Is.

55: 10-11
Cycle A Rom. 8: 18-23 16 July 2017
Mt. 13: 1-23
INTRODUCTION:

Our Gospel for this Sunday is

Matthew's version of the great
1

The Background of
the Parable:

We are told: "Jesus sat by the lakeside, but such

great crowds gathered round him." (v. 1)
1 This is representative of
the hunger of people for
God's word. They sense
the power of God in Jesus
and they desperately want
it in their hearts.
1 So it is still today.
We all want to
listen to him, even
those who avow
themselves to be
atheists.

Jesus is described as speaking at

great length "in parables" (v. 3)
1
Why in parables and not in
straight prosaic language?

That is the way poets speak. Poets speak

of deep realities in spiritual life, not in
direct speech, but in evocative language of
metaphors and riddles.
1

Van Gogh's famous painting of the Sower as

Jesus' Parable depicts a very familiar scene in a
farming Country like Israel.
1
Jesus depicts the Sower thus:

"Imagine a Sower going

out to sow." (v. 4)
2

In Jesus' time, seed was

peculiarly expensive and the
land, even today, is not very
receptive, being arid and dry.
2
Very peculiar about the
Sower is his very liberal,
almost wasteful and
prodigal, way of sowing,
even on bad soil.
2

He spreads the seed far and

wide everywhere on soil good
and bad: on pathways, on
rocks, and among thorns.
2
This is a very important lesson about

Grace (in Latin, gratia) is love freely

given without expectation of
return or recompense.
2

A prudent lender will lend

to one whom he is sure to
pay back, even without
interest. That is not love
but indirect egotism.
2

is kindness and gives

without calculating.
2
This is the way God loves.

He makes the sun shine on the

good and the bad alike. He loves
even those who do not love him
and that way we become like our
Father in heaven.
2
Our love is supposed to
mimic the Divine Love.

Thank God that he does not

love us in a calculating way!
It is just the way he is!
2

An apocryphal carries a legend that

someone cursed Jesus who offered blessing
instead to the scandal of his disciple who
complained to him. Jesus said:
"That is all what I have in my bag."
3
Now let us turn to the Recipients of the
Seed and learn more about ourselves:
"Some seed fell among the edge of the path
and the birds came and ate them up. (v.4)
This refers to the "secularized society."
We are all adept at the language of
science, politics, music, etc... but so many
of us have given deaf to the language of
the spirit.
3

We do not understand this

world of the spirit anymore
like offering a machine to a
child or talking about
geopolitics to a first year
high.
3
The word of God
is spoken to
them but so
many people
just do not
understand it
anymore.
3
Read the Bible, What to do now?
or some good theology,
or some spirituality.
Open your minds to the
spiritual; do not just
write it off.
3
Now let us turn to the Recipients of the
Seed and learn more about ourselves:
"Others fell on patches of rock where they found
little soil and sprang up straight away." (v.5)

Many people listen to the word of God but

they don't make it the foundation of their
spiritual life.
3

It does not affect the whole of

themselves and does not sink
deep in themselves. That is like
the man who builds his house
of his spiritual life on sand.
It does not go deep enough!
3
Now let us turn to the Recipients of the
Seed and learn more about ourselves:
"Others fell among thorns, and the thorns grew
up and choked them." (v.6)

There are a lot of people who hear the word of

God on Sundays, in homilies, etc... but they
allow themselves to be preoccupied with
allurements of this world so that the word of
God does not bear fruit.
3

All of this world

pass away; it is
the word of God
that we should
put our hope.
It is the only one
that lasts!
 CONCLUSION:

God sows his word wastefully,

liberally, and prodigally but
we have to listen!
+ART