The Sower and the Seed

126) and toward the view that "many incompatible viewpoints . . . regarding the actual life-setting of the parables in the ministry of Jesus" (p. 126)--seems such a difficult issue. Anderson cites several core theses of the meaning of the parables in general to reap his point, some that emphasize social milieu, others that emphasize the literary manpowertal ability of a given story. Williamson's focus on the narrative dodge of the parables and on the narrative cloy of the text allows him to see contextual significance in the reference at 4:1-2 to the vastness of teaching in parables (1983, p. 87). His view is that the set of parables that begins with the sower and the microbe "represents the kickoff explicit elaboration in Mark of the message of the farming of God which Jesus announced (1:14-15)." Accordingly, says Williamson, "the teaching of 4:1-34 and the sermon of 1:14-15 . . . interpret each other" (1983, p. 87).

Williamson's interpretation of Kingdom, message, preaching, and teaching all in terms of one another in relation to the parables in Mark emphasizes the symbolic implications of the text as context. Anderson (1976, pp. 126-7) emphasizes less textual campaign per se than the social kinetics of the first of all-century Christian community that whitethorn have informed expression of the narrative. He cites theories that that the stories were meant as allegories and for popular consumption, that "they belong to

Social and cultural aspects of early-Christian text seem rich ground as it were for explaining both the context of the sower-and-seed parable and the content of the text itself. In other words, context provides clues to the content of the first Christian gospel. That is important not least because "Christianity has never been a monolithic movement" (Eberts, 1997, p. 305). Eberts continues:

conflict situations in Jesus' ministry," and that various interpretations of the parables themselves gave outset to "various strains of thought" in emergent Christianity.

There is, indeed, no mystery about the fact that Jesus's teaching was a mensurable alternative to Jewish religious institutions and that sowing the seed that is the word is the content of the apostolic mission.

Thus it is appropriate to see the image of the seed in the parable not (or anyway not only) the news as kingdom of God or vague spectral resonance but rather as the literal, textual mechanism of codification of teachings in a methodical framework. Whatever else the problems of the church service were in the apostolic era, they were institutional. The fact that Jesus realizes that the seed (word) may suffer various fates, not all good, demonstrates an ability to continue the problems of institutionalization. One does not have to make a case for the multiple imperfections of the institution that actually evolved to see that no mistakes of the men who formed the church take away from the importance of having a coherent and consistent and authoritative text to guide that evolution. As text, the word will remain consistent, though it may be rejected by some, embraced half-heartedly by others, and fully embraced by still others. It will always be available as doctrine, always the same message. What remains as the mission of the church is to clarify the meaning of the message, however difficult that mission may be: "For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was anything kept secret,
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