Parable of the Sower (2011-07-10)

This is my homily for Sunday, 10 July 2011. I am a Catholic chaplain at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) campus and for the FDU Newman Catholic Association. We celebrate Catholic Mass - during Fall and Spring semester - every Sunday Mass (7:30 p.m.) at the Interfaith Chapel, 842 River Road, Teaneck, NJ. We resume our Sunday schedule on Sunday August 28, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

14th Sunday ordinary time (year A)
[ Isaiah 55:10-11 | Psalm 65 | Romans 8:18-23 | Matthew 13:1-23 ]

[__01___] In this parable, the path – or the road – is one of the four destinies or destinations for the seed or grain.
Some seeds fall along the path. However, this is a place where the seed lacks security, protection in order to grow. The middle of the street (road) is a hazardous place.

[__02___] Clearly, there is a difference between the seed on the path and the seed on the good soil.
What is the difference …?

[__03___] What separates the path from the good soil?
One scholar observes that the path is -- very close to / very near -- the good soil.

We might tend to think of the path as the highway, or the Interstate outside the field. In fact, the path is within the field. One scholar observes that this path – in the parable – runs between the rows of good soil. This is where the sower has been walking, the sower who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[__04___] The disciples, in the Gospel are often invited away from the regular path , to someplace new.

[__05___] The disciples themselves – Peter, James, John and the rest – are called in this way. On the night before he dies, the night before the Passion, Christ takes his 12 apostles to the Garden of Gethsemane, and, so to say, PLANTS them in the earth, in the soil of the garden.

He plants Peter, James, John and the rest there -- in the earth -- so that they might stay awake and pray.

Then, Christ himself kneels to pray and, later, returns to check on his ¨farm¨ and plants… They have fallen asleep.

Sometimes, even under the best conditions, we do not always grow.

However, by coming to the Garden, the apostles begin to seek the good soil, for which we also come to pray and to Sunday Mass.

The apostles step off their regular path and become an example to us.
We also do the same, turning to God at Sunday Mass and in our prayer.

[__06___] Growth and change, for us, often requires a new path and a new place.
Consider , for example, our young people, our children in school.
Each year, brothers and sisters, you have to step away from that which is familiar. That is, in school, you receive a new teacher, new subjects, new rules, new classmates.

And, often, we think this CHANGE – ALTERATION is designed to make the learning process as difficult as possible.

However, we also realize we need change - and the right conditions – in order to grow.

[__07___] Are there not people in our lives who also challenge us to grow and change?

Some difficult individuals are not easy to love.

These individuals may throw us off our path.

We might consider the message of this parable when we are knocked to the ground.

That is, do I really have no hope of rising to my feet?

Or, am I simply off the path …and buried in the good soil.

In our genuine efforts to love as Christ loved, to pray as he prayed, to give ourselves to each other, we sometimes have to surrender the familiar and the known…

Doing so, we can find ourselves in the best soil.

Also, we discover that the best soil may not be so far away. The best soil may be simply to love, care, sacrifice for someone – or in some way – that is already a part of my life. In other words, for a family member, a classmate, a friend.

This gradual change takes us off the path and into the good rows of soil between the path.

And, this invites us to work for a new harvest in which we can discover the seed and hear God´s word, 30 times, 60 times, or 100 times over. [__fin ___]