15th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Is 55: 10-11; Rom 8: 18-23; Mt 13: 1-23
Dc. Larry Brockman
It’s a soft sell. That’s what today’s Gospel is. Rather than tell everybody what it takes to get into the Kingdom of God in the most direct way, Jesus uses a soft sell.
Consider the Sermon on the Mount by contrast. In John’s account of the Sermon, Jesus speaks directly. He tells everyone He is the bread of life, and to gain everlasting life we must eat His body and drink His blood. He meant that literally- the Eucharist; and he meant it figuratively as well- by taking on his very way of life as our own. This direct approach turned off a lot of people in His time, and it is something that people still have a hard time with in today’s world.
But the parable of the sower- well it’s a soft sell. First of all, Jesus is really just addressing those who are truly interested in following Him. Most of the crowd, including the Pharisees and Scribes, are not really interested in following Him. They are looking for conventional wisdom. Some of these people were looking for the easy fix- the easy way into the Kingdom of God, and when you are of that frame of mind, you are like the person who is hoping to make a quick fortune or lose weight through miracle pills. Such folks are impatient unless they hear the magic in the words that is both specific and clear, and right now.
Others were looking for Jesus to trip up so they could “get him”. But Jesus made His pitch with parables in such a way that anything that might be considered confrontational would roll off the listener’s backs as vague and indirect. They probably regarded the parables- speaking obliquely- as an irritant because whatever was said was too vague to distill any real evidence against Jesus.
Indeed, just a very few were willing to dig deep into Jesus message so that they could make a change in their lives. It’s like that in our society, too. “Say what you mean, and mean what you say”; that’s the way we Americans like it rather than all this double talk in the parables. Not only that, we are a gullible society that is looking to hear that there is a quick and easy way to make a million and to
lose weight with some magic pill; or even to get a job without working to acquire a skill.
So, only the people who were motivated to learn, the people who were motivated to look deeper; only the people who were willing to make a change in their lives- like the Apostles, were able to hear and see beyond the surface of the parable. These were the folks that Jesus was trying to reach; and these were the folks that He would reach with this parable. And so, Jesus message is a soft sell. If you really want to get something out of it, you will. But if the parable message doesn’t resonate with you, at least it didn’t alienate you either.
Now most of the time that I have heard this parable, I have been pre-occupied with the thorns and the hard ground and the good ground; and what those metaphors mean as obstacles or inducements to growth of the seed so that I could see my own perspective as just one of the three. But there is another perspective to the parable that I would like to suggest to you.
Perhaps Jesus is also taking about a journey along a path- a path that is leading to the Kingdom of God. All of us are on such a journey, and we encounter seed which falls on hard ground or thorns or good soil along the way. Yes, as we progress along the path of life, we are like seed exposed to all three of these environments at one time or another.
Sometimes we don’t understand, or don’t attempt to understand, the word of God. And so, the devil comes along and steals our attention away. That happens all the time whenever folks sleep through one of Holy Family’s excellent homilies! At other times, we do have an understanding heart, and really mean well, but the roots are shallow. And so, we don’t have the willpower to change our ways. That’s what seems to happen to me every January first when I make a New Year’s Resolution!
But sometimes, and hopefully more often than not, we react to the word of God like it was seed sewn on good ground, and we do something in our life that bears fruit that we can see- like the feeling we get when we do something really nice for somebody else- helping a friend move, or being there for them when they lose a dear one, or pitching in and help with the kids.
And so, what can we do to maximize the times that we fall on good ground? Have you ever asked yourself this question: what does it mean for you to fall on good soil? Well, first of all, like any good seed, you need the right kind of nutrition. Fertile ground and water are essential. For us the food and water that we need are spiritual foods- like the Eucharist that is available to us, and like the educational opportunities to learn about our faith and our God offered by our Church.
Secondly, you have got to grow. And growing involves extending yourself, moving out, changing. You have to emerge from the seed pod and move off in the direction of your talents. It does no good to stay confined in the seed pod; you have got to grow into an apple tree if you started as an apple seed, for example. In other words, you have got to grow and bloom in order to bear fruit. Sometimes that can be very hard- growing and blooming. It is safer to stay in a comfortable rut in our lives.
In the second reading we hear about suffering. Indeed, the lives that we live, as we encounter these three environments described in the Gospel, are full of sufferings of one kind or another. Growing
pains will be there for sure. And there is one sure fire way to detect lack of growth, and that is when our lives are stuck in a rut- a routine that doesn’t ever change; one that is designed to minimize suffering. Believe it or not, God’s word is alive for us all the time. We just need to be looking for the fertile ground so that we can become fruitful.
There is good news about seeking growth in this way, even though it involves suffering. Because as Paul maintains, these sufferings are nothing as compared to the rewards available to us in the Kingdom of God- everlasting life.
