Parable Of The Sower

Parable Of The Sower

'You, therefore, are to hear the parable of the sower.

13:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom without understanding, the evil one comes and carries off what was sown in his heart: this is the man who received the seed on the edge of the path.

13:20 The one who received it on patches of rock is the man who hears the word and welcomes it at once with joy.

13:21 But he has no root in him, he does not last; let some trial come, or some persecution on account of the word, and he falls away at once.

13:22 The one who received the seed in thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this world and the lure of riches choke the word and so he produces nothing.

13:23 And the one who received the seed in rich soil is the man who hears the word and understands it; he is the one who yields a harvest and produces now a hundredfold, now sixty, now thirty.' (Matthew 13:18-23)

         For me, this parable has been a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing -I couldn’t see the complete picture.  I have had a quirk in my thinking when it came to absorbing what Jesus was saying: The soil that the seed fell on had no choice in its ability to give life to the seed.  This perceived sense of determinism always distracted me from the fullness of the message.

         As I reflected on these familiar words in my prayer time this morning, a new way of receiving them emerged –the Holy Spirit never gives up on me.  I found a key to understanding it in Jesus’ initial explanation, in verse 19, in the words “was sown in his heart”.  The Seed is sown in our heart, and it is what happens in our heart, which allows the Seed to accomplish its purpose, or prevents it from blooming into New Life.

         If there is determinism involved, it is that our Loving Father created us to know and love him for all eternity; that he is Eternally Determined to Hope -that we will choose to receive and return his Love; that we will use our existential freedom to find our True Destiny in him, and not use it to create our own destiny apart from him.  It is with this Divine Courage that God loves us, like parents sending their child off to college.

         But what is this Seed that is planted in our heart?  Again, verse 19 tells us that the Seed is what we have heard, and what we have heard is the Word of God –it is Truth, with a capital tee, that is inserted into our spirit as Pure Gift, as Grace; and then, our response to that Gift determines how it percolates into our mind and becomes expressed in the character we manifest.

As the condition of the soil allows the seed to germinate, so too the condition of our heart will determine the fruit we bear.  If God’s Word is received with faithful obedience, then our Fiat will put flesh on that Word and it will become Incarnate in our life, and to those whom we touch.  Our heart condition will determine our eternal Life or Death.  Jesus relates the conditions of our heart to various conditions of soil: three of which leads to Death and one which leads to Life.

The first fatal heart condition is Not Understanding the Word.  Jesus is not referring to an intellectual or theological understanding of the Word as much as knowing the Word.  If we do not know the Word, who is Jesus, then we do not know Jesus.  When we do not listen to the Word we hear preached; when we do not ponder his Word that leaps off the page in prayer; we remain ignorant to the Pearl of Great Price, leaving it unguarded, allowing Satan to steal it away along with our Soul –not understanding what we have lost, or that we were even in a battle.   

         The second fatal heart condition is Spiritual Weakness.  It is lacking the roots of Church authority, of Christian community.  It is falling prey to the illusion of individualism – having rejected the suffering of laying down roots, we accept with joy God’s Gifts, but when trial inevitably presents itself, we have nothing to cling to but our delusions of independence.  Satan crushes our house of cards, despair and hopelessness rushes into the void.

         The third fatal heart condition is Greed, the lure of riches.  It is the idolatry of self, where the desire to please God is subordinate to pleasing our self.   It is an insidious condition, even innocent at first -often beginning with the pursuit of things good.  But like cancer, it grows imperceptibly, slowly, extending its desirous tentacles -until pleasing self chokes off the Saving Blood of Christ.  The thought of repentance, at this point, is unthinkable.

         The one heart condition that leads to Eternal Life is the heart that hears the Word and Understands it.  It understands because this heart has made itself available to the Word, it has submitted itself to the Word and not the Word to itself.  This heart understands because it has become intimate with the Word.  It knows the Word as Adam knew Eve and bore a child.  It knows the Word as a bridegroom knows the bride and they bear Sacred Fruit.  This heart abandons itself into the Love of God, fearless, certain of The Other’s intention for Good –Joyful, for what tomorrow will bring, and willing to Endure whatever will bring tomorrow.

         Holy Spirit, enlighten the eyes of my heart that I may recognize the sin in my life.  Jesus, emblazon your Sacred Heart before me, may I have eyes only for you.  Abba, Father, behold your child.  Your Love stands me here, before you now.  You called me into being; you redeemed me by the Blood of your Son; you have breathed your Word into my heart and sealed me in your Spirit.  Receive me, my Lord.

The Gate Keeper

The Gate Keeper (John 10:1-16)

    Like most parables, the Good Shepherd has more than one audience.  Let us consider two: The Pharisees to whom he was speaking; and the Church Today, to whom he is speaking still.  The context, which gave birth to this parable, was the Pharisees’ treachery to the Love of God made visible through an Act of Healing.

Willfully blind and deaf, the Pharisees refused to be converted by the witness of The Man Born Blind but healed by Jesus.  Instead, they the shepherds of Israel, gave witness to depravity.  Reviling Truth, they denied what they saw with their eyes and heard with their ears.  They proclaimed Jesus a sinner –they accused Truth to be an Enemy of God.  They beguiled their flock to maintain a lie.   Jesus responds to their Darkness by revealing his Light.  He tells a simple story about a Gate, a Gate Keeper, Sheep, Thieves, and a Good Shepherd.

In those times, at nightfall, the local shepherds would gather their flocks into a common enclosure, where their sheep would be protected.  The Gate was the only portal through which the Shepherd could come and go.  The Gate Keeper, stood guard over the Gate -allowing only the Good Shepherd access to his Sheep.  The Thieves used the cover of Darkness to scurry through the fences and steal the Sheep.

Parables are stories which unlock Reality, allowing the Unknowable to be revealed through the knowable, giving birth to Truth.  Two fundamental Truths are revealed in this God-Story.  One is Transcendent, pure Gift from the Mind of God: That Jesus is the Christ, the Good Shepherd, the One Sent -to give Voice to God’s Word.  The other is Truth-By-Default, ever present, but hidden by the pain of its discovery: Namely, we arrogant humans are but Stupid Sheep, lost without our Good Shepherd, easy prey for the Thief.

What was known, by all at that time, was that sheep only trusted the voice of their shepherd -of he who provided green pastures and living water.  For this reason, they recognized his voice and followed only him, as babies their mother.  For this reason, the multitude recognized the Voice of God in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, whose Edifying Word was congruent with his life lived.  And for this reason, they did not follow the Pharisees, whose pious but Empty Words did not satisfy their souls.

Jesus’ Story exposed, to the Pharisees, their hypocrisy.  But also, it exposes the Heart of the Good Shepherd, to his Church today –if we are willing to Believe in his Word, to Listen to and Heed his Voice.  

We are children of war.  We are born into a battle for our souls.  We were created for God –to love and worship him.  But the Prince of Darkness, who is the Thief, comes to steal, deceive and lead us into eternal Death.  He is a fallen creature of God, Hell Bent, consumed with foiling God’s Love with Man.  Mortally wounded by the Cross, his power is confined to Darkness.  His works wilt when exposed to the Light of Truth.

The Good Shepherd is God-Become-Man, entering into time and space, to reveal the Truth of our being –our purpose and destiny.  This Jesus is not only the historical Son Of God, who shepherded Humanity into The Light, he is also the Gate, the Word of God, Truth itself –through which alone Salvation is found.  He is the Voice of God.

There are many Voices in our world today.  All of them promising to quench our desires, our thirst for more, to deliver us from want.  We all have wandered from the protection of the Good Shepherd.  Possibly, we have forgotten his intimate touch –his Voice now that of a stranger.  Though he never ceases calling our name, maybe our ears have become untrained, unable to discern between Beckoning Voices.

We are vulnerable.  We can convince ourselves at will which Voice is most convenient for us, thus creating our personal “truth”.  When another Voice, easier or more delightful, teases our ears, we can change allegiance and still stare, unmoved, into the Mirror of our conscience.   How can we, such as we are, know the Voice of Truth?

Truth, the Word of God, enters through the Gate of Jesus.  The Gate Keeper is the one who guarantees that it is the Good Shepherd whose Voice is calling out to the Sheep.  Who is this one of such authority as to certify Truth?  In Jesus’ time, it was the prophet, John the Baptist, who pointed to Jesus and said, “This is the One.”  The Voice from Heaven, also attested saying, “This is my Beloved Son, listen to him.”  And Jesus’ many miracles spoke boldly of a Truth from above.

But what about today, who is the Gate Keeper of Truth?  Who dare lay claim to this Audacious Authority -to certify the Word of God, to attest to what is Truth?   Many would say the Bible is now the Gate Keeper.  It is not an unreasonable claim.  As it is the Word of God, one can argue then, that its Truth testifies to itself.   From a Catholic perspective, this answer is true yet insufficient, for individual interpretation precludes unity –denying the Communion of his Word, the very reason of his Coming.

The Bible is our inviolable authority of Truth, but it is not our only authority of Truth.  We have Sacred Scripture (the Bible) and Sacred Tradition (loosely, the Apostolic Lens, through which Scripture, and all the teaching that flows from it, is received).  In effect, Truth though accessible to the individual, can only be guaranteed by The Gate Keeper -the Apostolic Authority of the Church, that if disregarded, gives free reign to division, and inevitably, religious relativism –where personal opinion displaces tenets of Truth.  

This is a hard pill to swallow in our culture of individual rationalism; where Truth is submitted to the mind, and not the mind to Truth; where the thought of a Gate Keeper is abhorrent; where we chart our own course -to suit our notions and needs; where Truth and Obedience are disconnected; where unchecked, every person becomes their own god.

          Jesus ordained the Role of Gate Keeper because we are, in Truth, Sheep in need of one.   Truth is banished from a heart not humbled by Obedient Submission.  Jesus founded his Church upon the Rock of the First Gate Keeper.  He gave Peter the Keys, not so he could subjugate sheep, but to bind on earth what is bound in heaven – to feed his Sheep, to pasture them in Truth, to ensure the Voice of the Good Shepherd remains Anchored through the tumults of time.