Parable of the Sower - relevant as ever.

Steve has a black thumb.  Not gray.  Not dark purplish blue.  Black.  Pitch black. 

Steve is always on the lookout for a new plant to kill.

Every 2 or 3 years we renew our effort to grow a vegetable garden – and this is one of those years.  But this year we are determined, and it’s going rather well.  No small part of the success is that Steve’s effort was limited to digging up sod, preparing the soil, and putting in fencing.  No handling of live vegetation.

As it turns out – and as you might well know – the soil preparation is not Steve-proof.  It takes a good deal of effort to get the right density, porosity, and chemistry.  Good soil = good fruit (or vegetables).  Bad soil = barren garden.

The Jews of the time of the Gospel would have known all about soil and cultivating and growing.  There was no Wegmans after all.  And so it’s little surprise that this Sunday’s Gospel passage gives us Jesus telling the crowds the Parable of the Sower.

Jesus points out different dispositions of the human heart, and He relates them to different types of soil - something His audience would have understood very well

Jesus specifically gives comparisons of the hardened dirt of a well-traveled path; shallow uninviting rocky soil; soil that’s already overrun with thorn bushes; and finally, rich, nourishing soil.

If you’re reading this email and gotten this far (yay for you), you’re working on cultivating rich soil – you don’t have a hard, rocky, thorny heart.  But that said, most of us still have some echoes of those dispositions, and the fallen world wants to drag us down to those nasty conditions – and keep other people trapped there.

And so there’s much to be gained by spending time with this parable, especially in the current slice of history in which we find ourselves.  That is the topic of this week’s video (coming out tomorrow) and our follow-up messages.

For today, you might reflect on the parable (in the postscript) and Jesus’ explanation of it (one of only two times that He gives us a direct explanation!).

Blessings on your journey with Christ –

Steve and Karen Smith

Interior Life

Postscript:  Mt 13:1-23

On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.  Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore.

And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:  "A sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.  It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots.  Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.  But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.  Whoever has ears ought to hear."

The disciples approached him and said, "Why do you speak to them in parables?"  He said to them in reply, "Because knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been granted to you, but to them it has not been granted.  To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  This is why I speak to them in parables, because they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.  Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: You shall indeed hear but not understand, you shall indeed look but never see.

Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and be converted, and I heal them.

"But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.  Amn, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

"Hear then the parable of the sower.  The seed sown on the path is the one who hears the word of the kingdom without understanding it, and the evil one comes and steals away what was sown in his heart.  The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy.  But he has no root and lasts only for a time.  When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.  The seed sown among thorns is the one who hears the word, but then worldly anxiety and the lure of riches choke the word and it bears no fruit.  But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold."