What Kind of Soil Are You?

What Kind of Soil Are You?   
July 16, 2023    15th Sunday OT - A
by Dcn. Bob Bonomi    

Today’s Gospel is one of the few in which Jesus takes the time to explain the meaning of one of his parables to his disciples.  At this point in His ministry, because of past His preaching and performance of miraculous signs, people are being drawn to Him as much out of curiosity as anything, and the crowds are getting large.  And, as one might imagine, the people who are there come from many different faiths and walks of life. In explaining this parable to his disciples, I think He’s pointing out to them what they themselves will face later on when they preach the Good News to others. It is the same challenge which we face today.

Jesus compares those in the crowd with four kinds of dirt upon which His Word – the Word of God – has been scattered, and what kind of reaction it will receive by those who hear it.  Face it, we are all dirt.  Sounds kind of insulting, doesn’t it? And yet, God told Adam in Genesis that "(Y)ou are dust (or dirt), and to dust you shall return."  So it’s not a question of whether or not we’re dirt, but rather: “What kind of dirt am I?”  

What are the choices that Jesus gives us?  

He starts with the hard-packed dirt of a Path. During the time of Jesus, most people walked everywhere, and the paths, especially those leading to major destinations, would be packed solid with the thousands of feet that traveled them every day.  If you’ve ever been somewhere where there’s a dirt trail that you follow, you know that the ground can be almost as hard as concrete.  

So the dirt of the path may be thought of as those who hear with their ears and minds but who have closed their hearts.  They are often intellectuals; rationalists who only believe in what the material world reveals. They have knowledge but no wisdom. Or, as Isaiah put it, they look and see but do not listen or understand. They are not necessarily bad people.  But pride, arrogance and a sense of superiority clouds their ability to see the miracles of God as coming from God. 

The Word of God cannot take root in them – Jesus cannot take root in them – since to even contemplate the possibility would require them to acknowledge that there are things beyond anyone’s ability to understand.  Like Blind Pharisees, they claim they already know all of the answers and so cannot see their own weaknesses and failings, let alone hear the Good News of Jesus.  

If the dirt path represents those who outright reject God or deny His existence, that shouldn’t be us.  After all, we are here at Mass today, accepting and sharing God’s Word as a community of faith, and we profess that faith in God.

But it might be safe to say that we all might have a little of the other three types of soil within us.  

There’s Rocky Dirt.  They might be compared to those who live with a fear of bad things happening to them. They can and do acknowledge the existence of God as long as good things happen to them, but they often refuse to accept the price of discipleship – the price of the Cross – which scares them off.  Think of those disciples in John’s Gospel who, when listening to Jesus’ discourse on the Bread of Life and heard that they would have to eat His flesh and drink His blood, turned away and no longer followed Him.  Or those like the rich young man whom Jesus loved but who was unwilling to sacrifice his earthly possessions in order to follow Jesus.

These too are not bad people; but they live in fear that they may lose whatever good things they have received in life if they follow Jesus too closely.  They struggle with the concept of redemptive suffering and often get angry and turn away from God when they think that their prayers are not answered as they think they should be.

There are times in our lives when, like the rocky ground, we find our faith tested by our personal trials and problems.  The loss of a job or financial difficulties can leave us questioning God’s presence in our lives, especially if we’ve been blessed with prosperity for any length of time in the past.  Our health issues or those of someone we love can lead us into questioning God’s mercy.  Like the rocky dirt, the boulders of adversity that we encounter can block the joy which we once experienced in God’s presence.  We forget that in the Garden of Gesthemane, Jesus leaned on the rocks seeking the Will of his Father.

Then, there’s Thorny Dirt.  They might be compared to those who see God as just one of many factors in their lives that they need to balance and who prioritize their own desires and goals over the Will of God.  They too are not bad people, they just have trouble with prioritizing God’s Will over their own.  Unlike rocky soil in which fear or anger affects our acceptance of God’s Word, in thorny soil we allow our desire for materialistic goods and our personal satisfaction to overwhelm our attempts for holiness.  

We may be trying to grow in our faith, but we allow our priorities to become entangled with the weeds of the world which spring up all around us.  Faith takes a back seat to the immediacy of our wants.   We get poked by the thorns of those who don’t believe as we do, or who do not take their faith seriously, and we compromise our beliefs because it’s easier to go along with the crowd.  We forget that Jesus bore the thorns of the worldly on His head during His journey to the cross – and our salvation.

Jesus saying, “To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” has to do with what we value.  If we see the value of the Word of God, if we see the value of following Jesus despite the work required to cultivate His garden, then we will gain what we need to flourish.  But, if we fail to see the value of following God’s Will, if we fail to embrace our own crosses, if we are not willing to make the sacrifices asked of us, then we risk losing that very faith, which is more precious than the finest gold, which can sustain us during those times of trial and tribulation which will inevitably enter every one of our lives.

But then there’s the Rich Soil.  Rich Soil is NOT Perfect Soil.  All earthly soil has its imperfections, its share of rocks and thorns.  Any good farmer knows that in order to have truly rich soil for their crops they must “work the land” – they plow and sift to remove the rocks; they may burn the stubble add fertilizer and other nutrients to aid in the growth of their crops.  It is a continuous cycle which has to be repeated every year and which doesn’t always succeed in producing a bumper crop because the farmer knows there are outside factors which affect their crops.

So, if we have this “bad dirt” in us, how can we hope to be a garden that produces good fruit?  Fortunately for us, God is a patient and merciful gardener.  He takes us as we are, with all of our rocks and thorns, our clippings and our organic waste, and allows us to “compost”, giving us the opportunity to become a richer soil.  

A few years ago I received a letter from the City of Plano touting a new composting technique called Japanese composting.  Usually composting takes a relatively long time – upwards of three months to produce a cubic yard of dirt.  But in Japanese composting, you put the organic matter into a special barrel and combine it with special ingredients and, instead of months, the material breaks down rapidly and in only a couple of weeks, you can have rich soil which can be added to your garden.  The result is supposed to yield better dirt.

Like Japanese composting, God uses “special ingredients” too – His Sacraments and especially the Eucharist – to speed up the process of making us a richer soil.

So we shouldn’t be discouraged when we encounter another rock or thorn in our life, which seems to block us from God.  Like sun filtering through the leaves of a thorn bush, God’s love will find us.  His love will warm the rocky ground around our heart, and we will produce good fruit.  We only have to allow Him to work in us.

What kind of dirt are you?  Are you ready to let God make you into a richer, more productive garden?  Maybe it’s time to get your hands dirty.