Luke 8:4-8 NRSVue

⁴When a large crowd was gathering, as people were coming to him from town after town, he said in a parable: ⁵“A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed some fell on a path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. ⁶Some fell on rock, and as it grew up it withered for lack of moisture. ⁷Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. ⁸Some fell into good soil, and when it grew it produced a hundredfold.” As he said this, he called out, “If you have ears to hear, then hear!”

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Some thoughts on this scripture

Reflection
The hard path represents the shut mind, that blocks out the word of God. The rocky ground, with a thin layer of soil, is the shallow mind that does not think through the word of God or its consequences, and forgets it when under pressure. The thorny ground means those whose lives are so busy that the things of God get crowded out.

Reflection
Lord, I will try to listen with a good heart and produce results.

Reflection
We want our community to be soil for the word of God. It only makes sense if the way we live our lives make sense of the gospel. The seed is the word of God and we are the soil - personally and as community. Let’s hope we nourish well the soil which is itself the gift of God. We nourish the soil of our faith with prayer, service and love. Wherever there is real love in life, this is the soil open to the word and love of God. All God wants is that we and our world grow as best we can, as God wants us to grow.

Reflection
It's interesting how much Jesus was an out of doors person. He gave a lot of his sermons out of doors - and his images were so often of seeds and growth, trees and fields. Little of his preaching was done in the temple or synagogue. He met his people in their ordinary situations. This story draws in all Jesus' sensitivity to the growth of faith, spoken in words and images, in ordinary places, that everyone cold understand. He meets you and me too in the ordinary of our lives.