Saturday, March 9, 2013

LET ANYONE WITH EARS LISTEN

Matthew 13:3-9
“Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”

   PARABLES ARE SIMPLE STORIES or metaphors in which some dimension of faith is explained by drawing upon analogies from everyday life. Jesus often spoke in parables and frequently used agricultural metaphors or stories.
 
   In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus described four ways that people respond to the preaching and teaching of God’s kingdom. The seed in the parable is the message of the Kingdom. The sower is Jesus and all who come after him in teaching, preaching, or sharing the message. The four soil types represent different ways that people respond to the message— that is, different conditions of the heart and, consequently, the impact of the Kingdom on the lives of various hearers and ultimately on the world.
 
   The parable is an invitation to spiritual self-examination. We’re meant to ask what type of soil we represent and to consider the “fruit” we bear in our lives. Is your soul like the hard path where the message of the Kingdom never really sinks in and takes hold? Is your soul like the rocky ground where the message of the Kingdom begins to take hold but the roots never go deep? When adversity strikes, do you quickly fall away from God’s path? Perhaps your soul is like soil covered with thistles, so that the cares of the world and the desire for wealth choke out your quest for God’s kingdom. The hope, of course, is that your heart is like the deep, rich soil that produces a harvest 30, 60, or 100 times over.
 
   What does this last kind of heart look like? To me, it looks like Linda. Linda went to church her whole life, but she told me that for years her faith remained at a fairly superficial level. In her twenties, as a young mother, Linda cultivated a deeper relationship with Christ than she had known before. The message of the Kingdom really began to take root in her life.
 
   Serving others became an increasingly important part of Linda’s life. Most recently she has been volunteering eight to ten hours a week to coordinate our church’s work with six urban core schools, most of whose students come from families living in poverty. She oversees ministries that deploy over 1,000 people from our church in everything from painting, to tutoring, to serving as pen pals, and to running book fairs. The work she makes possible has touched over 1,200 children and their families and may give them a fighting chance of rising out of poverty. The message of the Kingdom took root in her life, and it produced a 1,200-fold harvest.
 
   Most of us will not see a harvest so dramatic, but we are each meant to bear fruit by living our faith so that others experience the reign of God. What kind of soil are you?
 
Lord, I want my heart to be like the rich, deep soil in the parable. I want my faith to grow deep and in turn to lead me to a life of love in action. Help me to do this, I pray. Amen.

Adam Hamilton, The Way: 40 Days of Reflection: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus