Back the the Bible: Mark 4

Mark 4

Growing up Pentecostal/Charismatic, Mark 4 was a regular passage quoted in sermons about faith and prosperity. In fact, I can recall multiple chapel speakers while I was at Oral Roberts University citing the Parable of the Sower (4:1-20) as evidence for a magical formula of giving money away so that you can receive hundredfold returns from the heavens. They called it “seed faith.” In the end, I mostly witnessed wealthy preachers with airplanes manipulating the masses to invest their limited resources into their ministries. “I’m good soil,” I heard more than one evangelist declare. This codependent power dynamic seemed to work for some believers. They wouldn’t hear a word against the perceived Man of God they admired. For me, I thought it was all very gross. It’s always been angering to observe genuine faith being taken advantage of for financial profit.

Mark 4 includes several other parables and a powerful story of Jesus calming the storm on the boat. However, I’ll keep things short(er) by focusing on the Parable of the Sower. What I’ve always found so intriguing about this passage is that Jesus preaches a sermon to the crowds who have gathered, but apparently the meaning of his words are so opaque that his disciples take him aside afterwards and ask him to explain it. I think that’s hilarious. Here are the literal “chosen ones” and they aint got a clue as to what their Rabbi is talking about.

To add another layer to the enigma, it seems that Jesus is hiding the meaning ON PURPOSE. He all but says it. “Yeah, to the crowds I speak in parables. I’ll tell you disciples what I mean, but for them, I’m going to make them work for it.” In fact, according to his own parable with the four types of soil/people - 2 that fall away immediately, one that struggles and falls away, and 1 that receives the word - only 25% of people will understand. Most will be “seeing but never perceiving, ever hearing but never understanding (4:12).”

If we put ourselves in the shoes of the original listeners, the promise of 100x yield of crops is astronomical. Some scholars say a 7:1 yield is normal with 10:1 being an unusually good harvest. A farmer will work the field for the landowner and will have to pay for the land. This may leave him with barely enough profit to cover food and any tithing or debts he may have. But if he gets a hundredfold, well, that changes everything. That means he can pay for all he needs and buy the land outright. Some scholars say this is Jesus’ point: the Kingdom of God envisions an economic reversal where oppressive systems no longer govern society.

I just finished reading a book by Dr. Gabor Mate called, The Myth of Normal. It’s a rich dive into our society’s approach to medicine and disease. What struck me was Mate’s bold criticism of our systems of healthcare and showing how they ignore the root problem for so many ills we face as a country. He cites dozens of medical and academic studies to buttress his position, but the common sense explanation is what got me: we can’t expect a system designed to treat symptoms to address root causes. In essence, we have a country drinking from a river polluted by toxins (read toxic culture) while pharmaceutical businesses make profits off selling drugs to treat the sickness we all necessarily experience. Of course, our society’s love for money (read capitalism and consumerism) makes healing almost impossible. That system is not incentivized to help prevent disease. It needs disease to stay in business. So common sense says the answer is to address the mouth of the river and to mitigate the poisons that we all ingest on a daily basis - deeply rooted toxins like sexism, racism, ignoring the role of trauma, and predatory/unethical business practices, to name a few. But that will take people’s willingness to hear a message they likely don’t want to hear. A message that rejects the status quo. A message of change. 

I see Mate doing what Jesus was doing - challenging people with a message that they likely won’t want to hear. Jesus’ messages challenge cultural assumptions about religion, identity, and the established power structures of the day. Is it any wonder that 75% of the seed sown fails? They are hard pills to swallow. Therefore, Jesus spoke in parables - in riddles that evoked confusion and knocked people off balance. The hope is that some of the seed will find a welcome home. Jesus seems to trust that some of his parables will find fertile soil - people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired. People who are willing to not only change personally, but reject the stories of our society that prop up unjust and harmful systems.

This isn’t a blogpost romanticizing social activism. I actually don’t put a lot of faith in many activist agendas I see at play. I mostly see a lot of “bad ways of doing good.” After the Parable of the Sower, Jesus told another parable about the Growing Seed. Basically, he said God’s economy is like a man who scatters seed, cares for them, and one day harvests the product. But he doesn’t make them grow, nor can he really understand how they do grow. In essence, the growth cannot be manufactured, only tended. I read that parable as saying our evolution as a society is mysterious and uncontrollable. My part isn’t to manufacture the vision through angry advocacy, labeling people, or evangelistic tactics that rely on shaming or bullying. But I can become aware of my role in the systems that aren’t helping, and with effort and courage, step out of those systems to offer a different way of being.

I liken it to “seeing the Matrix.” Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. I can stop overidentifying with the system and create a new identity apart from it. Or as the the Oldtimers in my church used to say, to be in the world but not of it. While I don’t see it in the same way they were talking about it, I like the distinction they made. I want to be good soil, which means for me that I need to be open to messages that my ego and my culture will not want me to explore.