Lent Bible Challenge | Day 18
March 17
Luke 8:1-15

The parable of the sower if well known. I've heard so many times "which soil are you?" that it makes me a bit sick. I don't think the parable is actually about which soil we are. I think we're all of them at different times. What Jesus is insisting upon is the fact that God - the wacky gardener (as I like to call her) - throws out seeds everywhere - sowing on the path, in the weeds, in the rocks, in the deep soil. The seeds sprout everywhere. They actually do grow everywhere. Weeding in my garden Friday afternoon I found onions that still grew surrounded by weeds, wild snap peas that grew among rocks and some volunteer daisy-type flowers that grew up (about a dozen of them) through the hard packed down surface of our bocce ball court. They grow everywhere. The point is that God sows, and loves, unconditionally - beyond our expectations and systematic clarifications of what is "good soil" - or more often than nought "whou is good soil". God shows no preference and yet is preferential for the poor (the widow, the orphan and the foreigner sojourning among us). God in the parable is a wacky garden because he doesn't hedge his bets in planting. His intentional strategy is to plant everywhere. We so often make faith so much about us. Yet what Jesus is affirming is that it's a gift freely given.