Some Seed Fell On Good Ground

An earlier view of the sunset on the previous post.
The Gospel for next Sunday is a long passage from Matthew 13.  I meditated on the first eight verses about the farmer sowing seeds.  Rather than plant the seeds in neat rows, it was the practice to scatter the seed by the handfuls.  Some fell on poor soil, some on good.  The parable can help us think about how members of the crowd accepted or rejected the preaching of Jesus.
The parable also helps me think about how freely God throws his love around.  God loves every human being from the beginning of time to the end.  Someone asked me recently how to explain God's loving people, like Hitler, who do extremely evil things.  This parable helps me to get some understanding of that.  The seed is not received the same by all the soil.  God's love is not received the same by all human beings.  God loves everyone equally without making them merit the love, but some people close themselves off from God's love.  Some people simply cannot believe that love could be unearned and miss out.
It is most helpful to see that the good soil yields an abundant harvest beyond all imagining.  I think of how God's love can make us way better than we can make ourselves and of how even good people respond very differently to God's love.  Some of us are wide open to receive God's love.  Some are open just a bit.  We even depend on God to make us better and better soil.