Let Anyone with Ears to Hear Listen!

Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’
- Mark 4:1-9

Here we have Jesus teaching to large crowds. This is no longer the intimate moment of yesterday's reading, where he met the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, and made such a strong connection with her. This is Jesus lecturing to a large crowd, so large that he had to sit in a boat on the lake so that he could address them all standing on the shore. So Jesus tailors his discussion and teaching for a crowd, and he teaches in a parable and not the direct speech of the intimate revelation of yesterday.

"Let anyone with ears to hear listen!" These are the words of the storyteller with a hidden message. In addressing the crowds Jesus is no longer revealing the intimate reality of his identity; instead he is teaching with words chosen to reveal to those who will understand, who will "get it" just what he is talking about and what he is here to teach. He, in the boat on the lake, is a fisher of men. He lays out a net of words, of parable, and the haul he catches will be those capable of discerning, of hearing what he's trying to say. Those without interest will not, they will fade away.

Ironically, the parable itself is about the sower who sows seeds everywhere - some fall here and some fall there, on good soil and bad. Some fell on rocks and sprang up and was scorched, some fell on soil without depth, on soil where weeds would choke it. And yet other grain fell on the path where the birds ate it, and still more would spring up and give great yield. So Jesus, as he later would explain, is telling a story about a teacher speaking in parables, and the poetic reality of this passage and its echoing meanings become stronger... he is here to teach to those who wish to hear, for those for whom the planting will run deep and the yield will be great. He scatters his seed everywhere, and he knows it will fall everywhere, on those for whom it is meaningful and takes root, and on those for whom there are a variety of other responses.

The most important thing, if we are to let this seed take root, is that we must have ears to hear. We must be able to listen, to allow the seed to take root deeply within us so that we can give yield thirty and sixty and a hundredfold. The sower sows his seeds, but the seeds alone can't do the work. We must also be willing to listen, we must be deep and fertile soil, able to resist the weeds, to shrug off the birds. It's our cooperation that is necessary with this seed. ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’