Word to the Wise
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - Wednesday in the Third Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Samuel 7:4-17 and Mark 4:1-20]Those sown among thorns are another sort. They are the people who hear the word, but worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things intrude and choke the word, and it bears no fruit.
Of all the categories in the parable of the sower and the seed, the one that saddens me the most is the one about the seed that falls among thorns. It represents lost opportunity of a kind that could be avoided with a bit of effort! We have all probably experienced some of this in our own lives. It can be the loss of the idealism that we once had in our faith, or the cares that come with increased (or decreased) earning power in the face of what our consumerist culture offers us everyday. It can be the loss of opportunity to do an immense amount of good but efforts become bogged down in corruption, waste and paperwork (talk to the people trying to recover from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita). Jesus tells this parable, in part, to warn his disciples that the response to their efforts will be mixed! The challenge to the other listeners is to discover what kind of "soil" they are for the word/seed that is sown. For the ordinary person, lifestyle challenges may be the most difficult challenge. A bumper sticker I once saw put it well: LIVE SIMPLY SO THAT OTHERS MAY SIMPLY LIVE. With the season of Lent coming soon, this examination of lifestyle conscience may provide one of the most spiritually productive exercises we ever undertake. To increase our "yield thirty and sixty and a hundredfold" may require some painful self-examination, but pruning done prudently brings about a healthier and more productive plant! AMEN
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