Then Jesus told them many things in parables, saying: “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. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”- Matthew 13:3-9

Many of us have known this parable since we were little children. I remember my Sunday school teacher asking me what kind of soil am I? Now, that I am older, I realized that she shouldn’t asked a ten year old boy such difficult question. It did not traumatize me. I just did not have the maturity to answer the question. I was a child. My mind was still trying to figure many things. I did not even know the dynamics of the gardening. As I grew older, I read this parable and hoped that I was the soil that bore good fruit like everyone reading this. All of us want to be fruitful. All of us wants to be the best soil to receive the seed of the Word of God.

This is how we would interpret this parable as individuals. It is good way to reflect on this parable in our personal devotional time. However, we are here today as one body of Christ. We are tasked to understand this text as a community. Therefore, we need to listen to this parable the way the first hearers of this parable heard this. They would have interpreted the soil as a type of community. In those times, the individual is no one without the community. This is why, in the past, being exiled was a dreadful punishment, even comparable to death. Socrates, the famous Greek Philosopher whom almost everyone knows without much effort, refused to choose exile when he was unjustly convicted at a trial. He would rather risk death than to be exiled. Being without a community means losing your individuality. It was a fate worse than death.

The importance of being part of a community is not a cultural thing. It is a human thing. As human beings, we are social animals. It is the way God created us to be. We need the presence and influence of the other to grow as individuals. It is God’s design. When Jesus came into this world, He came to start a new community or as St Paul stated,

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

The parable of the sower is about the New Creation. It was scandalous for the first hearers, especially to the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders. Jesus used the idea of the sower not because they lived in agricultural society. The language is rooted in the Prophetic tradition in the Old Testament. The idea of sowing and reaping was always associated with the hope of those who wanted to return to the promised land, the Land where they believed that God has prepared for them. The people of Israel believed that God especially handpicked them. They were the people who were entrusted with Holy Word of God. However, Jesus tells us in this parable that the Word of God was sowed generously and indiscriminately. God’s word of Life and Hope was not given to just one nation but to every people. Unfortunately, not everyone is interested. Some people or communities were interested but they lacked the depth. Some tried to have the best of both worlds and ended up losing everything. Like Jesus said,

“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” Mark 8:36

The Sower sows the seed generously. People gathered together might receive the word or reject it or not even value it. However, the generosity of God is bestowed upon all peoples. It doesn’t matter if they are in the church or outside the church. Some might think this is a scandalous thing to say. However, God’s word is not present exclusively in the church. The Pharisees thought that they were the exclusive custodians of the Word. However, God is not limited in His grace. He generously plants His Kingdom in all peoples.

This parable is scandalous. It is proposing a new mindset. It is introducing a new world vision.

God sows generously in hearts and minds of all people!

There is no such thing as a favored nation or people or individual. The word of Life is sowed freely. However, there are different qualities of soils. All of us want to be the good soil. Unfortunately, we don’t determine the quality. Soil cannot make itself good. In order for the soil to be perfect for bearing fruits, it needs a Gardener. Who else can be our Gardener except the Father Himself?

The gospel of John is the last gospel to be written. He fills the lacuna in the other gospels. He states it explicitly through the mouth of Jesus,

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” John 15:1

We cannot make ourselves the good soil as community. We need the gardener. He is not just helping us. We need more than help. We need to be transformed.

We are, in reality, hopeless without the action of the Divine Gardener. Perhaps this is the most scandalous thing for the Pharisees to hear. They believed that they were preparing for the coming of the Messiah. They believed that their actions and politically maneuvering could open the door for the Kingdom of God. All they did was allow the ways of the world to contaminate their faith and blind them from the true presence of the Christ. In the same way, we find communities which received the word of God with joy only to slowly turn into toxic communities which go against the very person of Jesus.

The soil that becomes fruitful is a community who waits for the divine Gardener to prepare the soil to bear good fruits.

Waiting is not doing nothing. Waiting means opening ourselves to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst. It means acknowledging that the Work of God in our midst is real and active. This is not make believe. The Kingdom of God is here. The New Creation is real. However, we are not its creators. We are part of the New Creation. We are part of the Body. We are not the whole Body of Christ. We are just part of the body and the body can only act in accordance with the Head who is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Waiting means our hearts and minds are open to God. It means we are willing to become His instruments. We do this through prayer. Prayer is not passive. True and biblical prayer is a prelude to action. A poor imitation of prayer is one which negates action. We pray to ask God to use us as an instrument of His grace. Prayer also helps us endure painful moments in our community. It gives the wisdom to know that sometimes pain and suffering is a necessary process in the growth of a community in order to bear fruits. As the prophet Jeremiah prophesied,

Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. Jeremiah 4:3

We break the fallow ground so that we can become a community that allows the seed of the Kingdom to grow deep into our lives. Removing the thorns which stifle and contaminate our growth can be a painful process. We cannot do this on our own because we are not loving and generous like God. Only God can remove all that hinders our growth without destroying anyone’s life in the process. Only God is Loving enough to be our gardener.

God wants to create a new creation. It doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen through adopting special biblical programs and strategies. It happens when we open hearts and minds to receive the presence of Jesus in our midst. Wherever Jesus is present, there is transformation. Whenever we gathered together with expectation to see Jesus act, we will see His actions. It is not enough for us to gather together. Everyone does this. We gather together with expectation to see Jesus. Then we allow His actions to dominate the actions of our lives. Only when we do this, we will see the Holy Spirit transforming our community into a community which bears the fruits of the New Creation.

In closing, this is the essence of our ministry in the streets. Everyday we go to the streets and wait for the person of Jesus to bring all the people whose hearts and minds are open to Him. He draws us together. Then He breaks the fallow ground in our hearts and remove all the thorns so that we will bear fruits of the New Creation. His New Creation is present everywhere. We just need to wait for the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds to perceive it.

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
Matthew 11:28-30

We have been busy lately. I am not quite sure why. It doesn’t seem like we are doing anything more than before. However, we seem to be running out of time. This might appear to be a good thing. Being busy can give us the impression that we are important. However, it is easy to fool ourselves with activities. Jesus was not a busy man. He took time to be with people. He never forsook an opportunity to be with someone even when there were many things which needed to be done. He also took time to be alone with God, to reflect on what He had seen and heard.

This week was a full week for us. I was tempted to take time off from reflecting on this week’s events so that I could keep on doing things without thinking about them. These verses from the gospel struck me. They are profound words but at the same time, they are also familiar words. Those who grew up with the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (I am talking about the U.S.) would remember these verses cited from the gospel. Usually this verse is quoted immediately after our general confession. They were part of the “comfortable words”. They are indeed spiritually comfortable words. They are meant to speak to our innermost being. They are supposed to bring relief to our souls. The same relief that St Paul sought when he wrote these words;

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:21-25

The apostle reflected on the wretched state of humanity. Not wretched in the manner of being decadent or perverted but the inner toil which torments and makes us even hate or despise ourselves.

If I were to use a scripture to define our missionary work among the homeless young people, I would use this verse from the gospel. It expresses perfectly the good news. Jesus came to relieve us of this burden that we bear. Perhaps homelessness makes it more difficult for people to guise this burden. Our young people don’t carry a burden which is uncommon to the rest of the world. They carry the same unbearable burden as the rest of us. They just don’t have the luxury of hiding it like us. We can hide our burden with busyness or various activities helping us to forget the battle within our souls.

The verse invites us to look deep into our hearts and ask what are these burdens that Jesus wants to release in us. It is definitely not the burden of suffering in this world. Jesus promised suffering, pain, and rejection in this world. He emphasized many times in His teachings that the values of the Kingdom of God are not only incompatible with the values of this world but they are also despised by the world. He is not talking about relief from the burden of sin and guilt. There are churches which believe that once we become Christians, we are free from guilt. Guilt helps us. One of the most endearing hymns, a little overused albeit, “Amazing Grave” conveys a sense of guilt of sins committed in the past. The notion of the heaviness of sin committed made John Newton, the blessed composer of the hymn, deeply appreciates grace. Our guilt also reminds us that we have no room in our faith in Jesus to ever take the position of the Pharisee in the parable who believed that he was better than the tax collector. Guilt reminds us that we come into the presence of God through grace and nothing can be said of our own personal merit.

I would like to pause here and remind ourselves that this is a profound text. Therefore, there are layers of Truth waiting to be discovered for those who venture to uncover its depth. I limit myself from the perspective of our ministry to the homeless. I will address the burden I see that our young people carry which is also something I see in myself. In many ways, whenever we reach out to our neighbor in the Name of the gospel, we find a mirror reflecting our own image. Like our Lord reminded us in the Sermon on the Mount,

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. Matthew 7:5

We cannot heal others confidently unless we have allowed the healing power of the gospel to transform us. Healing is a lifelong process. The more we reach out to the other in the name of the gospel, the more we discover of His healing in our own lives.

One of the greatest spiritual burdens our young people carry in their souls is the burden of proving their worthiness to the world. In other words, they want to find a reason to prove to the world that they have a right to exist. This can be proven positively or negatively. Unfortunately, the world is not a gracious place for people who are born in unfortunate circumstances like our young people. They are given a limited space in society. Either they are forced in live out their existence in an invisible manner or they assert their existence in a negative way through crime and violence. The ones that choose the former slowly slip into an existence of “non-existence” where substance abuse becomes their major comfort and eventually carries them towards physical and mental breakdown and subsequent death. Those who choose crime are also eventually brought to the path of death through violence or imprisonment. Both groups seek to become someone in this world. It is something deeply spiritual. They are looking for the same thing which all of us desire and want. They want to be considered a relevant being to someone. They want to be Loved. To be loved is to be in a relationship. Without relationships, the words of the gospel do not become the Living Word of God. They become like the Law, according to St Paul, which is dead.

Of all the apostles, perhaps, St Paul is the one who understood this the best, or at least, expressed it. He was burdened with the desire to be someone in this world. He became a member of the strictest religious sect and even adopted a violent stance against all those whom he perceived as a threat to his existence. Finally, he encountered the One who relieved His yoke. He realized that he was persecuting the very One whose Love affirmed his own personal worthiness in this world. This encounter gave St Paul the boldness to write these words,

But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Our sins and errors did not hinder Jesus from loving us to the point of giving up His life for us. We were and are so important for God that He would sacrifice His only begotten Son to die for us. The knowledge of this eternal Love gave Paul the confidence to leave all that he knew behind and take up the yoke which Jesus gave him. It is the same yoke our Lord offers to us. This yoke is the yoke of Love where we testify of the unconditional Love of God that God pours out so freely into this world.

When we first started in this ministry in the mid nineties, we carried an unnecessary burden. We carried a burden to prove to the world that we were doing a meaningful work. Unfortunately, everything was vague about this. We weren’t sure even what exactly constituted a meaningful work. Then later on in Life when I was ordained a parish priest, I met an older parish priest who had a successful ministry for many years. He was successful but he never was a priest of a large congregation. To the contrary, his congregation never grew in numbers. However, there was something godly about him which touched people profoundly. He recommended one important thing. He said, “Just love and enjoy the people God puts in your life.” These words relieved a yoke that I was carrying in my soul. God wants us to become His agents of Love in this world. However, before we can step out into this world, we need to take the log out of our eyes. We need to know first that we are loved unconditionally by our Good Shepherd. Only then we can go into the world with a yoke that is easy and light. It is the one simple thing people are seeking in the world. We can testify with utter confidence that Jesus loves and accepts them unconditionally. The way we testify to them is the same way Jesus testifies to us. His life is the living proof of His Love. He died for us while we were still sinners. In the same way, we learn to love those whom God has placed in our lives and one day their eyes will be opened to see One who freely gives a yoke which is easy and light.