Day 13 of Lent, Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Today's Reading: Luke 8:1-25

The Sower
by James Tissot, c. 1886

These passages are rich to spend time with since they appear to be disconnected.  However, we can see connections as women round out the disciples becoming the family of Jesus as they "listen to God's word and do it."

The beauty of the parable of the soils is that we can place ourselves within different facets of them.  Sometimes we are the sower, planting the word along the way.  Other times, we may be the seed that God uses to allow the word to spring forth.  Conversely, we may also be the different kinds of soil - hard path, rocky ground, thorny dirt and maybe even good soil that is productive and rich.

Of course as disciples, we know that sometimes we are also in the boat with Jesus and we worry about what  we think are storms when they're really only changes in the weather.  We forget the one who calms the storms is with us all along.  If we can remember, this helps us to be richer soil more often than hard, packed earth.

We can listen to God's word and do it.

We are the brothers and sisters of Jesus.