Harvest Time and the Parable of the Sower

It is getting near to harvest time in the great American Midwest. The heart of the country is bulging with corn and soybeans and wheat and other life-giving grains. As I drove today in Northwest Iowa, I saw field after field of corn that was near harvesting. The soybeans are also near their coming home time, and soon the combines will be criss-crossing the countryside. The fields are full of agricultural expectations. It is an exciting time of the year in farm country.

Farming has historically been a faith driven business, and it still is. Though large farms have forced many family farms out of business, the people running those big farms are still farmers, and many of them would be living on a smaller family farm if they could. So let us say a prayer for the farmers and their families. Harvest can be a dangerous time, as the machinery now required for the job to be done is often big and cumbersome and sometimes deadly. But it is a job that is necessary to our national security -- American farmers help feed our nation and a large part of the world. In some ways they are just as important to our national well being as the armed services or our diplomatic corps, for the American farmer produces the food that is crucial not only to us, but to many other nations.

Jesus honored farmers in one of his amazing parables, the story of the sower. He uses farming to tell a powerful spiritual truth. In Mark 4: 3-8 he said: "Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times."

He went on to comment on the story, saying, in Mark 4:13-20: "The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop-thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."

May we all be good spiritual farmers, nurturing the seed sown in our hearts and lives, and, in turn, sowing the Word into the lives of others.