Description
This year has had its challenges. The fabric of our society has been torn with racial hatred and mistrust, and we have felt the effects of war in ways we haven’t felt for a long while. Fuel prices raising; governments making deals to sure up supplies chains; and individuals assessing future plans and holiday travel. What will the world look like in the future? Sometimes we struggle to understand what’s happening. The parable of the Sower has a message for all of us, whether we are strong in faith, or struggling to make sense of the world, or seeing others living in difficult circumstances. Jesus often used parables to teach his disciples and those listening about following God’s way. A parable is like a metaphor that invites those listening to think about how the meaning of the words might apply to their own lives. When we consider this reading, it certainly is a message for our times.
The thing we can be sure about is that God is the one who is always there for us. Always the generous farmer portrayed in Matthew 13: 1-9.  God makes an abundant scattering of seed that falls not only on the good soil, but also lands on the rocks, paths and among the thorns. God’s style of spreading the Word is pure abundance, indiscriminate generosity, spreading seed (God’s Word) regardless of where it lands.
However, the parable isn’t only about where the seed lands, it is also about the soil, even the soil in between the rocks and under the thorns. In the story Jesus told, these hidden places also received the seed (God’s Word), the seed sprouted and plants grew for a bit but were overcome by their circumstance and stopped growing or even died. One of the questions for our church today is how we can help those new sprouts of faith who have received the word to grow to maturity in Christ, even amid oppression, or opposition, or poverty or lack of the essentials, or in the good soil that is under attack. Today, this scenario is the one that we will focus on.
There is another side to the parable. Jesus is not just describing different types of soil or circumstances of life. He is describing our faith and the various landscapes of the human heart. In the present world climate where our faith can be challenged, we need to dig deep into the good soil of God’s life in us to move forward or find new ways to grow and help others. God’s abundance is not limited to fertile places, or places of only good soil, but belongs to all places.
