Jesus begins this parable with a farmer scattering seed. The seed is good seed, the message of the kingdom of heaven. The seed falls into many different soils: pathway soil, rocky soil, thorn-infested soil, and good soil.

Though Jesus explains this parable to his disciples, we still wonder about many things. What exactly does it look like when the seed falls on good soil and produces a crop, “yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown”? The reader, the listener, wants to know if they are the good soil, producing the bountiful harvest Jesus describes.

Throughout his ministry Jesus gives many clues on what a life that produces a significant harvest might look like, but we can also consider the mission Jesus claims in Luke 4:18: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the ­prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.”

Because we are called to be like Jesus, his mission is our mission. And the Holy Spirit has been given to us, so we are called to go out and do the same.