Preparing the Soil
Once upon a time, a teacher told a story. It simply began: “A sower went out to sow.” It’s a story that has come down to us largely unchanged from the way it was first told. And it is a story that we know well. Unfortunately, it seems that many of the stories told by Jesus (the “Parables”) have lost their power to surprise and inspire us. There seems to be two reasons for this. The first is that they often include images and anecdotes from everyday life that are significantly unrelated from most of our day-to-day lives. After all, how many of us have any first-hand experience with sowing a field and understand what goes into cultivating a fruitful harvest. The second reason why these stories have lost their impact is that we know them too well. With the stories of the “ Prodigal Son ” and the “ Good Samaritan ,” the parable of the “Sower and the Seed” is among the best-known of these stories of Jesus. In Saint Matthew’s account of the parable of the sower ( 13:1-9, 18-2...