Word to the Wise
Wednesday, January 30, 2019 - Wednesday in the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time
[Heb 10:11-18 and Mark 4:1-20]"Hear this! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep. And when the sun rose, it was scorched and it withered for lack of roots. Some see fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it and it produced no grain. And some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit. It came up and grew and yielded thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold." He added, "Whoever has ears to hear ought to hear." [Mark]
One of the distinctive characteristics of Jesus' teaching was his use of parables - images taken from daily life that illustrate familiar realities. Many of Jesus' initial followers were subsistence farmers who lived from crop to crop. If a crop failed, they faced famine. Contrary to what we are used to, the seed was sown by Palestinian farmers BEFORE the plowing. The seed that fell on good ground would be plowed under and yield a crop. Other seed would not fare so well since the plowing would not be easy in the commonly rocky ground of Palestine.
Jesus explains the parable himself and emphasizes what will happen for those "who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit thirty and sixty and a hundredfold." In other words, the harvest would be beyond all expectation since the sower is Jesus!,
Each of us can imagine examples of this parable from ourselves or from people we know. There is a kind of warning here for the disciple as well to realize that not every effort will be crowned with success, but when those efforts meet with acceptance, the harvest will be great. What has to happen, however, is that the sowing has to occur or there is nothing. Discouragement is a luxury that can prevent the spread of the gospel. We may encounter every kind of "soil" in others or occasionally in ourselves. Perseverance is absolutely necessary. AMEN