Tuesday, August 16, 2011

People and the word of God

 The Parable of the Sower (Matt 13:1-23)

The gospel of Matthew about the parable of the Sower is relevant to us in our everyday life. During the time of this gospel writer, the community understood the seed as the word of God that yields harvest according to the situation of the one who hears the word being proclaimed.

Let's pause for a while and consider ourselves as the farmer. As a farmer's son and grew on a farm, I am familiar with farming the natural way using the wooden and steel plow, the harrow, the carabao or water buffalo, and lots of prayers for rain and a bountiful harvest. Farmers at that time don't use fertilizers, chemicals, or machines. Everything runs on its smooth course as Mother Nature intended it to be, unadulterated. Farms teemed with mudfish, catfish, other freshwater species of fish, edible snails, and diet-friendly farm frogs. Myriads of kangkong (comparable to spinach ) dotted the sunlight ricefields, quails swarmed in droves, and mayas (small crimson-colored rice bird) flowered the rice fields with their lovely presence. Herons or carabao egrets and kingfishers were familiar visitors. And at that time, harvests were in abundance because we sow in abundance. In fact, we have a small rice granary to store the rice and corn seeds.

In this high-tech world of computers and cell phones and e-cameras, how do we sow our time, our talents, and our energy? If we sow scantily, we will reap scantily. If we plant in abundance, the harvest is bountiful.

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