Sow What?
by Fr. Rich Jasper
It was a late-January morning during my second year of teaching middle-school students when the announcement from the principal came over the loud speaker: “Faculty and students, please pardon the interruption. The weather forecast has changed pretty quickly within the past hour; prepare for immediate dismissal.”
With that, chaos in Room 6 ensued.
Kids ran to the window, watching a township bus slowly slide down the icy hill to a crooked stop by the main doors of the school. Cheers of shouts of youthful glee echoed down the halls. Meanwhile, one frazzled teacher – (that would be me) -- is barking orders and throwing papers and books into backpacks, knowing that the blizzard would close school for a number of days. “Take this. You dropped this. Go. Go. Yes, take your lunch with you. Who cares about your missing blue crayon! You’ll miss the bus.”
By the time all 29 sixth graders left the classroom, it looked more like a tornado blew through town, not a snowstorm. Remnants of their lives were everywhere.
I thought of this chaotic scene as Jesus himself describes the sower who went out to the fields to plant his seeds for the coming harvest.
Now again, I know next to nothing about farming, but I do know this: a farmer is never haphazard about his planting. Rows of crops are neat and orderly. Seeds for the planting are not something to be carelessly tossed all over the place. One plants methodically and with utmost care.
So right away, agriculturalists listening to Jesus’ parable-teaching would have scratched their sunburned heads: What farmer is so careless with his seed? That’s wasted crop, that is! No one throws seeds into thorn bushes or along rocky ground.
This alone explains why parables are such an incredible teaching method: just when you thought you figured it out, think again. No wonder those closest to Jesus asked him for the deeper meaning behind the tale being told. Why such a careless sower?
Is it carelessness … or incredible love that caused the seed-scatterer to do what he did?
I would argue the latter, and here’s why:
Our God knows us – we, the fields, who are ripe for sowing. He knows that through His grace and our blessed upbringing, there will be many of us whose hearts and minds, bodies and souls, are open to receiving all that He wants to plant: His Word, His Mission, His Mercy.
Our God offers so many beautiful seeds to be nurtured.
For those of us here in Church (or reading this on-line), we must take a moment to express genuine gratitude that we have been given the gift of faith, even if it not always where we would like that gift to be. Nonetheless, there is some good soil within for which we thank God.
But I can’t help but think of those areas in our lives that need grace and healing and mercy – those rocky and thorny parts of ourselves where we think God can’t reach or, more likely, that we don’t want God to reach: the selfish, prideful and sinful parts that we try to keep hidden from Him, from others and even from ourselves. How could God ever love this part of me?
And that’s exactly why the “Messy Sower” is scattering those seeds of grace all over the place. It’s easy to plant the seeds of virtue and holiness in soil that we have already allowed to be cultivated. Of course I welcome the Word into those parts of my life that are already flooded with Him – that’s easy. The harder part is accepting it into the shame, the brokenness and the sin.
Am I willing to let those seeds reach the crevices and cracks of my pain? Am I willing to allow the Master Planter to cultivate the parts of the field that I would rather keep barren and hiding in the shadows?
Make no mistake: it is these very parts of our hearts and lives that the Lord wants from us. He wants the entire field, not just the parts where the crops grow abundantly surrounded by summer wildflowers.
One challenge this week, then, is this: offer the land back to Him where you and I put up the barriers to healing and growth. What still needs to be cultivated? As Jesus says in the Gospel: “Blessed are your eyes and ears” if you allow it to happen.
And if He wants that part from us who remain, no wonder He is such a careless scatterer of grace.
All around us – even in our own families, perhaps – there are souls who haven’t been watered in decades. Hearts and lives that are parched; life choices and decisions made through free will that leave so many feeling both barren and empty. So many dead fields trying desperately to find water and life.
It is for these souls, too, that Jesus Christ has poured out Himself on the Cross. It is for them He offers His Word and His Sacramental Presence. It’s why that grace is trying to reach those places where God’s love hasn’t been allowed in for a long time, if ever. As coworkers in the vineyard ripe for the harvest, we also have to ask ourselves: who do you and I think doesn’t deserve to hear the Word? Who – if anyone – should be excluded from God’s Mercy? A politician? A neighbor or relative who wronged us? The ex-spouse?
Whose soil doesn’t deserve to be cultivated?
It’s a tough question, but one that does in fact have an answer: whoever we may feel deserves hell more than grace, pray for them. Pray for their hearts to be open and transformed. Offer sacrifices (even little ones) that the ones who have done us wrong may find their way back to the Father. As Christians, we should want that for everyone – no exceptions.
After all, when all is said and done, all of our lives are like that sixth grade classroom before the blizzard dismissal: somewhat chaotic; not always neatly planned; a mixture of good soil and thorny, rocky paths.
Don’t be afraid of The Divine Sower. Let Him do His work in you and through you.
Let Him uproot the rocks and thorns through the Sacraments of Confession and Eucharist. Allow Him to plant fields of Mercy by engaging His Word on a daily basis. Spend time in that field, more than just 45 minutes on Sunday (as good as that may be!). For when we do, the harvest grows – even when the chaos of winter (and unexpected snow-dismissals) sometimes come our way.