15 Sunday A The parable of the sower

15 Sunday  A  2020

Introduction

A large sailing ship called “Bad News” sailed along a sea route. Asked why the sailboat had this name, the captain replied: “I love sailboat competitions, and everyone knows that the bad news is the fastest news.” The Boulevard press also provides proof of this. The gossip, the suspicions, the corruptions are the news that spreads the fastest. The good news is being passed on very slowly.

Sermon

Two thousand years ago, Jesus proclaimed the Gospel—the good news that we can call God our Father, who loves us all. If Jesus had said gossip about the emperor, it would have spread rapidly. But he proclaimed the Word of God, and its spread depends on the free will of man. A gossip is easier to find a breeding ground. The Word of God, the good news, only arrives where one opens one’s faith.

Today Jesus tells the parable of the sower. He talks about four groups of people. Each group accepts the Word of God differently.

He compares the first group of listeners to a hard lowered ground on which the seeds fall, but they cannot penetrate the soil. These are the people who have heard many sermons, but none have changed their lives. They also do not expect anything from the sermons, but only deal with their concerns and their interests while listening.

The second group of listeners is superficial people. They are receptive and enthusiastic but without the necessary depth. They do not know themselves well, so they do not realize that many of their habits contradict their selfishness with the Word of God. They believe they are on the right track because they have been touched by the Word. The words went to their hearts, and it is enough for them to hear the sermon and believe they agree with it. But they are not trying to change their lives.

The third group of listeners is comparable to seeds that fell thorns. They work diligently, and they believe that their present lives fill them in such a way that they neglect without hesitation the pursuit of eternal life. They are haughty, and therefore they do not want to accept the Word of the Gospel. They always have an objection, an excuse, a reason to say “no.”

But what is the fourth group of listeners? It is the people who say, God, I am like stone-ground, but I do not want to stay like this. God, I am superficial, but I do not wish to remain shallow. God, I was haughty, I did not appreciate your Word, but I was wrong. So, if people act like that, they belong to the fourth group. In the fourth group of listeners are those people who recognize their mistakes and who want to change. Wouldn’t it be nice to be part of that group where the Word falls on good ground, as the Gospel has said!

At one point, a Belgian theologian complained: “How easily everyone remembers the film they last a saw, but what gospel they heard last Sunday would be forgotten immediately.”

How long do we carry a melody of a song in our hearts, and we sing and hum it again and again? And the Word of God? We hear it, and we forget it without it touching us. Our life’s responsibilities are obvious to us, but we do not allow the Word of God to move and shape us. A magnet can carry 14 times more; it weighs it itself. Accepting the Word of God in faith could also act as a magnet so that we bear thirty folds, sixty-fold, or a hundredfold fruit.

I would like to conclude with a brief history of contemplating today’s Gospel. A young bricklayer helped demolish a house. When the plaster was knocked down, instead of a brick, he found a large, walled-in book. It was the Bible. He was astonished and wondered how this book had come here. He wasn’t really interested in religious affairs, but he began to read in this Bible. Gradually, reading the Bible, he discovered that it seemed to him, some of God’s words were addressed directly to him. Two years later, his company sent him to Saudi Arabia. There he lived with other workers in a small room. One evening, a roommate watched him read a book. He asked, “What are you reading?” He replied, “The Bible.” The roommate said: “That’s all nonsense that’s inside. I must confess, I even once walled a Bible in a house because I was curious about the power of this walled Bible to get out of this wall again.” The young man said, “What would you say if I showed you this Bible?” And he gave his companion the Bible with the question: “Is this your Bible? I found her, and so she came back to you.” This short history shows that the Bible can be a gift for some who wants to accept it. For the other, it has so little meaning that he walls it in. Others question it and ridicule it. So the attitude to the Word of God is as different as the soils of the Gospel.

Holy Scripture can only be useful for us, just as it was then in the time of Jesus, if we read it in faith and thereby find solutions to a successful life here on earth, to obtain once the promised eternal bliss in the kingdom of God.

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