Read­ing Time: 2 minutes

What is parable?

In its simple form, a par­able is a com­par­is­on or a simil­it­ude. It is a short fic­ti­tious (made-up) nar­rat­ive or story of some­thing that might actu­ally hap­pen in real life, through which a mor­al les­son is drawn. This is typ­ic­al of Jesus’ par­ables. Accord­ing to its Greek ety­mo­logy, a par­able (Greek: para­bolē) is some­thing (in this case a story) thrown there to be taken and com­pared with some­thing else. It is a pla­cing beside, hence, a com­par­is­on or an illus­tra­tion. In his par­ables, Jesus bor­rowed from home life, nature, the anim­al world, agri­cul­ture, com­merce, roy­alty, and hos­pit­al­ity. This Sunday Gos­pel read­ing is a par­able taken from the agri­cul­tur­al con­text. Those who know how sow­ing was done in Palestine dur­ing this peri­od will not have any dif­fi­culty in under­stand­ing the seeds fall­ing by the way-side, on thorns, on rocky paths and on rich soil. Jesus also gave the mean­ing of the par­able hence, there is no need for spec­u­la­tions on what such par­able means. Each per­son should be able to know where he/she falls.

Conclusion        

In Mat­thew 13:15, Jesus made a very touch­ing state­ment. Accord­ing to him, “the heart of this people has become dull; they are hard of hear­ing, and they have shut their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and under­stand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” Today, these words are addressed to us. The heart becom­ing dull means our hearts have become imper­vi­ous, insens­it­ive and arid. Hence, we are not able to under­stand the things of God. We hear everything except that which we are sup­posed to hear as chil­dren and ser­vants of God. We see every oth­er thing except the right things as Chris­ti­ans and as mature and respons­ible adults. Instead of under­stand­ing with our hearts, we prefer to under­stand with our heads. What we have today is not pure Christians/Christianity, but pagan Christians/Christianity. As seed sown by the sower, where exactly have we fallen? Where have you fallen? By the path­ways? On the rocky paths? On thorns? Or on the rich and good soil? What is your reac­tion to the word of God?

FOR DETAILS, GET YOUR OWN COPY OF THE BOOK “THE WORD OF LIFE: SUNDAY REFLECTIONS” (vol. I)!! The reflec­tion for the 15^th Sunday is found on pages 368–377. Happy reading!

For details on how to get it, con­tact the author on this link: https://m.me/uchennabiblia?fbclid=IwAR2yeg4a6sDGBp9QGkIvKj6FSADumMokN6lshdE0zuo-JHs6qOmlhA7jyHo or email me at: postmaster@uchennabiblia.com or simply send an SMS on 08116100926, and I will get back to you.

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