Love rains down

Matthew 13:1-9 - That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. And great crowds gathered about him so that he got in the boat and sat there; and the crowds stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying, "A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed some seeds fell on the path and the birds came and devoured them. And others fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately sprang up, since they had no depth of soil; and when the sun rose they were scorched; since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds feel upon thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain; some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. Whoever has ears to hear let them hear."

The easy lesson is that we must look at our soil. God scatters his seed (love? commands?) over all of us and we are at fault for being less than 100% receptive. Is our soil hard like the path? How can we soften it. Is it rocky? How can we soften it? Is it full of thorns? How can we weed it? Is it a mixture? How can we encourage the softening of the hard, rocky, thorny bits? This is a good reading and we should definitely open our hearts, our soil to God's transformation. This is the work of a lifetime and should not be discounted.

Yet there is at least one other lesson here. One that Jesus' audience would have recognized immediately that we in an urban context may not catch. Remember they were tillers of the soil. They understood about the different kinds of soil and where best to plant grain. Human sowers would never scatter seed over a footpath. Or rocky soil. Or in the middle of thorns. Not on purpose. Yet this sower that Jesus describes does just that. He scatters seeds everywhere. Willy nilly. What a waste! Right?

But remember God is the sower and the seeds are Their love beaming down on us like the rays of the sun. Then the lesson is deeper and more profound. God does not discriminate between the rocky soil and the good soil. Do we? God does not refuse their love to "thorny" people. Do we? God loves everyone individually and in toto. Each of us. It is hard to imagine because most of us are not capable of such love. Our soil is thorny and rocky in places from experiences we've had in our past or even currently. We forget that God loves each of us.

What that means for us as Christians is that we must express that love to our neighbors. We must learn to see God in them - the imago dei - or we will never be able to truly love even those we love. But first, we must love ourselves by welcoming God's transforming love into our own hearts. For many of us that is a scary proposition. When I felt that I was being called to ministry I was scared of what God might be asking me to give up. I had a list! I had another list of what I thought people might say. No one said any of that. I needed to learn to love myself before I could truly love God, before I could welcome the love that falls down like rain to refresh and renew my soul.
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