Jesus taught many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to the crowds: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty fold and sixty fold and a hundredfold." And he said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."-St. Mark 4:2-9
The time came when Jesus was no longer teaching in the synagogue, but rather out in the open by the Sea of Galilee. The basis of Christ’s method of teaching was the use of the parable. A parable is “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Something on earth is compared with something in heaven, so that the heavenly truth may be better grasped in light of the earthly illustration.
So we see Jesus is sitting in a boat just off the edge of the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He begins with the “here and now” and moves to the “there and then.” In other words, He started from a thing that was happening at that moment before their eyes. They could see the fields. They knew how seeds were planted, and how they would grow, depending upon the soil.
This was the very essence of our Lord’s teaching, that He started with the simplest things that even a child could understand, and led people to truths they had never realized before, showing that there is a direct relationship between earth and heaven.
It isn’t just possible - but indeed it is necessary - to see the things of God in common and ordinary things. Life is filled with things which can lead us to God, if we will only look at them with eyes of faith. The soil before their eyes became for the people a picture of their own lives as they heard it in Christ’s parable. The seed in the parable became the Word of God. And through this parable we can learn how to cultivate God’s truth, and so grow in God’s Kingdom.