Hello, you're listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
This epiphany in Lent, we're back in the Gospels,
specifically the Gospel of Mark. We are seeing
the revelation of God in Jesus. Mark is showing
us the true King becomes a servant for us. He
says right at the heart, the Son of Man came
not to be served, but to serve and to give his
life as a ransom for many. And Mark is nearly
always asking his audience, what do you make
of that? So, what do you make of this good news?
We'd love to meet you and we hope you'll consider
coming and joining with us each Sunday morning
at 10 a .m. in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg.
You can find us online at SecondCityChurch .org
and on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We hope
you enjoy this sermon. God bless. We pray that
you would bear much fruit in us, that we would
receive your word. Throw your seed upon us, God.
And would we be those who desire to understand
and to bear the fruit of the kingdom of God.
Amen. the Gospel of Mark and we're starting chapter
four as you just heard and We're getting to some
of Jesus parables And this is actually one of
the longer teachings in mark mark doesn't have
the same kind of long teachings that say John
or Certainly Matthew even Luke Luke has quite
a few longer parables mark doesn't have as many
of those mark is kind of a fast gospel But this
morning we actually have a rather long section
for mark on a parable And before we get into
that, I want to tell you a parable that I was
told in seminary in my Gospels course by Dan
Doriani. And he began his lecture on the parables
with this. In the mountainous regions of northern
Italy, there was a monastery which overlooked
a small alpine village. Every day a monk winded
his way down the mountain path to St. Mass at
the village church. One cold fall day. He noticed
the bird lying in the path nearly expired from
the cold. He looked at the bird and then without
hesitation he put it inside his habit next to
his warm body. By the time he was to enter the
church the bird warmed by the monk's body and
clothes had begun to wiggle about and he knew
that it wouldn't be right to take this bird into
the church with him and so he sort of scanned
the piazza that he found himself in and he saw
cow pie warm steaming gelatinous cow pie and
so rather carefully he took this bird and gently
but firmly he pushed it in to the cow pie of
course what happened is that the bird continued
to be revived by this warmth this steaming warmth
And the bird began to chirp. The bird began to
sing. Have new life. Well, unfortunately, at
that same moment, there was a fox that was going
along the wall of this little village, the wall
that surrounded this little village. And the
fox looked down and he heard and he saw this
bird. He jumped down into the piazza. He went
over and he snatched the bird out of the cow
pie. Here are the lessons of the parable. At
least the initial points of this story. One,
the one who puts you into it is not necessarily
your enemy. Two, the one who gets you out of
it is not necessarily your friend. Three, when
you find yourself up to your beak in the stuff,
It's best to keep your mouth shut. There are
lots of good parables. And a lot of times, actually,
parables function like jokes, don't they? Or
a good riddle. They kind of make you have to
think and pay attention and follow. And oftentimes,
they actually are very humorous because the end
is not always what you think and the meaning
is not always sort of what you initially think
the meaning may be. We have to kind of slow down
and give our attention to them. Sometimes we
really don't know even what the ending is. Think
about the famous parable of the prodigal son
with me if you know that story. We actually don't
really know the ending. Part of the point is
will the old brother come into the party? We
don't know what happens. That's part of its point.
Some people define a parable as an earthly story
with a heavenly meaning. Maybe you've heard that.
But parables are really interesting. Sometimes
we have these long parables like the parable
of the prodigal son, and sometimes Jesus' parables
are just a sentence or two. But this parable
that we have this morning for us, I will say
is a foundational parable, kind of a paradigmatic
parable. Jesus actually says this in verse 13.
He says, do you not understand this parable?
How then will you understand all of the other
parables? You know, this is the one that you
kind of need to get in order to sort of get the
others. The story here is the main story of what
I'm doing in teaching parables. Interestingly,
actually Mark in verse 2 there, he says, and
he was teaching them many things in parables.
Plural. But then he highlights this one. Now
he's going to give us some other ones. We'll
look at some of those next week. But it says,
though, he's saying this is the big one, that
if you want to understand what Jesus is doing
in parables, pay attention here. And I think
these two questions for us, do you not understand
this parable? Do you not understand this word,
these parables, from me? How will you not understand
all the other characters? I think this kind of
gets at this point that Jesus is making here,
and that has to do with this interaction between
the seed and the soil, okay? Sometimes it's very
simple. Seed and soil. Well, let's consider the
seed first, okay? So, Jesus has another large
crowd gathered before him, and we know this is
not the first time. I mean, we've just been in
this gospel for a couple short months, and we've
already seen this happen. But a large crowd gathers
around Jesus so much so that he gets out into
a boat and he kind of pushes off from the shore
where all the crowd had gathered around. Actually,
if you just look in chapter three, literally
what we saw last week in verse nine, it actually
says this, and he told his disciples to have
a boat ready for him because of the crowd. So
this was a dynamic that Jesus was maybe already
accustomed to even early on in his ministry.
But one thing that's kind of interesting is that
they're actually along the Sea of Galilee to
the south, and actually to the southwest of Capernaum,
Capernaum being along the sea there, there's
actually a natural amphitheater that comes sort
of off the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and it
slopes gently up, you know, along this hillside.
The bay there in the Sea of Galilee is actually
today known as the Bay of Peripers. And it has
been studied, Israeli scientists have verified
that given a certain location of a speaker in
that bay of parables, a speaker could easily,
without modern amplification, speak to a few
thousand people just speaking. fuse out in a
boat like this. And so you can kind of picture
this is what Jesus is doing. He's got this huge
crowd that's gathered together, and it makes
sense wherever you'd be doing that. He'd come
up, go out to the boat, and he'd speak. You know,
the water would maybe work to reverberate the
sound. And so he's teaching this large crowd,
and Mark specifically highlights that he's teaching
this parable for us. And on the face of it, I
want to say this parable is like pretty simple.
My guess is if you've been around with Christians
for a while, you've been in the church for a
while, you've probably engaged with this parable.
It's a fairly simple parable, but there's also
some really odd things. There's some odd things
for our ears, and then there's some odd things
for the original audience. So the parable tells
us of the sower who's sowing a seed. And literally,
you can just picture this man having a bag of
seed and kind of throwing it out. And I think
additionally, it just seems odd to us because
the first place that he sows it, it says is along
a path. That's what our translation says, but
some translations will say it's a road. And we
think, why would you do that? course keep in
mind that you know they're not driving cars around
their paths and their roads aren't paved i mean
this path literally might go right through somebody's
field that actually happened too like the path
would just go right through somebody's field
so he's sewing it and he's thinking maybe i'll
reclaim this path it's not terribly odd to them
even though it actually sounds very odd to us
um the other thing i think that seems rather
odd is that uh He doesn't till up his land. There's
no mention of that. And that's such a significant
thing for us. It's more about kind of the act
of doing it first before you throw out all the
seed into all these different places. You would
just, for us, we'd like, we'll just throw it
on the part that is tilled up. But actually that
didn't work that way. Oftentimes you'd actually
throw out the seed. And this wasn't just for
Israel. This was sort of an ancient practice.
Throw out the seed and then you would till it
into the ground. So picture like this. I know
some of you have had great gardens at least in
your day. Maybe you do now and you've grown like
a bell pepper or something like that and You
didn't pick them all because you had so many
I feel like I should be using zucchini because
zucchini is always the one that goes so crazy
that you've got to like What do I do with this
huge thing? but you know you leave some of it
in your garden and then then you know it dies
and then there's some seed that kind of sits
there and You didn't plant the bell pepper the
zucchini, but bam there they are Right? So you
kind of understand it, you know, that kind of
thing. You throw it out and you don't till it
up until after the fact. So it's a little bit
strange for us to engage with this parable. There's
a distance between us and the parable that might
seem kind of odd to us in this seed that's sown.
But there's something, so those things might
seem odd to us, but there's something really
odd to the original audience here. It's deeply
strange to the original audience. And the strange
thing for the original audience is the yield
of this seed. So you all know, right, that we
live in a Monsanto world. You know, we put fertilizer
all over our crops. And a lot of times you can
only buy certain seeds that have been genetically
modified to produce massive amounts of crops.
And it's actually very hard to get some old seeds.
And so what we assume is that when you sow something,
you're gonna actually get a pretty substantial
crop out of it. But back then, actually, if you
sowed a seed, or actually if you even sowed some
corn, maybe you've seen pictures of old varieties
of corn, you wouldn't get some huge corn on the
cob like we think of. You would maybe get six,
eight, maybe 10 -fold from the seed you've sown,
okay? That would be a good yield. You sow one
seed and the head comes up and it produces 10
seeds on it. This is great. But Jesus here tells
us, some of the seed didn't just bear fruit,
but it bore fruit 30 -fold, 60 -fold, 100 -fold.
And people then would have been like, well, they
would actually, wow, give me that seed, or they
think this guy's crazy. What an absurdity. So
anyway, so here's the seed. As I explained kind
of what's happening and we could just stop and
we could say, okay, what do you think of this?
What do you think of this initial parable that
Jesus gives us? And one thing that you could
think is, you could say the takeaway is, isn't
this just like life? Sometimes you win, sometimes
you lose. You're just throwing stuff out there
and sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't
go well. You know, sometimes you study for that
test for like five minutes. and you get everything
right and the extra credit. You're like, what?
It's amazing. And sometimes you study for that
test for like three hours and it doesn't go so
well. You're like, what is this? Yeah, so you
approach what Jesus says here and you're like,
oh, this is just like life. These seeds are just
kind of scattered here and scattered there. And
it all just feels a little random maybe. And
sometimes things go well, sometimes things don't
go well. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Sometimes the day goes well and sometimes it
doesn't. Maybe the lesson is you've got to at
least ask the girl out. Or you've got to at least
say yes in order to find out. It's just kind
of random. Just try something out. Throw it out
there. And maybe that's what some of the people
initially thought. They're like, oh, Jesus is
just talking about life. Interesting, Jesus.
Sometimes things seem really great. You make
a bunch of sales call. One day nobody buys anything
the next day ten does he got us in sort of like
a pep talk in a way And I'm sure actually on
some level when those people all these crowds
thousands of people probably came to hear Jesus
Some of them probably thought uh Good motivational
speaker stay in the game these kinds of takeaways
They went home and they were just kind of like
I don't know. And their friend was like, hey,
what'd you think of that Jesus guy that you went
to go see down at the parable bay? Probably wasn't
called that then. And they told their buddy like,
I don't know, he's interesting. Take it or leave
it. Maybe I'll go see him again. He gave us some
stuff that we already know. Okay, whatever. I
also bet there were some folk that were actually
a little bit mad about what he had said. I mean,
they had... they'd heard that this man Jesus
was you know proclaiming the good news of the
kingdom of God and he was doing things like healing
people and they were like man I had traveled
days to come see you and you're just telling
me like stay in the game or something like that
you know I'm no doubt I bet there were some people
that were actually a little bit furious that
day this is all you're giving us what a waste
of time and energy they thought But of course
there were some that were really interesting.
There's something more here. There's something
that this guy is telling me, and I don't quite
get it. And I want to. The possibility of bearing
so much fruit? What is it? What's going on here?
Kind of interestingly, if you do have your Bibles
open still, verse 10 says, and when he was alone,
now, you know. Alone in the in the context so
when it wasn't the huge crowd Those around him
with the 12 asked him about the purpose So there's
at least 12 and there's a handful of others around
him, but it's not a lot But they're the ones
that are saying wait a second Jesus You've got
something going on here, and we really want to
hear from you So right here in actually our own
story it seems as though the parable is playing
itself out Seed that's sown and some of it seems
to produce very little and some seems to produce
so much. That's partly the point, of course.
The seed and the soil, as I mentioned before,
they go hand -in -hand in this story. So we got
to consider the soil here. Again, this is somewhat
self -explanatory and yet we'll see there's more
going on here than initially meets the eye. So
when Jesus explains this parable about this seed
being sown on this different kind of terrain,
the path and the rocky soil and the soil with
the thorns and the fertile soil, when he explains
it, it's this soil that gets the most attention.
So he says, some of the seed is sown on the path
and the birds come and grab it. He says, it's
like Satan. There's actually working against
something's working against the seed bearing
fruit and so just comes it's like The other it
has no time at all You know, there's no kind
of percolating. There's no germination that's
taking place. No real interest in the things
of God No desire really to engage with Jesus
and then there's the kind of so that's like this
rocky ground the Word of God Seems to grab a
hold In fact, it actually says, you know, with
joy, there's this initial burst, this flame that
goes up. But then when the winds of trial and
persecution come, when they always come, when
life seems to get too hard, they think, you know
what, maybe this isn't what I thought. Maybe
this isn't what I'd been promised. I'd been promised
health and wealth and now I've got trial and
persecution. Forget about it. And then there's
some seed that's sown among thorns, and these
people also hear the word of God. And again,
this does not just go in one ear and out the
other, like that which is sown on the path. And
this time it's also not the trial and the persecution
that harm the growth, but this time it's actually
sort of the good things in life. It's the deceitfulness
of riches and the desire for other things. Not
just trial and persecution, but sometimes our
attention is taken away from Jesus by even the
good things of this world that then cause the
word to be choked and life in Christ to die and
no fruit to be born. And then finally he says
there is another type. There's a type of soil
in which my seed sinks deep down and when that
happens The fruit is something like you would
never expect. Something beyond your imagining.
Some people get on board. Some people stay far
off. Some people they hear and they forget right
away. Some are enthusiastic. But for a little
while. Some just have too much on their minds.
Too many things on their minds. So many bad things.
So many good things. But the seed does not sink
down. And yet some become unbelievably fruitful.
And of course, just right there, there's a huge
lesson for us. There's a huge encouragement for
us, right? To be those who desire to be fruitful
soil, to be receptive soil. There's a lesson
in this, to pursue the work of God in such a
way that we might bear fruit, right? To receive
it. To let it soak again. to let it germinate
and to be cautious of those trials and persecutions
and those good things in life that get in the
way. There's a good lesson in all that. It's
a significant part of the lesson. But there is
also something else going on here that's very
important and there's like something deeper that's
happening here. So I told you that there were
three points to the initial parable right that
my professor Dan Doriani told us. at Covenant
Seminary. But what if I told you in the context
in which he heard that? Because he also told
us this. He told us that that story was told
by a Christian scholar, an older seasoned Christian
scholar, who is addressing a group of younger
and older Christian scholars who were almost
all teaching at large public universities. And
when you hear that, Well, the context almost
changes the meaning of it. Not completely changes
the meaning, but it actually sort of helps you
understand why he might be saying it. And partly
why you might think you'd be saying in that context
is, hey, if you want to actually survive in this
kind of setting, if you want to make it long
term, if you want to live to the next day, you
better keep your mouth shut and your head down.
It kind of changes the context itself makes you
go wait a second here There's something else
going on telling us telling it in this time in
this place context always matters immensely So
in the gospel mark mark does this literary device
that we've talked about before it's called an
inclusio It's like a mini chiasm chiasm. We saw
a lot in Genesis where you go a B C D C D C B
A right and it makes us like be shaped and the
point is often right in the middle. An occlusio
is kind of like an envelope that's wrapping around
the main thing. Or you could think of it like
a sandwich. So you have like a piece of bread
on one side, a piece of bread on the other side,
and then you got the main thing in the middle.
And mostly, you know, we define things by what's
in the middle, right? We say it's a ham sandwich.
We say it's a turkey sandwich, or we say it's
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, right? This
is not too tricky. It's an occlusio. And Mark
does this a lot. And actually he's doing this
right here. He tells us the parable, and then
more or less he tells it again, even though he's
explaining it. And right there in the middle
is sort of the main thing that's happening. The
main thing that's going on in this narrative
here in Mark chapter four is this middle part,
which is 10 through 12. Let me read them again
for you. And when he was alone, those around
him with the 12, Asked him about the parables
and he said to them to you has been given the
secret of the kingdom of God But for those outside
everything is in parables So that they may indeed
see but not perceive and may indeed hear but
not understand Lest they should turn and be forgiven
now I'll say this he's quoting from what we heard
Chuck read to us from Isaiah chapter 6 which
is the message of Isaiah, which is a message
both of judgment and of grace, as most prophetic
messages were. And I think when we first hear
this and we think, wow, this is the point of
Mark, what Mark is doing. He's putting this thing
in the middle and he's saying, hey, this is the
interpretive sandwich right here. One of the
questions that you ask is you say, well, does
Jesus then want people to understand? It says,
lest they should turn and be forgiven. But again,
context is key here. And I want you to think
with me, let's just quickly think about what's
happened in the gospel of Mark. Mark began, he
said, this is the gospel of Jesus that I'm giving,
that I'm telling you. And then right in that
first chapter, what we learn is that Jesus was
going about Galilee, this St. Mary, and he was
proclaiming the gospel, the good news of the
kingdom of God. And as he was proclaiming that,
what we then learned as sort of these chapters,
these early chapters went on is he was doing
all kinds of good and healing and bringing about
this reality of God's reign in the world, bringing
things as they were meant to be, doing the things
that would sort of reestablish the reality of
who God is and how he's made his world. And so
he does stuff like he heals a person of unclean
spirit. And he heals the leper and he heals the
paralytic and he heals the man with the withered
hand and he's doing all this stuff. He's proclaiming
this good news, this gospel. He calls the 12th
to himself. Right, we saw this last week and
he sort of reestablishes this unification. And
all these things are what any Israelite would
have wanted in a way. They would have said, yeah,
we desire God's reign on earth. We desire the
goodness of other people. We want the forgiveness
of sins. You know, we want the reestablishment
of the people of God. What Jesus is doing in
the, you know, bringing the 12 disciples together.
And yet, what did we just see last week? Just
last week, we saw all these people actually saying
things like this. He's got a demon. He's a son
of Beosebol. He's unclean. He's crazy The very
people that you would think would say let's receive
him Let's hear his word. Let's receive what he
has to say or ask the people to say no in one
ear out the other or better yet I can't believe
that you're coming to me this way You're not
meeting my expectations of what the Messiah was
supposed to be. Let's do away with you It certainly
didn't want Somebody questioning their religious
practices the way Jesus questioned them. Challenging
their life the way Jesus challenged them. Instead
they wanted a king that would come and oust the
Romans. Show the power of Israel. King on the
throne. And so so many people came and they listened
to Jesus. Religious people, keep in mind, these
are the people of Israel that came. They listened
to Jesus and they went away and they said, I
don't think I want much to do with him. I don't
really think I want much to do with him. He's
out of his mind. He has an unclean spirit. He's
not interesting enough. He's just telling us
some good motivational speech. We can hear that
elsewhere. And part of what Jesus is saying is
that parables are actually a way of putting the
dividing line. Who's really in? Who's really
committed to understanding, to devoting themselves
to God among them, God teaching them? God giving
Himself for them. I mean, it's interesting. Jesus
has this amazing message, this good news of the
Kingdom of God. He does these amazing things
and He offers things like the forgiveness of
sins, no guilt, no shame. And He comes and He
actually touches people and He heals them. What
we have at this moment is actually Jesus has
done so much good and already only in chapter,
we have so many people saying, I actually don't
want anything of this. I don't want this. And
so part of what Jesus is doing from the beginning
with these parables is saying, who are you going
to be? Who are you going to be? Are you going
to actually receive me as I come to you? And
it's just interesting to think about this because
of course this is what happens today. I mean,
think about the message that we have. Think about
the message of Christianity. God who made all
things. The one who says that actually, you know,
the whole Bible begins with this idea that God
speaks and he makes people in his image, every
single person. This is a religion that says every
single person has dignity and worth and value.
And what a message for the world. Isn't that
something that everybody would say the world
needs this? With how often we just lambast others,
with rampant racism, all this stuff. Just one
idea. One idea alone that every single person
has made in the image of God and has intrinsic
value and worth. That is something that everybody
should, let's grab onto that. How about this
idea that actually, I think it's very freeing
to say, hey, everybody's a sinner. You know,
it's a humbling thing in a good way where we
don't just have to look down on other people,
right? Oh, look, I'm so good. Or look how other
people, man, I'm the only one that's like this.
There's something that's so freeing about these
messages of Christian faith. Or of course think
about this core idea that God who made all things
actually takes on flesh for us and Actually dies
for us that our sins would be gone and says hey
you are guilt free you're here All of your guilt
was taken away. That is a message that should
lift you up and I mean I feel like why wouldn't
somebody want that and yet so many people have
no desire for them? Right. That's true. So people
go that is crazy. That's silly. Okay, maybe a
good motivational speech Let me go home and just
do my own thing The same thing that was happening
in Jesus' day happens in our day. And Jesus is
saying, hey, I'm giving you this parable sandwich
with the meaning right in the middle because...
Where are you gonna be? I mean, you could put
it this way too. What soil are you? Do you receive
the words of God? and one ear out the other.
Do you receive the word of God to say, ah, life
is too hard? Do you receive the word of God and
say, ah, there's other things that are shinier?
Do you receive the word of God, bear fruit? Jesus
doesn't actually interpret a lot of the parables
for us. You know that, right? A lot of them he
doesn't interpret. And he's telling us here,
that's actually part of the point. When you first
come to these verses that explain the reason
for parables, particularly verses 11 and 12,
oddly it also seems like there's some kind of
determinism going on. To you has been given,
which is sort of a divine passive in the Bible,
the has been given often refers to the idea that
God is the one giving it, right? To you has been
given the secret of the kingdom of God. But for
those outside, everything's in pairs. Almost
as though it's just like, hey, it's a you and
a them. And I'm just putting this dividing line
here. This is kind of hard determinism to play.
And I will say this, the Bible does speak most
certainly about the sovereignty of God and the
fact that the grace of God is only ever a gift.
But it's so inestimating that that there is put
right in the context of these people who have
come to Him And he's been saying, what's going
on with these parables? Right? And if that's
the kind of part that's right in the middle,
that's what Jesus and Mark is driving at was,
go to him. Go to him and say, Jesus, what are
you doing? Jesus, teach me. Jesus, bear fruit
in me. God is teaching us here about the necessity
of fertile receptive soil. And he's teaching
us also the power of the seed, but he's also
laying before us this question. How do you come
to him? What kind of soil are you? You come down
with a hard heart. Come to him desiring to be
taught, to grow and to change and to learn. I
didn't tell you the other context of this parable
that my professor told us about. And that was
that this guy, this older seasoned scholar who
told these younger scholars, they were working
in secular universities, these Christian scholars
that work in secular universities. He told them
this parable, but he actually told them also
where he first heard it. And he was first told
that parable. by the president of the university
where he worked to all of the first year students.
All the first year, sorry, not first year students,
first year professors. And when you heard it
in that context, it almost seemed to mean a totally
other thing. And that other thing that they were
hearing was, you better keep your mouth shut
and toe the line where you'll be eaten. It was
a threat. Here's what I'm suggesting to you in
all this. We actually need ears to hear Jesus
properly and to receive Him properly. And these
little verses that may seem dismissive, right?
They may indeed see but not perceive. They may
indeed hear but not understand unless they should
turn and be forgiven. We need to hear this as
this greater prophet Isaiah. Jesus coming and
offering both grace and the possibility of judgment.
But he's saying to those who have ears to hear,
let them hear and let them receive and let them
bear fruit. The question for the original audience,
the question for us is just simply this. Do you
have ears to hear? Do you receive the seed? And
then the promise is, if you do, you will bear
much fruit. Let me pray for us. Lord This parable
that is so familiar to so many of us and yet
has such a simple yet profound message Gotta
pray that we would have ears to hear gotta pray
that we wouldn't be those that simply hear and
quickly pass on from your words to us or simply
those who hear and think a Good moral speaker,
but those who sit with you like these few that
were gathered together with the 12 and desire
to learn from you. God, I pray that we would
be a church that desires to hear your word, that
it would sink deep within us and that it would
bear much fruit in our lives. God, I pray that
even the strange challenge that you give in this
setting, of the difficulty sometimes of hearing
you. God, if that would be a challenge that we
would rise to, that we would be desirous to actually
understand you, to let that seed soak in and
germinate and bear fruit. God, please do that
in us. Please bear this fruit in us. Give us
a great love for your holy word. We pray in Jesus'
name, amen. Thank you for listening to Second
City Sermons Podcast. We hope this sermon has
encouraged you to worship God and to celebrate
the gospel of Jesus. Please consider subscribing
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Sunday at 10 a .m. You can find us online at
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and YouTube. Thanks again for listening. God
bless.