Gardening in the Kingdom of God

To have a really great garden you need to have good, quality soil, the proper tools, fertiliser and of course the weather is also important. If the ground is too hard you have to break it up. If it’s too rocky, you have to pick the rocks out and if there are weeds you have to remove them. Once the ground has been taken care of, the seeds come next. 

Life's Miracles

Every seed contains a small miracle. A seed transforms itself and becomes a plant, a tree, a bush, or a flower. That life goes on to produce more life, in the food we eat, it provides shelter from a bad storm or it produces beauty for the eye to behold. Jesus tells The Parable of the Sower in the Gospel for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Matt 13 1-23). Parables often paint pictures that are filled with images which we can relate to. The Parable of the Sower gives us many images and a powerful message about the kingdom of God.

Listen Up!

I believe that Jesus is comparing the soils of a field to the people we find on earth. We fall into one of the four categories of soil which Jesus laid out in his parable. At the end of the Gospel Jesus says, “Whoever has ears ought to hear!” I had to study this text for quite some time until I think I got it. Let’s say that Jesus is the farmer or the gardener. During his public ministry Jesus spread his message to people from all walks of life. He saw beyond the hard, rocky faces and recognised the thorns and he sowed his seed.

Living the Message

Like Jesus, we're to sow the gospel as liberally as possible. Instead of guessing which soil will easily support the seeds of His message of the kingdom, we should scatter the gospel as widely as we can. It’s the only way to produce the kind of harvest the Lord would like to see.