becoming good soil

 
I’m sure all of us have had the experience while reading a book that after getting through a few pages you don’t recall anything of what you just read.  It’s not only with books that this can happen to you.  Even while someone might be speaking to you, after a few minutes, you realize you have no idea what the other person was just talking about.  
 
Isn’t this what Jesus means from our Gospel today when he says, “they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.”  I’m hearing the other person talk to me, but I’m really not listening, or I’m looking at the words in the book, but really not understanding.  
 
We know that it’s a common experience, and we know that it can happen because we can so easily be distracted.  Maybe it’s being preoccupied with a work issue or family situation, or thinking of all the things you have to do. Maybe you’re unmotivated, sad or bored and just can’t be engaged with what it is that you’re supposed to be doing.  And so, as a result, we can look but not see, hear but not listen.  As people of faith, it can also happen in our own spiritual lives.  We’re at Mass but really not present at Mass.
 
In our Gospel today, Jesus gives us the parable of the sower so that we can evaluate how well I see and hear God in my life.  If we really pay attention to the parable we realize that it’s all about our relationship with God.  It’s obvious that our Lord uses primarily farming images in this parable, but if Jesus was giving farming advice, he would’ve been a very bad farmer.  No farmer would carelessly scatter seed wherever not caring where it fell but rather he would be very careful to always put seed in good soil.  Jesus isn’t giving farming tips in this parable.  For him, there is a reason for the seed to be scattered everywhere.  Even if it’s the path, the rocky ground, or among thorns, wherever that seed lands that soil always has the possibility to become good soil.  

The path that Jesus describes is the most hardened soil.  As a result of people walking on a dirt path, that dirt became so packed down and hardened that a seed wouldn’t be able to penetrate it.  But even with that kind of soil, it can be changed into good soil.  There are many reasons why a person’s soul can become so hardened that it can seem impossible to see or hear God: loss of a loved one, suffering an evil or injustice, or experiencing disappointments.  But the seed that God sows can make the most hardened soil into good soil.  Look at the life of St. Paul who went from killing Christians to becoming one of the greatest missionaries in the church.  One of my closest friends who went from living an immoral life and never going to church experienced a major conversion and eventually became a priest.  
 
While there are those that we know who might have that hardened soil, it’s a more common experience to know those, or even in our own lives, to be that rocky ground or the seed falling into thorns.  The rocky ground, as Jesus describes it, “is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy, but he has no root and lasts only for a time.”  One example that comes to mind is when Lent comes around and there are some who can be very motivated on Ash Wednesday to be better about practicing their faith, but then loses that motivation after a few weeks.  Or the “worldly anxieties” that Jesus attributes to the thorns that choke the seed can happen when too much focus is given to what others might think or being distracted by worldly attractions.  
 
Whatever it might be, the hardened path, the rocky ground or falling among the thorns, it always has the capacity to receive God and become that good soil.  Once the fruit of that seed is tasted, once a person truly tastes the goodness of the Lord, experiencing real love and mercy from God, knowing the peace that only God can give, how easy it is to become that good soil.
 
And just as much as we ourselves are called to hear and see God operating in my own life – God calling me in to a deeper relationship with Him – we can also help till the soil in the life of another to help them receive and experience God.  How well do I see and hear God in the presence of my neighbor?  When we leave church today and go about our week, can I easily fall back into my own distractions that when a person is talking to me and I don’t listen I miss an opportunity to show compassion and sympathy?  Can I put aside my own preoccupations and try to see and hear how God wants me to be in service to those that I might encounter today?
 
As we receive again that seed, the Word of God, Jesus in the Eucharist, may He help us to see and hear Him in others so that we can help them to become that good soil to know the fruit of that seed that only God can give.