(Audio)
If we want the word of God to bear fruit in our lives we need to give it the proper soil. The sower sows generously. But our role is not one of complete passivity.
These are the ones on the path where the word is sown.
As soon as they hear, Satan comes at once
and takes away the word sown in them.
Do will let the seed of the word penetrate us?
Most of the world is in the situation of the seed that falls on the path, which Satan comes at once and takes away. This means that the word is heard, is perhaps considered to be possibly interesting (see Acts 17:32), but never recognized as definitively true. Satan steals the seeds by his lies before we get that far. He tells us that religion is just superstition, an arbitrary guess, or worse, hateful and bigoted. These lies are prevalent in the world today. The only way to keep the word safe from them is to give it full space, to allow it to speak, to not immediately turn from what God says to what everyone else says about what he says. This is not the same as merely blind ignorance of what the world says about the word. But it does give full space for God to speak. It hears him on his own terms rather than cutting him off before he can even make his case. This is what it means to actually get the seed off of the path and into the soil.
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.
The word being choked by thorns is a risk that continually presents itself to those who want to live the Christian life and bear Christian fruit. We can choose whether or not to fill our lives with thorns, which are worldly anxiety, the lure of riches, and the craving for other things. It is true that we may never be able to get rid of all the weeds entirely, neither from the world nor even our own hearts. But if the weeds are what we spend time cultivating then where will the good seed find room to grow? We may find it difficult to remove any of the thorns from our lives, deeply rooted as they often turn out to be. But let us look within for the part of our hearts that represent our most sincere and deeply held desires, desires that the world and its thorn covered promises could never hope to satisfy. We all have such a place within us. It is there where the seed can be nourished and grow. From that place it can eventually thrive so much as to displace the thorny weeds.
And these are the ones sown on rocky ground who,
when they hear the word, receive it at once with joy.
But they have no roots; they last only for a time.
Then when tribulation or persecution comes because of the word,
they quickly fall away.
We must continue to nourish the seed as long as we live. We need roots that go deep because tribulation and persecution will come, in one way or another. There will be the temptation to take a seemingly easier path. We will feel pressure to pave over the garden or to hide the plants which are no longer in fashion. We will need to have roots in order to be able to love God and neighbor when to do so calls for sacrifice on our part. But the roots will show meaningful growth only if we give the seed continued attention over time. There is a sense in which this is the same call as remembering that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (see John 15:5)
What is the purpose and potential of this seed? In other words, why care at all what happens to it? The seed has the power to make "perfect forever those who are being consecrated." It is the very act of God placing his laws in our hearts and writing them in our minds. Good soil is fundamentally a disposition of mind and heart to receive and to continue to receive it. He does not merely want to write his law on the outer parts where it will wash off. He does not want to write it where others will come and erase it or where we ourselves will cover it over because of other priorities. He wants to write it within us. This 'within' is the space we have to welcome and to respond. But even hear we need his help. Let us ask him to be generous in sowing the seed. Let us invite him to do what he needs to do (though this is a dangerous prayer) with the hard places and thorns of our lives so that he himself prepares the perfect soil for his word to find welcome within us.
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