Scripture ReadingMatthew 13:1-9,18-23Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”“Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”Scripture ReflectionIn these parables, the seed of the word is sown among many different people of many different dispositions and life circumstances. Jesus guides us to self-knowledge, and to understanding our capacity to truly grasp his teaching, and to follow it. This is to help us “count the cost of discipleship” (Lk. 14:28). As we meditate upon this parable, let us recognize ourselves in it. The seed sown on the path.Jesus says that the word here is heard, sown in the heart, but not understood by the mind. This teaches us that our minds can derail and overpower our best-intentioned hearts, whether due to our own lack of knowledge or even an overabundance of superficial knowledge. The “birds” that gobble up the seed are the powers and principalities of the air, whose prince is Satan (Eph. 2:2). They are like the “monkey-brain”-inducing, impish army of Mara in Buddhist teaching: the source of those chattering, distracting thought-forms which we find so compelling that our hearts become more infatuated with them than in love with the holy word of God. The “path” is a place well-worn by the worldly; in our worldliness, our minds might be eager for the distraction of novelty, whether news, gossip, entertainment, or work. We might just as easily be distracted by the dramas we script around our preferences, opinions, and sense of self when they are appeased or challenged by our neighbors. A “worldly” mind is not inclined towards spiritual understanding. The “path” is paved with the “banality of evil”, and Jesus warns us against the automatic, mechanistic way of life to which worldly life on this “path” leads. Our hearts might welcome the good word, but our minds can reject it. As the Eastern fathers often emphasize, we must “put the mind into the heart” and bring these two powerful parts of ourselves into alignment. The seed sown on rocky ground.Here, the heart is a mess of overpowering emotions and their inevitable contradictions. It is overjoyed at receiving the word of God, as a bride receiving her bridegroom — but this bride is unfaithful. The person with such a heart has no “root”: no conviction, no courage, especially in the face of persecution. The marital vow the “bride” so eagerly made in her unstable affections — “in good times and bad, sickness and in health, ’til death do us part” — will not be kept. It was made in self-willed haste, fueled by shallow over-enthusiasm. The imprudent, impulse-driven mind has weakened the heart, whose passion is chasing fantasies. The Christian life is indeed a marriage, with Christ as the Church’s bridegroom: bad times come and we ask “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?”; sickness of the body intervenes and we ask “Why is God allowing me to suffer?”; sickness of the soul comes and we ask “Where is God at all?”; and even the threat of death might come because of our faith, and we ask “Is this confession of faith worth my life?”. The great heroes of the faith endured great persecution; physical and mental illness, and demonic assaults on their souls; and many were martyred for their faith, like St. Stephen in Acts 7 — the first of many. These all proved that their grounded faith was rooted in conviction, and their “ground” was not at all rocky. Rocky ground is far from fecund soil, and we find it in a desert place where life is scarce. Where are the great trees that might give protective shade to little sprouts in such a hostile environment? This is an image of solitude: no Christian community, no elders in the faith who, like trees, have grown tall and fruitful, and can shelter the newborn faithful from the scorching sun of temptations with encouragement and instruction. It is very difficult to “go it alone” — the great Desert Fathers were keenly aware of this, and often abandoned their Plan A of solitary life to form monastic communities — and like trees in a well-soiled forest, our roots are strongest in deep community. With such a root, one may “kill [the] emotion” that in turbulence destabilizes the heart and, in its place, “cultivate feeling,” which Anthony of Sourozh says is the necessary preparation for the spiritual life. The seed sown among thorns.This heart is tormented in her abundant preoccupations, by which she is held in brutal captivity. In this prison, there is no vacancy at all for the word. The mind is likewise overpowered by the life of the senses, its awareness completely disconnected from the needs of the heart, which would otherwise be “overjoyed” to receive the word. The mind does not at all know the language of the heart, and its string of thoughts is a barbed-wire of thorns imprisoning the heart. The “thorns” are aspects of the rose of life, of course. In this case, the rose might perhaps be wild, as it is uncultivated roses which become the thorniest of briar-bushes. Surrounded by predators, the thorns grow as a self-defense mechanism — in such a “thorny” person, the heart is not open, the skin is too thick. No vulnerability. Perhaps bad company has indeed corrupted good behavior. “The cares of the world and the lure of wealth” have choked the word — but children are not born with such cares. These cares are taught by parents, relatives, teachers, friends, and peers. The person choked by such cares cannot be spiritually fruitful, and “yields nothing”. Such a person must unlearn “the cares of the world” and learn instead to “yield” — to let go. Otherwise, they will never recognize the word of God for what it is, no matter how many times they have the opportunity to hear it. The seed sown in good soil.The word in this case is heard and understood. The mind has grasped the teaching, and since the “mind is in the heart”, it is rooted. Being rooted, such a person “bears fruit”, and indeed “yields” to the Spirit of Life (Ro. 8:2; Rev. 11:11) — for the words of Christ are spirit and life (Jn. 6:53). The quantity of spiritual fruit does not seem to make a big difference to Jesus — he comes off as nonchalant, cavalier, about whether one yields “a hundredfold, sixty, or thirty” at the harvest. It is the life-bearing quality, perhaps, that matters more than the quantity harvested. The thing about good soil is that it has much death and decomposition hidden within it — dead plant material, bugs, creatures, waste, etc. Fertile soil reveals to us the mystery of how the new creation springs forth from the de-creation of the old — this is true not only of the springing forth of the New Covenant from the Old, but also of the new man arising forth from the old as wheat from a seed fallen dead to the ground (Jn. 12:25). Paul calls us fools if we fail to grasp that “what you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Cor. 15:36). If the word of God is the seed, our hearts must be the soil in which the word alone grows. We must deaden everything in our heart toward anything else seeking to live therein — it is this mortification which allows all that is hostile and inhospitable to the Word to die, decompose, and transform our hearts into fertile soil for the holy seed of the Word. Similarly, a faithful community of Christians who are far along in this process of mortification make fertile soil for anyone whose faith is as new as a seed. Jesus of course explicitly interprets the “seed” to be the Word of God. But we might go further to understand ourselves, bearing the image of Christ the Word of God, as “seed” also. We, after all, are children of faith and therefore “Abraham’s seed” (Gal. 3:29). Likewise, the Kingdom of God is the Father’s vineyard; he is the vinedresser, Christ is the vine, and we are the branches — not only does the vine grow from a seed, but the fruits borne by the branches contain seeds. We who consider ourselves fruitful in our faith should be very concerned with the fertility of the soil around us, that is, the domain in which we minister, so that when our seed-bearing fruits — the works of mercy — fall to the ground and “die”, life may sprout. This is a call to discernment. As heralds of the word of the Gospel, we should be mindful where we sow, lest we sow on the path, on rocky ground, or among the thorns. By no means does this entail that we “preach to the converted” only, but that we should recognize that “good soil” among those to whom Christ preached in his time was not found among the righteous and healthy, but those sin-sick in need of a physician: “for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Lk. 5:32). And we all share in this condition. May we recognize, then, that fertile soil may be found everywhere by the discerning spiritual gardener. Amen.
Song Meditation: “You”
Inspiration has struck!This Holy Week I found myself writing and recording companion songs for the journey, from the Triumphal Entry to the Resurrection. You can find all these brand new songs here:
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