the parable of the sower and other things

A week ago, I was over there. Looking snazzy and celebrating.

I am now sitting at my dining room table, my first batch of ice cream (Stracciatella) custard chilling in the fridge (why did my font change? Okay there we go.

Anyway, my tv on mute, the dryer whirring in the background, paying bills, and organizing my life for the next busy work week.

This is my day off. I got up for church this am, and the sermon was the first in a series on Christ's Parables. Today: The Parable of the Sower.

Oh the downside to being a church-raised child. I have heard these parables until I can recite them cold. I have drawn picture books of them one by one. And I have distilled them down to a one line moral at the end of an Aesop Fable.

Until today. I was hit in the face, maybe punched in the stomach is a better analogy, with the livingness (if you will) of the Gospel. I found myself in the not so good category of the soils....I realize now that Jesus' words in this story are more complex and loaded than they initially seem.

My church has Presbyterian roots (I am not Presbyterian. I don't believe in "God's Elect" or "Eternal Security" and if you want to know what either of those things are, we can chat later). But I do very much believe that like any relationship, being a Believer often is like being in a dance---or a race as Paul liked to say. Sometimes you miss a step, or step on your partner's foot, or fall, or get a cramp in your side, or look over to the people standing on the side....and you get off rhythm.

I think that is what the soil that has the thorns choking out the plant that the sower planted is like. (whoo) I lack focus lots of the time. I let the cares of this life, and my hopes and plans, and my fears and worries color how I see God moving in my life. At times, I look to these things so much, that I doubt how much God really is invested in me or how much I can trust Him. Never to the point of leaving. I mean come on! How can I leave!? But there is a tension. an angst. that I didn't have as an adolescent. :-)

I was reminded of something today though. Those 4 types of soil had nothing to do with how they were. soil cannot make itself hard or rocky or perfect for thorns, or healthy and just right for yummy things and beautiful flowers to flourish in. That is up to the Sower. And so today, I was reminded that I am not at all alone. That when I am an idiot or a brat or a coward, all I have to do is ask Christ to do his work in me and remove the thorns that crowd in to strangle all the things I know to be true.

And that is a comfort.