Sunday before church Cecilia and I were talking about good storytellers. We had just seen Tangled the day before (which is quite good, with a great story) and I interjected, "You know who was a great storyteller? Jesus! He loved telling stories." She was surprised and asked to hear one.
So I told her the parable of the Farmer and seeds in Mark 4.
Again Jesus... taught them [large crowd] many things by parables, and in his teaching said: “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”Later in the afternoon, I looked up the passage and asked her to read it to me. She did. IT WAS AWESOME. And it made me think about Fat Tuesday, Lent, and gardening.
Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
The soils are like our hearts. Some are hard (the path), some are shallow (the rocky), some are distracted (the thorny). And when we hear the Word of God it is like seed that falls on these soils.
In hard hearts the Word has nowhere to go. Bitterness, callousness, anger, and apathy keep the surface of our hearts tough and so God's truth can't make it in and it gets carried away by the enemy.
In shallow hearts the Word makes it below the surface, but not far enough. After an emotional experience with God, or an Ah Ha moment, the heart has no depth, no structure, no discipline for the seed to plant some roots and stick around. It soon withers and dies.
In distracted hearts the Word starts to grow, develops roots, but soon is killed by the "plants" that were already there. Our commitment to these weeds of wealth, status, independence, and happiness kill the truth that was planted by the good news of God.
When I look for myself in this story, my heart has looked like all these soils, but lately it has been mostly a thorny heart. I'm a distracted person. I read God's Word and seeds get planted in my heart: "think of others before you think about yourself;" "Do everything without grumbling or arguing;" "Don't be conceited, don't envy others." And as those seeds start growing into a beautiful and lush garden, my weedy heart starts to chock them back. My commitment to myself steals nutrients. My lack of trust that if I give of myself God will take care of me, nudges the truth out. My self-sufficiency robs the truth of the light and power it needs from the Spirit. And soon it dies.
Enter in the purning power of Lent.
Lent is a church season. 40 days before Easter, men and woman in the church give things up, fast, so that when Easter arrives our hearts are ready. Lent tills up the soil in our hearts. It begins sweeping away the rocks and infuses our hearts with nutrients. It also can be utilized to cut out distractions, to prune the things that take our affections away from the Gospel.
That is why we celebrate Lent. That is why I'll be giving something up tomorrow and will be trying to replace that thing with God. I want my heart ready. I want my heart to be soft, and deep, and clear, so when the seeds of Easter are thrown into my soul, there will be a crop beyond my wild imaginations.
What "soul" do you identify with most?
What do you need to give up to be ready to take in the seed of our Risen Lord?
1 comment:
well said! thanks for the reminder.
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