Seeds Sown
The Gospel today is what I like to think of as a reversible Gospel. Jesus was talking to the Apostles about themselves and the work they would do.
Perhaps, like me, you hear this Gospel and want desperately to be the good soil. I want to be the soil that receives the seed (the Word of God) and produces a hundredfold. Let me say that another way. Let me be the one who receives Jesus and then becomes what I have received.
Yet, when I look into the depth of my heart, I know that I am not always good soil. Rather than getting discouraged, perhaps that is also a part of the truth of the parable.
Within each of us is rocky soil, path soil, thorny soil, and good soil. There are times in life when the soil of my soul is so rock hard that Jesus could not take root there if he came with a chisel and a hammer.
Sometimes my soul is on a path where the Word that is Jesus lands and is carried away by the many other wants and concerns in my life. Or it is choked out by my insecurity, doubt, and disappointment.
And yes, there are times when my weary spirit receives Jesus and welcomes Him into the deepest recesses of my soil. There the seed of His Word germinates and grows, producing a hundredfold.
And now for the inside-out part. We are not just receiving the seed that is Jesus. We are the sower, and the attitudes and deeds of our lives are the seed thrown out into the world.
The seed sown by the farmer in the parable is freely scattered. He does not go looking for the “good soil.” He freely throws his seed, and it lands where it will.
Here is where many of us lose track of the message of Jesus. We are doing our best to be good people living witnesses of all the Gospel calls us to be. But!
Sometimes people respond by being ungrateful. They take and take but never give. There is never enough. They always want more. They may even act grateful, but 5 minutes later, they are on to the next thing forgetting our kindness.
The seeds we sow (the good deeds we do) fall on all types of ground. They fall on the path and go unrecognized and unappreciated. The seeds we sow fall among thorns, and the person we have tried to help has the goodness of our actions choked out of them by their life situations. Some of our Gospel seeds fall on rocks, and we think they matter, but very quickly, they wither and die because the demands of life are great. And finally, some of the seed we sow falls on good soil, changing lives forever.
The sower sowed freely. He did not get discouraged or quit because some seed did not produce. He just kept sowing. So too, with us. When we live the Gospel, we are sometimes ignored, dismissed, or taken advantage of. That is what happened to Jesus. It will happen to us.
Like the farmer in the parable, we do not cast judgment on the seeds. We keep sowing the seed of the Gospel. God takes care of the rest.
We are called to be faithful to our task as sowers. We are not called to judge the results or allow ourselves to become discouraged or give up when the seeds we sow or our deeds go unrecognized or unappreciated. Leave that to God.
Just keep sowing the seeds of love. And even if we do not always see it, our words and actions will produce a hundredfold, and hundredfold, and a hundredfold more.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
