FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME A

[cappie]

Today’s readings, like last week’s, ask us to meditate on Israel’s response to God’s Word—and our own. Why do some hear the word of the kingdom, yet fail to accept it as a call to conversion and faith in Jesus?

That question underlies today’s Gospel, especially.  The seed is so abundant, the sower does not care where it goes. What that sower trusts is that God will provide the response in the hearts of the people where the Word is being sowed. God’s generous abundance keeps overflowing in us so that we are compelled to share it with others.

Jesus further elaborates on his own parable by describing each of the different soils where the seeds land. This is about the cycle of sowing and reaping; telling and hearing; sharing and responding. Now, we all know people from each of these soil “types” and most of us shift between one soil and another - sometimes on the same day or even within an hour. We would like to believe that we are the good soil, but if we are honest, we probably are not – at least not all the time.

As human beings, we are complex creations of thoughts, feelings, and the ability to act on them. When we experience discomfort, we want it to go away and may act impulsively in order to find comfort or release from pain and anxiety. We all have experienced this—whether shopping, gambling, food, sex, our tempers, drinking, lying—you name it. Sometimes it is not a big deal, but sometimes the little things add up to extremely damaging consequences, both for ourselves and those close to us.

Right now, in the news and on social media, we are seeing deaths from COVID-19, deaths from violence, relationship struggles, job loss, bankruptcies, and despair from anxiety. These things take root from a seed misleadingly small—the desire to be our own God – a desire to have what we want, when we want it, regardless of the costs or who else may be affected.  When we are focused on our own desires, our envy, our fits of rage, our discord, our hatred—the good soil of our hearts turns into a wasteland.

Those impulses can get us into loads of trouble; when we give in without tempering them with our call from God, we end up with no depth of spirit, choked with the thorns of the world. We yield nothing, and our actions break the cycle of abundance. Others do not experience the love of God through us and we have lost the chance to share the abundance we received.

There are the seeds that were first planted in us when we heard the Word of God from a sower, nurtured in us by baptism, and enriched by coming together in community for strength and renewal. Seeds sown in the good soil of our hearts blossom into the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

If the seeds of God’s love flower into these fruits, then what do those new seeds look like?  We go about our daily business, living in faithfulness in God’s abundance and being sowers among those we encounter. We do not often get to see where the seeds fall, but the point is that we continue to sow. The Church’s mission and our mission is to spread the Good News to every end of the Earth. 

There are infinite ways for us to be the Church: by giving a smile to someone who is feeling lonely, donating money to an organization that helps those who are marginalized, speaking up for a neighbour when you witness an injustice occurring, praying for those you dislike – the list can go on and on.

We are both the sowers and the soil. Without the one, the other would not make sense. When we go out today, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit, may we sow abundantly, and may the seed that is sown in you bear the plentiful fruit of God’s love.