Word to the Wise
Friday, January 29, 2016 - Friday in the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time
[2 Sam 11:1-4a, 5-10a, 13-17 and Mark 4:26-34]"This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and the see would sprout and grow he kows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blad, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once, for the narest has come." [Mark]
I grew up in an agricultural community in northwest Louisiana and now I live in one in west Texas. There are vast fields dedicated to cotton growing here, but there is a substantial amount of sorghum grain as well. It is hard to imagine how all that ground gets plowed and sowed, but it happens! Jesus was talking to subsistence farmers - people who just barely got by. There was not a lot of machinery, guided by GPS devices, to guide them in this process. Indeed, their method was the reverse of what we think. They would throw the seed on the ground and then plow it under. The immediacy of the process provided a kind of intimacy with the seed and soil and weather. There was no Extension agent to advise them about the latest varieties, etc. They planted and then they prayed!
I have had two principal ministries in my nearly 45 years as a priest. The first was campus ministry. In that ministry I have had the privilege to see the results of my efforts in the friends that remain in my life, inviting me to witness their marriages, baptize their children, and yes, their grandchildren now. The second ministry is the one I do now and that is itinerant preaching. In this ministry, I am more like the legendary figure, Johnny Appleseed, sowing seed across the land and never really getting to see the results. In both ministries, the plain fact is what St. Paul refers to. He may plant, Apollos may water, but it is God who gives the "increase." [1 Cor. 3:6-9) All of us, at baptism, are given a bag of seed to sow. We may or may not ever see the results, but we are challenged to sow that seed. Then we water if we can and pray for good results. AMEN
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