Sowers, Seeds and Soil

The Gospel is Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

Today we explore the first of eight parables in this Gospel. The parables are not straightforward declarations; they initiate the process of changing our consciousness, how we see the world, ourselves, and God. They are transformative.

Rather than explaining the parable, we examine some of the features so that our consciousness may be transformed.

In this parable, the Word is the “seed,” which never loses the potential to sprout and grow. Yet it, like Jesus, is vulnerable to the environment into which it is introduced. The seed is eternally fecund.

God is the sower, who casts the Word out into the world indiscriminately. We are the soil, sometimes receptive and full of love for God and our neighbor, and sometimes like the inhospitable well-trodden, sun-baked path.

This parable opens our eyes to all the ways we resist, diminish and choke the seed of God. It initiates the process of changing our consciousness and laying bare the fertile, vulnerable soil at the center of our being.

We should not be discouraged if the soil of our self is inhospitable. At times the seed grows very slowly, and there is more seed to come.

Remember that we are created in the likeness and image of God, the sower. We too can be indiscriminate, prodigal and spendthrift, like God, in casting the eternally fecund seed.

There’s always the chance that there is an imperceptible crack into which the seed may fall, growing and breaking the harsh inhospitable soil, like the Resurrection breaking the very bonds of death.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.