is sown,

it groweth up

and becometh greater than all herbs

and shooteth out great branches

so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.

It is a mistake, again, to try to find things in parables which are definitely not there. Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is like mustard seed in one specific respect. We are not entitled to say that the Word of God teaches that the Kingdom is great for flavouring curry or that the Kingdom can be used as an ingredient of massage oil.

Once again, Jesus the carpenter tells his fisherman friends about planting seeds and harvesting crops. Mustard seeds are very small. Not, as certain anti-literalists would want to remind us, the smallest seeds on the planet earth, but very small indeed. And mustard trees are very big shrubs: not necessarily the largest tree in the world; but plenty big enough to provide shade for a passing pigeon. But very probably, we should read the piece as a kind of poetic hyperbole. Imagine if the mighty Canadian Redwood grew out of a tiny powder-like seed. That's what the Kingdom of God is like. A very, very big thing growing up out of a very, very small thing.

and with many such parables spake he the word unto them

as they were able to hear it.

but without a parable spake he not unto them

and when they were alone

he expounded all things to his disciples

Jesus speaks in puzzles. And if we can't see what follows from warnings about men who do not realize that there are seeds growing in their own gardens and huge trees bursting forth from small seeds than we are still outsiders. Without ears; incapable of hearing. 

and the same day

when the even was come,

he saith unto them,

Let us pass over unto the other side.

and when they had sent away the multitude,

they took him even as he was in the ship

and there were also with him other little ships.

I said previously that it was a mistake to treat the second and third chapters of Mark as continuous narrative: they are better thought of as a montage, as a collection of Jesus-stories and Jesus-sayings. But clearly this chapter does have a narrative structure: Jesus goes to beach; teaches his disciples on a boat; sails to the other side of the lake and performs a miracle there. So: is there a thematic or didactic connection between the different sections of the chapter?

Well, of course there is: otherwise I wouldn't have asked the question.

An overwhelmingly huge crowd of people have formed on the West side beach; all wanting miracles and wonders. Jesus gets onto a boat, and teaches his disciples instead. When he has finished teaching, rather than going and ministering to the mob on the beach, he turns the boat around and sails off to a completely different beach, over on the East side. 

and there arose a great storm of wind,

and the waves beat into the ship

so that it was now full.

and he was in the hinder part of the ship,

asleep on a pillow:

and they awake him, and say unto him,

"Master, carest thou not that we perish?

and he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea,

"Peace, be still."

and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

and he said unto them,

"Why are ye so fearful?

how is it that ye have no faith?"

and they feared exceedingly, and said one to another,

"What manner of man is this,

that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

There is a storm. The disciples are scared. They are fishermen. They know this lake. They know what kind of storm is dangerous and what kind the boat can weather. Jesus isn't worried. He's asleep, at the back of the boat. Maybe he is in a state of spiritual serenity. Or maybe he is a land-carpenter and doesn't realize how much trouble they are in. So the disciples wake him up. And he rebukes the wind. He admonishes it; he talks to it sharply. And to the sea he says something like "Silence! Be muzzled."

Having given the weather a good ticking off, he turns round and chastises his disciples as well. "Why are you fearful? Do you still not have faith?" Don't you trust me yet? You've been my students for a while. Haven't you grasped the basics?

Jesus wants to know why they were afraid of the weather. But his question makes them even more afraid. They "fear with a great fear". But it isn't the sea they are afraid of now: it's Jesus himself.

I think there is a comic note to this scene. The disciples are convinced they are going to drown. A possibly slightly grumpy Jesus gets up from his nap and says "Wind — you are being very, very, naughty! Sea — shut up and put a sock in it right now!" And then, we assume, he goes back downstairs to bed, leaving the dripping wet fishermen in the middle of a dead-calm sea, looking at each other with open mouths.

"Who is this person?"

The Gospel is a secret which not everyone can understand. Jesus teaches in puzzles and cryptograms. The disciples need cheat sheets to solve even the easiest ones. And Jesus's biggest miracle yet raises the biggest question yet. Who is Jesus?

They don't know. They really don't know. 

There is a seed lying in the ground which the daft farmer has forgotten he even planted. The room is pitch dark because someone has put a bucket over the lamp. Someone has a handful of seeds which are so small you can hardly see them. But the tiny seeds are going to turn into massive trees; the daft farmer is going to be surprised, and someone is going to take away the bucket and we'll all be able to see what is going on. 

The big crowd don't know who Jesus is. The disciples don't know who Jesus is. Even Jesus' special twelve don't know who Jesus is.

But we do. We were in on the secret from the first chapter. almost the first verse. We know the mystery of the kingdom. The good soil is us.

Fun Fact:

When someone calls Jesus "Master" they are almost always calling him Didaskolos, teacher—not boss or lord. Until the middle of the 20th century, English school teachers were often referred to as "masters".

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Mark 4 1 - 20

and he began again to teach by the sea side

and there was gathered unto him a great multitude

so that he entered into a ship

and sat in the sea

and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land

The last time Jesus went down to the beach, there were so many people that he asked the disciples to get a boat ready. This time, he actually gets into the boat: the crowd must be even larger. Once he's in the boat, he starts to teach. (That word again: teaching as opposed to proclaiming.)

I don't think we are supposed to imagine that he is shouting at a huge crowd from a boat. How on earth would they hear? (I think some irreverent comedians could probably come up with a clever sketch based on just that question.) I have heard this story many times, and I have always assumed that Jesus preached from the boat, to the people on land: that he was using the ship as a floating pulpit. But I now think this is incorrect. I think that what actually happened is that the multitude who converged on the beach mainly wanted to see miracles and ask for healings and Jesus withdrew onto the boat in order to teach his disciples. A few pages ago, Jesus was inside Peter's house, teaching, while a mob were outside, breaking the ceiling down, because they wanted miracles. In this story a boat has taken the place of Peter's house. For all we know it may have been Peter's boat. 

Jesus has not got into the boat to make it easier for the crowd to hear him: he has got into the boat to make jolly sure that they can't.

and he taught them many things by parables,

and said unto them in his doctrine,

hearken;

behold

there went out a sower to sow:

and it came to pass, as he sowed,

some fell by the way side,

and the fowls of the air came 

and devoured it up.

and some fell on stony ground

where it had not much earth;

and immediately it sprang up

because it had no depth of earth:

but when the sun was up, 

it was scorched;

and because it had no root, 

it withered away.

and some fell among thorns,

and the thorns grew up,

and choked it,

and it yielded no fruit.

and other fell on good ground,

and did yield fruit that sprang up

and increased

and brought forth, some thirty

and some sixty

and some an hundred

This is the first time we readers have been allowed to listen in on one of Jesus' seminars, so Mark gives it a big build up. He tells us twice that Jesus is about to start teaching. "He taught them lots of things using parables; this is what he taught them in his teaching." Then he hands the floor over to Jesus. Jesus tells everyone to listen, and then he tells everyone to use their imagination and look. And then the seminar starts.

But it is strange sermon; a meta-sermon: preaching about preaching, teaching about teaching. We may get to the end of the Sermon on the Boat more baffled than when we started. And, alarmingly, this may be the whole point of it.

First comes the story of the sower. Unless you are a Martian, or a Hindu, or Prof Richard Dawkins, you know this story. Well, it is hardly a story: it is little more than an image. A farmer throws seed out at random, without regard for where it goes; so naturally, some of it comes up and some of it doesn't. This is called broadcasting, but you would normally only broadcast seed when you want the crops to come up densely over a whole area — sowing a lawn, say. The Sower is being profligate and wasteful with his seed: that's the point of the story. Jesus was an artisan; his disciples are fishermen: perhaps they take it for granted that all farmers are idiots.

"There's this farmer, right — and imagine this — he just chucks his seed everywhere without paying any attention to where it goes. And, do you know, in a funny way, God is a bit like that silly farmer….."

and he said unto them,

he that hath ears to hear, let him hear

We've all got ears. Very nearly all of us, at any rate. And hearing is very much what ears are best at doing. So one's first reaction to this phrase is "Since we all have ears, this story is meant for everyone." But then we stop and think, and realize that it could mean "If you are capable of hearing this, you should. But not all of you can…." So perhaps this story is only meant for a minority. The minority on the boat, perhaps.

and when he was alone,

they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable

So. It's a simple story. A sower plants some seeds. Some of them come up, some of them don't. Maybe because it is so simple, some of Jesus students ask him what it means. His answer pretty much throws the whole of the book of Mark, and everything we think we know about Jesus, into disarray.

Mark seems to refer to two groups: "those who were about him" and "the twelve". Jesus is alone at the center telling the story. Around him are his twelve chosen envoys. Further out is a larger group of students who can still be said to be near to him. And some distance away is a huge undifferentiated beach-bound crowd, who can't hear what is being said.

unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God:

but unto them that are without,

all these things are done in parables:

that seeing they may see,

and not perceive;

and hearing they may hear,

and not understand;

lest at any time they should be converted,

and their sins should be forgiven them.

We are all familiar with the idea of fables. They tend to be vivid concrete examples of self-evident moral precepts; they don't contain any esoteric secrets or mystical revelations. We know that lying is wrong. We know that people doubt the word of habitual liars even when they are telling the truth. The story about the little boy who kept setting off the wolf-alarm when there was no wolf-emergency and as a result got eaten by a wolf doesn't tell us anything that we didn't already know. But it fixes it in our minds; it helps us remember it. I suppose it may scare children by showing that a fairly small offence might have a catastrophic consequence. (And anyway, children like stories in which other people are naughty and cop it.) Platitudes are conveniently expressed in concrete form: it is relatively hard to say "I wonder if it has occurred to you that projects can be overstaffed as well as understaffed". It is easy to say "Well, you know what they say about too many cooks…."

I think that most of us are also familiar with the idea of allegories. They are stories which require some sort of key or explanation. The seem to be about one thing, but they are really about something else. There is a story about a traveler who is captured by a giant in a swamp and imprisoned in a castle, but manages to escape when he finds a key. It is a rousing little story if you like that kind of thing. And I suppose you could read it as a fable: the moral of the story is "Don't give up. However bad things look, there is always a chance they will turn out okay." But it is actually an allegory. In the background, the voice of the author provides a key. The traveler is named Christian, the swamp is named Despond, the giant is called Despair, his castle is called Doubt but the key is called Hope. If you ask me, that is quite a complicated way of telling us that if a Christian has hope he will never despair. (Pilgrim's Progress. Boring book; excellent theme song.)

A parable literally means a juxtapositioning; putting two different things alongside each other, so we can spot the similarities. But according to Mark, Jesus's parables aren't fables, to help us hold onto a truth, or allegories, to make a moral message palatable. According to Mark, Jesus's parables are more like puzzles. Riddles, even. The Kingdom of God is a Mystery.

There were, in the classical world, many "mystery religions" which taught their rituals and doctrines only to initiates. In medieval times, the word "mystery" simply meant "trade secret" or even just "trade". The religious "mystery plays" were plays put on by the different craft guilds, and have nothing to do with mysteries in the religious sense. It isn't exactly clear when "Mystery" took on its present meaning as "puzzle" or in particular "a story about an unsolved crime". The title of the 1794 story which Jane Austen lampoons is The Mysteries of Udolpho. I've always taken that to mean "the puzzles which our intrepid heroine had to solve" but it could still have meant "the experience which was in a funny way like an initiation".

The kingdom of God is a Mystery. There are people on the inside — on the boat? — who know the secret; and people on the outside — on the beach -— who do not. So Jesus preaches in parables to make sure that the people on the beach don't find out the secret.

The "lest" part is particularly troubling. If the people on the shore solve the puzzle, they would turn their lives around and send their sins away. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

and he said unto them,

know ye not this parable?

and how then will ye know all parables?

the sower soweth the word.

and these are they by the way side,

where the word is sown;

but when they have heard,

Satan cometh immediately,

and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.

and these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground;

who, when they have heard the word,

immediately receive it with gladness;

and have no root in themselves,

and so endure but for a time:

afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.

and these are they which are sown among thorns;

such as hear the word,

and the cares of this world,

and the deceitfulness of riches,

and the lusts of other things entering in,

choke the word,

and it becometh unfruitful.

and these are they which are sown on good ground;

such as hear the word,

and receive it,

and bring forth fruit,

some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.

If we don't understand this parable, we won't understand any of the other parables either. That could be taken two ways. Is Jesus saying that this is the master parable, and that once you have decoded it you will be able to solve all the others? Or is he merely saying "I am surprised you need my help to solve this: it's actually one of the easier ones."

Jesus is preaching. It's his biggest gig ever: more people than can get onto the beach. But he is withdrawn with a small number of students; more than twelve but less than fifty. And they have questions. Why is it that such a lot of people listen to you, but so few hear you? Is there a problem with the Word? Maybe you need to focus group a New Improved Word? Maybe you could triangulate with the Pharisees and come up with some Word that would have better market penetration?

To which the answer is: "You don't blame the seed because of where it lands. If it lands in bad soil, it doesn't come up. If it lands in good soil, it does."

The key to the allegory isn't that surprising or complicated. Different types of soil equals different types of people. Some people give up following the Word because it gets too hard: when being a follower of Jesus becomes dangerous or unpopular. Some people give up following the Word because it gets too easy: when there is money and fun and lipstick to be had instead. And some people never hear the Word in the first place: one of those Dirty Ghosts can get in between the preacher and the listener.

So: at whom is the story directed? Is Jesus talking to the soil? "Try hard not to be the kind of soil which has weeds growing in it. Try hard not to be the kind of soil which isn't deep enough for wheat to take root? Try hard to be good soil."

Is he talking to the people outside the process? "You may wonder why not all the seeds come up. But don't worry. There is nothing wrong with the seed, although there may be something wrong with the soil."

Or is he talking to other sowers? "Don't worry if not all your seed comes up. That's not your fault. You can't second guess what kind of soil your seed will land in. Carry on sowing."

We can't change what kind of soil we are. The seed is the seed. The message is for the people already with Jesus, on the boat. "Don't worry. You will always be a minority. You are good soil. But the ear-less majority will never hear what I am saying."

It starts to seem terrifyingly possible that Jesus was a Calvinist.

FUN FACT

In Greek an "ear" of corn is a stachui, and the things on the side of your head are ota and what you do with them is akou. There is no world play between "ear" of corn, a human "ear" or the act of "hearing".

I'm Andrew. I write about folk music, God, comic books, Star Wars and Jeremy Corbyn.

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