Time and again Jesus constructs His parables around the daily lives of His listeners. The seed and the sower is a favorite image of His because it allows Him to bring out the miraculous growth and transformation that the good news can achieve in and through us. It also builds His message on the very real way in which nature works, a pattern that will become the foundation for our understanding of sacramental life. We can be too busy with other things; we can be too shallow and not able to deal with the challenges life throws at us. We can become too distracted by what the world offers us, its riches as well as its doubts and difficulties. What is asked of us is to give an open heart but then also to have the depth to understand what God is saying to us.
Jesus does seem to imply that the mixture of the soil and its circumstances matters. We have to be able to receive His word, and to do what we need to rid ourselves of the hindrances that prevent this happening. Many of us will have been formed by the way we were brought up. Such phrases as “the family that prays together stays together” try to evoke a world in which faith can be nurtured and passed on. However, many of us also have experience of this not always happening, and parents often blame themselves and wonder what they should or could have done differently. Similarly the growth of faith involves many different stages, and we may find ourselves sidetracked, making wrong assumptions or even losing of its pursuit. Jesus tells His disciples that the ordinary soil of humanity is not sufficient. That is why He speaks in parables, hoping to break through the reluctance of His audience to hear and understand. What we hope we will always retain is that underlying desire to understand more deeply the seed that lies within us and the openness to God’s touch that will lead us to produce the fruit of goodness and truth that God asks of us.