Good parents are persistent people. They call and call us to the dinner table until we straggle in. They nag us about our homework. They ask the same question until they get the desired response: did you clean your room? Will you change that shirt and comb your hair before we go to Grandma’s? SUCCESSFUL PARENTS GET THE JOB DONE BY STAYING ON MESSAGE for about 20 years per child. It’s an incredibly repetitious position that requires a high tolerance for boring yourself and your kids silly.

Does God get bored? God has been on message now for as long as there have been human beings to receive it. Love, justice, peace, mercy, hope, salvation. Does God get tired of having to repeat the same themes over and over in every new generation? Maybe not. Maybe a low threshold for sameness is a condition that only affects us mortals. It seems that God doesn’t get tired of repetition. Every day the sun comes up and goes down, and every day God says: Do it again!

Now we come to the parable of the sower, perhaps the best known of Jesus’ parables. The parable of the sower begs the question: Why does this man waste so much seed? Everyone knows that some parts of the yard are just no good for growing things. Too much clay there, too many rocks here. Not enough sun or too much sun. Your garden is neat and well-defined, each row straight and true. The earth has been carefully prepared. There are no rocks, no weeds, no one is allowed to walk in it. A good gardener knows the soil and wisely uses the seed.
But not this guy in the parable! No, he throws seeds by handfuls on the path, among rocks and thorns, as well as on decent, viable dirt. He must own a seed company, the way he wastes the stuff. He’s obviously not judging the quality of the soil the way a good gardener would before he goes to work. He’s got boundless hope and optimism despite all evidence to the contrary. And sooner or later, he will get his harvest of thirty – or sixty – or a hundredfold.

Think of this uneven (somewhat messy) planting field as the life of the average believer. We’ve all got hearts that are not uniformly receptive to the great work of the kingdom being sown in us. God, who never tires of the task at hand, keeps on cheerfully offering us opportunities for love, justice, peace, mercy, salvation. This seed is scattered liberally throughout our days as we duck, refuse, and deny. Right now we may be too depressed for the good news of the kingdom – or too busy, too scared, too needy, too tired, too sick, too outraged, too old, or too young. We may have as many excuses as there are seeds. Meanwhile the seeds rain down on all sides of us, crunching under our feet w/ every step we take. And still we refuse this joyous new life, saying, “Not now, Farmer God. Not now. Conditions are simply not favorable.”

Through Isaiah we learn that God does not take no for an answer. “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.” The prophets have spoken. The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us. The Spirit of truth enlightens our hearts. The saints and servants of God have taught us. God’s word is heard. God’s will is known. But we must receive it, like seed, into our depths. Then it has the power to change everything, the power to produce fruit “a hundred or sixty or thirty fold.” St. Paul told the people of Rome: “. . . creation awaits w/ eager expectation the revelation of the children of God.” Paul believes that Xians occupy a central role in God’s plan to RENEW creation. WE are the “children of God” he’s talking about. God expects us to be part of the cycle that helps sow these seeds in the hearts of others. If we have received the seed of God’s word into our depths, then what will we say to the hungry and malnourished of this world, to the homeless, to those suffering from untreatable illnesses, to the dying who are scared and alone. What word will we speak to those persons that will produce fruit in their lives?

In Psalm 65 for this Mass, words of abundance are used to describe God’s harvest: filling, drenching, blessing, overflowing, clothing, garmenting, blanketing. When God does a thing, it’s pretty good and done! So it’s no wonder that the parable of the sower shows us a man who is awfully generous w/ the seed. Stingy is not a word in God’s vocabulary. Nor is cautious, sensible, or enough.

We can all come up w/ a bunch of reasons why we resist the generous seed being sown in our lives – most of them pretty pitiful, when you take them out and examine them. But imagine what happens when we stop resisting and allow the seed to produce its fruit. Every moment contains another smattering of seed from a lavish, trusting, optimistic sower. What will you do with it? What will you allow it to do with you?