January 29, 2025

Mark 4:1-20

This reading opens by setting the scene.  Jesus has been going around teaching, and today a large crowd has gathered around him by the sea.  To be able to address them without being crushed, he gets into a boat, sits down, and gives many teachings in parables.  In those days, he did not have internet to spread the word, and he did not have an app to gather followers, so he had to personally walk from place to place, while people physically followed him and then spread the word among themselves.

In today’s parable, he tells a story about a sower who went out to sow seed.  Some is eaten by birds, some falls on rocky ground and soon withers in the hot sun, some is choked by weeds, but some falls on rich soil, grows well, and yields fruit thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold. 

This parable means that the teachings are offered freely to everyone. God offers his presence to everyone, in fact, God’s presence is throughout all everywhere, but awareness of God’s presence is offered freely to everyone, along with teachings of truth.  What we human beings do with these teachings depends on us.  Do we ignore them so they bounce off completely, like those eaten by birds?  Do they take superficial root but are soon forgotten, like the seeds that fell on rocky ground?  Are they choked by the weeds of our super busy, super entertaining lives? Or finally, do they find rich fertile soil, where we take time to reflect, meditate, pray, and contemplate?

Can we make space in our lives for awareness of God? Take time to enjoy the space and stillness, to feel what it means to be human, to let worries and anxieties subside.  All will be well, all will be well.  All forms of prayer are good – the prayer of gratitude, the prayer of praise, the prayer of sharing our innermost heart with God, the prayer of vulnerability, the prayer of telling your inmost thoughts, the prayer of beseeching for mercy and relief, the prayer for physical needs to be met, the prayer for understanding and guidance.  All of these open our hearts and let God in.  There is peace. Amen.