Do you not understand this parable?

And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: the ones who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy. And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”

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Interesting how this passage begins with Jesus thinking that he should not really have to explain this parable to his disciples. It is fascinating because this parable is all about have a heart prepared to hear what God is saying. Could he have been saying that they (and we) would have understood the parable if the soil of their hearts was fertile? Perhaps the message of the parable would have rung clear if not for their shallowness and worries?

The teaching in this parable is so simple that we will miss it if we over analyze it. Jesus is explaining the saying that he often communicates when he says “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  The parallels between the soil and our hearts is so compelling when you consider that the Lord is speaking of how our hearts, like farm land, can be hard and unfit for seed when it is untended. It speaks to me of my responsibility to tend my heart.

Help me Lord to tend my heart and keep it tender and weed free.