the parable of the sower

Most of us are familiar with the parable of the sower.  The sower casts seed onto different kinds of soil, hard, soft, rocky etc.  Some soil rejects the seed.  Some seeds are burned up in the sun.  Some are eaten by birds.

We have wondered our whole life if we were good soil.  We have struggled with guilt and worked to make sure that we were the good ones, because we didn't want to be the bad ones.

Barbara Brown Taylor in her book, The Seeds of Heaven, takes a different view of the parable. She notes that the parable is not the parable of the soils, but the parable of the sower. And if you think about the sower and what the sower is doing, it gives a completely different take on the story.

She writes, "What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns but about the extravagance of a sower who does not seem to be fazed by such concerns, who flings seed everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon, who feeds the birds, whistles at the rocks, picks his way through the thorns, shouts hallelujah at the good soil and just keeps on sowing, confident that there is enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?"

Another example of how we need to decide if God is for us or against us. Another example of how the interpretation of scripture makes a ton of difference in how we see the world.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.