In today’s Gospel, we hear a parable comparing the kingdom of God to a sower who scatters seed in various places. We’ll get used to hearing parables in the next few weeks, because for 3 Sundays in a row, we’ll hear a series of parables in our Gospel readings from the 13th chapter of Matthew.
The prophet Isaiah sets the stage for what we hear in today’s Gospel. Isaiah spoke to the people of ancient Israel during their exile in Babylon. They’d seen their beloved Temple in Jerusalem destroyed, as they were taken away from the promised that God gave to them. Thus, Isaiah & his people were living in a very broken, fragmented world. You can imagine how they questioned their faith, how they wondered if God had abandoned them completely, if they’d ever recover & regain hope. The people of Israel lived in a very arid desert climate; they understood the message that Isaiah delivered to them about the importance of moisture from the snow & the rain that would keep the soil fertile & that would produce abundant crops. Just as the nurturing rain could change dry land into a lush oasis, so God’s word can bring about a dramatic transformation in our lives as well. God word nurtures us & replenishes our souls, giving us new life & a renewal of spirit. God tells us that he has confidence in his word as it works in the soil of our lives, that his word will produce results, that it will not return to him empty & void.
So, in the context of what we hear Isaiah saying about how God’s word is planted here on earth, we hear Jesus explain the parable of the sower this morning. Planting seeds would have been very familiar to the people of Jesus’ day just as they are familiar to most of us here in this part of Mississippi. We have so many farmers in our parish community, & besides farmers, most of us have gardens that we tend during the spring & summer months. I myself planted an herb garden this spring; I love watching the plants grow and develop. We all know that a sower can plant his seeds in different places, in different types of soil, affecting how the seeds will take root & later produce the fruits of the harvest. The word of the Lord is like that in our lives as well. There may be times in our lives when we have a bunch of barriers & distractions & rocky ground taking up all the space in our lives, making it very difficult for God’s word to take root & to have a chance to grow.
In today’s Gospel, the disciples question Jesus about why he speaks to them in parables. Jesus responds that some look but do not see, that some hear but do not listen or understand. Even some who are searching for God’s kingdom are not able to find it because they’re not willing to open up their hearts to the Lord’s word. Perhaps they don’t really want to hear what God’s message asks of them.
Jesus tells us to really hear the word of God in our lives; this recalls the prayer that Jesus prayed daily as part of his observance of the Jewish faith, a prayer that the Jewish people still pray today – the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Blessed be the name of his glorious kingdom forever and ever.” The Shema prayer emphasizes the unique relationship that God had with the people of ancient Israel. In today’s Gospel, Jesus amplifies this special relationship with God beyond the people of Israel, to whomever hears his word and is willing to accept its teachings, to whomever is willing respond to the proclamation of God’s kingdom that Jesus makes to all.
God presents his word to us in the reality of lives; we need to respond to his word in the midst of that reality as well. We respond to God’s word in the midst of our strengths & weaknesses, in the middle of our joys & our sorrows. And we all see God in different ways: in the midst of our environment, our experiences, & the relationships we have in our lives. We have the liturgy of the word in the mass we celebrate together. We have the liturgy of the Eucharist in the real presence of the body & blood of Christ. These are two very concrete ways Jesus speaks to us as individuals & as a community of faith. But it is also up to each one of us to seek out the ways in which God will best speak to us in the other facets of our lives. Last fall, right before I came here to Yazoo City, one of my parishioners at St Richard came to me about going on a retreat. He is a very outdoor, action oriented person, but he was asking about a silent retreat where he could to pray at one of the monasteries in Louisiana. In the midst of our conversation, I mentioned to him the pilgrimage hike I had done in Spain, a hike which I am planning to do again next spring. He ended up researching this pilgrimage, he prayed a lot about it, & in less than a month later he was in Spain hiking for 2 weeks. Now that he’s been back for some months, he can very clearly see that this hike was the right place for him to encounter God in his life, especially since he loves physical activity & so directly sees God in nature & in creation. He said that trying to go to a silent retreat would have been like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole at this point in his life. Yes, we all need to see where God is speaking to us in the reality of our lives, in the context of our personalities & our interests. God speaks to us in different ways: We may see God speaking to us in what is familiar & comfortable, but also need to be open to the new & creative ways that God is willing to speak to us as well.
It is through God’s grace & mercy that his word nurtures our lives & finds fertile ground. Yet, it’s up to us to help provide fertile ground for God’s word in our lives. In our lives are too busy, if we have too many distractions, if we just leave his word on the surface & don’t let it take root, then we are not really giving God’s word a chance to do all it can do. Indeed, how can we help God’s word grow & grow in the rich soil of our lives?
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