SPEAKER_00: There's something strange about today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us about a farmer who goes out to sow seed.
SPEAKER_00: He reaches into his bag and begins to throw the seeds.
SPEAKER_00: He throws the seeds on the path.
SPEAKER_00: On rocky ground, he throws it into the thorns.
SPEAKER_00: He throws seed on good soil.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you know anything about farming, this makes absolutely no sense.
SPEAKER_00: A good farmer protects his seed.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't waste it.
SPEAKER_00: He plants very carefully.
SPEAKER_00: He calculates.
SPEAKER_00: He measures.
SPEAKER_00: But not this farmer.
SPEAKER_00: He seems almost reckless.
SPEAKER_00: Which means Jesus wants us to notice something before we ever notice the soil.
SPEAKER_00: The first character in this parable is not the ground, it's the sower, the farmer.
SPEAKER_00: The sower is extravagant.
SPEAKER_00: Who would throw something precious onto ground that has almost no chance of producing anything?
SPEAKER_00: Well, only someone whose generosity is greater than his fear of wasting it.
SPEAKER_00: That's God.
SPEAKER_00: God never rations his grace.
SPEAKER_00: He does not look at a person and say, Well, he's too far gone.
SPEAKER_00: That marriage is too broken.
SPEAKER_00: That sin or that addiction is gone too far.
SPEAKER_00: That family will never be reconciled and come back.
SPEAKER_00: That soul isn't worth it.
SPEAKER_00: I've tried and tried.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: What does he do?
SPEAKER_00: He keeps sowing.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps speaking, he keeps calling, he keeps loving.
SPEAKER_00: Even when he knows many will reject him.
SPEAKER_00: That tells us something beautiful about God.
SPEAKER_00: God's love is never determined by the condition of the receiver.
SPEAKER_00: It comes from the generosity of the giver.
SPEAKER_00: That alone should change the way we see ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Because some of us walked into this church today convinced that we've disappointed God one too many times.
SPEAKER_00: But if God were stingy with his mercy, he would never have sent his son to die on the cross for us.
SPEAKER_00: God is extravagant.
SPEAKER_00: He keeps sowing.
SPEAKER_00: But then Jesus shifts our attention.
SPEAKER_00: The seed is never the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the word of God is always alive.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel never loses its power.
SPEAKER_00: If nothing grows, it is never because the seed lacked life.
SPEAKER_00: It's because of the soil.
SPEAKER_00: And now that's where the gospel becomes uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Because every single one of us can recognize ourselves somewhere in these four soils.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes our hearts become like the path hard.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we're evil, but because life has driven us, driven over us many times, with disappointments, with failures, with betrayals.
SPEAKER_00: We've heard this gospel many times.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we have stopped expecting it to change us.
SPEAKER_00: The word lands, but it never gets inside.
SPEAKER_00: Other times we are like rocky soil.
SPEAKER_00: We love emotional moments.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a retreat, a conference, a good experience at Mass, maybe a Christmas Mass or Easter Mass, a really beautiful sunrise mass.
SPEAKER_00: We get inspired.
SPEAKER_00: But inspiration is not the same thing as conversion.
SPEAKER_00: The trials come, the first inconvenience may come, the first sacrifice, and suddenly our faith disappears.
SPEAKER_00: We're back to the same old, same old.
SPEAKER_00: Because feelings may make beautiful beginnings, but they make for poor foundations.
SPEAKER_00: Roots are formed through perseverance, through structure, through discipline, not excitement.
SPEAKER_00: And then there are the thorns.
SPEAKER_00: I think that this is where most of us live.
SPEAKER_00: But notice something: Jesus does not say the plant dies because of some great evil.
SPEAKER_00: No, it dies because it gets crowded.
SPEAKER_00: The worries, the schedule, the constraint notifications, the pressure to make more, to buy more, to be more.
SPEAKER_00: The pressures of life to be accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: We fill every empty moment with noise.
SPEAKER_00: We stay busy.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever constantly occupies the mind, well, that's what's occupying the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The devil doesn't always have to make us be bad or feel bad.
SPEAKER_00: All he has to do is make us real busy.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the part I don't want you to miss.
SPEAKER_00: This parable is not about personality, it's about freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus never says, You were born rocky.
SPEAKER_00: You are always thorny.
SPEAKER_00: You're always hard.
SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he knows that the soil can change.
SPEAKER_00: A farmer spends a lot more time working on the soil than he does planting.
SPEAKER_00: That's the spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: The saints were not born with better soil, they cultivated it.
SPEAKER_00: Every act of repentance softens that ground.
SPEAKER_00: Every confession breaks open another layer of hardness.
SPEAKER_00: Every act of forgiveness removes another stone.
SPEAKER_00: Every moment spent in silence before the Lord pulls away another thorn.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy changes us.
SPEAKER_00: Grace changes us.
SPEAKER_00: But grace needs cooperation.
SPEAKER_00: God provides the seed.
SPEAKER_00: We must prepare the ground.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lesson from nature.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed what happens after a forest fire?
SPEAKER_00: Everything looks dead.
SPEAKER_00: Black, burned, hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: Many, but many species of trees actually need fire.
SPEAKER_00: The intense heat cracks open those seeds that would otherwise remain closed for years.
SPEAKER_00: What look like total destruction becomes the beginning of new life.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God allows the trials of life, the disappointments, the challenges to crack open the hearts that comfort never could.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the strongest Christians I know did not grow because of because life was easy, but because of a big trial in their life.
SPEAKER_00: They grew because suffering finally made them understand the redemptive power of God and that they had to draw closer to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So let me leave you with one image.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine Jesus walking through those doors today, carrying a bag of seeds.
SPEAKER_00: He already knows everything about you.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly where your heart is.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly where your faith is shallow and where you've drifted and you're distracted.
SPEAKER_00: He knows exactly where the thorns are growing.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he doesn't skip past you.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't walk around you.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't save his seed for someone else, someone more deserving.
SPEAKER_00: He throws it your way anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's who he is.
SPEAKER_00: He is extravagant.
SPEAKER_00: The question isn't whether God is speaking, because he is.
SPEAKER_00: The question is whether we will give him somewhere for that le that seed to land.
SPEAKER_00: So this week, don't try to change your entire life.
SPEAKER_00: Just cultivate one small piece of the soil.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means finally going to confession.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means ten minutes of silence before grabbing your phone and working and starting your work day.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means forgiving someone you've carried a grudge against.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it means opening the scriptures before opening social media.
SPEAKER_00: Just one piece, small piece of ground that you can cultivate this week.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you give Christ even one small corner of your heart, he can do with it with what no farmer on earth could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold.
SPEAKER_00: That isn't agriculture.
SPEAKER_00: That's God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And grace has always been God's specialty.
SPEAKER_00: And it awaits us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.