Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Mark (4: 1-20) in which Jesus shares the parable of the farmer who went out to sow seed, as he scattered it, the seed falls into various types of soil.

Fr Paul asks, what was Jesus’ original intention for the parable of the Sower? Was he warning against different kinds of temptations and allurements for his followers, or was he reflecting on his own mission? Was he reflecting that he had tried every kind of proclaiming the Kingdom, and one after another had been fruitless. Only among a small number had he succeeded, but there the yield had been great – increasingly great.

What about the little piece between the parable and the explanation, verses 10-12? The change of scene for a further explanation is a Markan feature, and so is the ‘sandwiching’ technique. The words – ‘So that they may see and see again, but not perceive; may hear and hear again, but not understand; otherwise they might be converted and be forgiven’ – are from Isaiah. They are the same words used at the conclusion of Jesus’ ministry in John 12 to explain the failure of Israel to respond to Jesus, and they are used again at the end of the Acts of the Apostles to explain the failure of the Roman Jews to respond to Paul.

The earliest Christians liked to show that features in the life of Jesus were the fulfilment of scripture. The original purpose of these three verses with the quotation from Isaiah was probably to show that the failure of Israel to respond to the message of Jesus was yet another fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah.

Fr Paul notes that time and again people failed to respond to message of Jesus and asks, ‘What’s my response?’