From the Daily Lectionary for Tuesday in the sixth Week of Easter
Matthew 13:18-23
‘Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.’
My wife Katharine is a dedicated gardener. She’s got blisters, callouses, and muscles to prove it. As long as we have been married, gardening has been a passion of hers. Both grandmothers in her family were gardeners, so perhaps passion, for one thing or another, finds its way into the memory curated by our DNA. She’s learned a lot over the years. There is no better teacher than experience. Successes and failures, the metronomic pulse of a garden’s improvisational life.
I have learned a lot as well, just hanging out with her. I have been privileged to be a menial laborer in her garden; wheelbarrowing, digging holes, pruning, and watching first hand her collaboration with perhaps this planet’s most sacred and intimate mystery.
One thing that I have learned over many years is that to have a productive garden, one must have good soil… seems obvious, but good soil requires hard work and persistence. In our rush for the results, it’s easy to overlook the mundane rudiments, the first and most important steps, without which all ensuing labor is in vain. Good fruit is borne by good soil.
Jesus says as much in his explanation about the parable of the seeds. Jesus rarely explains his parables, but here he does, lest his audience miss the point. He of course is talking about ministry; seed planting the metaphor. Some seeds bear fruit, some do not. Ours is to persist in the ‘means’ of planting, leaving the ends to the grand vision of God’s creative imagination: Successes, failures, the metronomic pulse of ministry.
But Jesus goes beyond the seemingly random pattern of results displayed in the parable. He goes on to say that one can enhance the odds of success by sowing seeds in ‘good soil.’ What makes for ‘good soil’ when it comes to ministry? How are our souls enriched and empowered for the work before us? Certainly, gathering in worship to bear ritual witness to the truth of our humanity and its calling; certainly paying attention to our world, and seeing it with a critical eye; and then there’s the practice of the faith, recognizing that practice shapes believing: compassion, kindness, welcoming hospitality, inclusion, empathy, doing justice. But perhaps good soil is best made amid the richness of life’s experience… with no shortage of manure. I’ll just leave that metaphor, if metaphor it be, with your imagination. We are to allow ourselves to become rich, fecund, with all that life gives us, so that we may bear the fruits of God’s kingdom; that we become, as T.S. Eliot puts it, “significant soil.” The first steps are to own and incorporate all that life teaches. It may seem hard and menial labor… but the work may, in God’s alchemical providence, likely yield “in one case a hundred fold, in another sixty. In another thirty”….
A Prayer for the Right Use of God’s Gifts (BCP p. 827)
Almighty God, whose loving hand has given us all that we possess: Grant us grace that we may honor you with our substance, and, remembering the account which we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
