"Between a Rock and a Hard Place"

The Sower by Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Contemporary farming is fundamentally different from what it used to be during the New Testament times.

Today, fields are prep, and if needed they are leveled.  Then plowed and seeded, and fertilized and, if needed, fields are watered.  But even before a single seed goes into the fields, experts will tell the farmer what and when to plant.

These days, seeds are seldom those saved from a previous crop, and sometimes even if they would like to do it, farmers can’t. 

When planting, rows are seeded using tools destined to get the seeds at the right place and at the right depth.  Not to say anything as making sure that the field’s boundaries are exploited to the max.

It is way different from the days of Jesus.

In those days, fields had been defined by agreement between the families, by the rights inherited from ancestors and if needed, by strong-arming the neighbor.

Then, after harvest, farmers had to decide how much of their crop they needed to sell – to make a living and pay debts – and how much to keep for planting the next crop.

When the planting season arrived, farmers and their assistants would roam the unplowed fields carefully spreading the seeds.  Not too thin to avoid loses while at the same time, trying to avoid overcrowding the seeds. 

Once seeding was done then they would plow the fields to mix the seed, any stalks remaining from the old crop to mix them into the soil.  Finally, it was time to offer a sacrifice to their favorite deity to ensure a good crop, waiting for a timely rain or that the water from the mountains would arrive in time.

It is no wonder that, while today’s farmers can predict with fair accuracy the yield of their crops, the old farmers had nothing more than to keep their fingers crossed.  As Jesus observed, yields varied a lot.

Now, as Jesus told his parable, even if a farmer knew that some seeds would be lost, he still had to seed – even if the all-important seed could fall in between a rock or a hard place. 

Of course, Jesus did not advocate throwing the seeds willy-nilly.  But still the farmer had to seed and wait in hope.  The kind of hope that could see fields white and ready for the crop when they had just been planted.

While preaching and teaching, Jesus was well aware that much of the seeds of the kingdom which He was planting were to fall into the hard hearts of men, and where some seeds would eventually end up being tramped over.  Nevertheless, Jesus never gave up.

Why would Jesus waste his time in teaching and modeling life to someone like Judas?  He did so in the conviction that the sower’s job was to seed as best as he could, and to leave the results into the hands of God.

On the other hand, Jesus had to deal with the hard fact that some would cover their ears to avoid hearing uncomfortable truths.  Others, perhaps with more polite manners, would simply smile and squander precious opportunities, by being drawn away by things that, ultimately, would prove to be inconsequential.  Yet, Jesus kept seeding.

While the Good News are the Good News, the Good News always play in the field of human freedom of choice.  Time and again, God refuses to assume total control over human lives and ram his Law down the throats of people.  Rather, God keeps seeding, always knocking at the door of the hearts of people.

Even when, in our eyes, people do not deserve to hear the Good News, the Sower is still called to sow.  Or, in the words of Isaiah, snow cannot refuse to become water, and water cannot choose not to run into the fields simply because some of it may be wasted.

The work of the Church must continue using the best seed available and cannot stop even when the best efforts may end up being wasted.  Like Jesus, the church must keep sowing.

And this is perhaps where the parable stops being a story about old-time farming and becomes relevant to our lives. 

Because, if you have following Jesus in His steps, sooner or later you might have discovered that not every seed takes root in the way you hoped.  Not every invitation was accepted.  Not every act of mercy was noticed.  Not every word of truth was is welcomed.

For, in the words of Kevin Fedarko, the author of “The Emerald Mile”, some people have “no interest in exposing themselves to information that might complicate or add nuance to the picture [of reality or of God] they had drawn for themselves.”

However, the sower does not stop sowing.  The sower does not decide that only the most promising soil deserves attention.  The sower keeps walking, keeps reaching into the bag, keeps casting seed with a generosity that looks almost foolish to those who measure success only by immediate results or by numbers in a spreadsheet.

Sowing the seeds of the kingdom is hard if only we expect that past performance is going to repeat itself.  It is very human to make sure that our time, our words, our money, our prayers, and our love are not wasted.  But the kingdom of God does not grow according to the logic of efficiency.  It grows according to the logic of grace.

As St Paul remarks in the second lesson, grace is never efficient in the narrow sense.  Grace visits people more than once.  Grace speaks again after being ignored.  Grace forgives before repentance looks perfect.

So, the question for us is not simply whether the seed will sprout.  The question is whether we will trust the One who is sending us to sow.  Shall we keep loving when love seems unnoticed?  Shall we keep speaking hope when hope sounds naive?  Shall we keep offering the Gospel, not because we control the harvest, but because we have been entrusted with the seed?

So, among the challenges we have been called to live – both by our own choice or because the world is what it is – the seeds of the Kingdom have been placed on our hands for us to spread. 

Be it between rocks and hard places, or in forbidding places or in hidden corners, God is still at work.  And if this is true of others, it is also true of us.  We are not always the good soil.  There are places in us that are hardened by fear, distracted by worries, crowded by ambitions, or made shallow by disappointment.  

Yet still God keeps sowing in us.  Because through grace, sometimes, when nothing is expected to grow, the seed finds a crack, the heavenly rains arrive, the roots go down, and eventually, the harvest begins.

As we keep on keeping on, let us never forget that grace leaves room for the rocky ground to soften, for thorns to be cleared, and for the field that has been trampled down to become fertile again.

So, in the words penned by the late 1800s “Singing Evangelist”, the Rev.  Knowles Shaw, let us keep sowing,

Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,

  sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;

For, as he sings, always

Waiting for the harvest and the time of reaping—

  we shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Fr. Gustavo