Planting the Seed

Again [Jesus] began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2 And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground…. 6 And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns… and it yielded no grain. 8 And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.” 9 And he said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Mark 4:2-8

The interesting thing to me about this parable is that the sower is throwing the seed around with such abandon! He doesn’t stop to dribble it carefully over the ground—to avoid the hard-beaten path, or the rocky ground, or the bit with thorns. He just throws the seed everywhere, and when the right time comes, there is plenty of good grain to harvest, in spite of the seed that was lost.

It sometimes happens that people question the way we do ministry. “Why do you spend so much time on people who will never come to faith?” they ask. They don’t realize that what we do to care for new Americans is done for love, not as a way of manipulating them. And they also show that they don’t know the power of God to give new life in the most unexpected ways!

But Jesus knows this, for it is the same work he came to do—sharing God’s love with every human being. He did it through his suffering, death and resurrection—and by sending out his believers to tell others. And we trust him to bring his harvest from all the nations of the world in his own love and wisdom.

Dear Lord, show us how to love the people you send to us, and make us fruitful for you. Amen.

By Dr. Kari Vo