Sunday, 7/16/17
The Heavenly Father gave us
both the outer world of Nature and the inner world of the soul, and our
readings today speak of the similar ways he communicates with us through those
outer and inner worlds.
The Gospel compares the way our
souls respond to God’s grace to the way four types of soil might respond to the
seed of the Gospel.
First, our souls are like hardened
pathways where God’s word are brushed aside, without ever sinking in. (I was
once called to the side of a slobbering man, thrown on his back by a stroke. I
felt so sorry for him, and In going to see him a week later, I expected to find
him ashamed of the disgusting display he had made of himself; but instead I
found him grateful for having been
roused from a life when he had completely ignored God.)
Secondly, we can be like the thin
layer of soil over laying a hard pan of rock. The seed that falls there germinates,
but then dies for its not putting down roots. We are like that when we agree
with Sunday’ sermon, forgetting it by Monday.
Thirdly, we are like the
thorny soil when our vices leave no room for healthy living.
Fourth, we are like healthy
soil when we incorporate God’s words into our lives.
Every year when I was
teaching the Sixth Grade Religion Class, when we came to this passage in Second
Isaiah, I would hold up some dollars, saying that anyone who could memorize it
in twelve minutes would win a dollar.
It was fun watching them
hurriedly sayig it over and over to themselves. Not many of them won the
dollar, and I wonder after all these years how many even vaguely remember the
passage.
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