This coming Sunday is the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. In the context of Jesus’ ministry the parable serves to explain why it is that the good news of the kingdom meets with such a varied response as we have seen in chapters 11–12, from enthusiastic acceptance to outright rejection. The fault lies not in the message, but in those who receive it.

People are both inadequate in themselves to respond as the word of the kingdom requires (compacted and shallow soil), and also exposed to competing pressures from outside (tribulation and persecution, anxieties and lures, and behind them all the evil one himself). The wonder is not that some do not produce fruit, but that any do. But here lies the parable’s encouragement both to Jesus’ followers then and to all who since then have preached this same gospel; not all will respond, but there will be  some who do, and the harvest will be rich.

Image credit: “The Sower” Vincent van Gogh (June 1888), Van Gogh Museum, Public Domain