Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 13 verses 18 and 19:
18 “Hear then the parable of the sower:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.
A well-familiar Scripture, and so the moment we think, "Ahh, I know this, nothing new to be discovered here," let us take heed that we are already now walking along the path so worn, hardened, and compacted that the seed cannot penetrate. Here the Word of God is read and perhaps even heard, but nothing is much taken to heart.
This is sad enough. But there is something even more deeply disturbing in the parable. The Word is actually stolen by the birds and taken and used for their purposes. Here we see how the person closed to change of perception or change of perspective actually enables the seed of God's Word to be stolen and co-opted in use for the forces of evil and destruction. This is the tragedy of certain brands of Fundamentalism, which purport to be based on the Word of God, but are really for the birds -- leaving the soil unplowed and unchanged in the hardness of their own world views and mind-set and prejudice.
In order for the seed to take root and grow the ground must be open to receive it. It must be open to being changed. There is perhaps nothing more sad to behold with the eye than a plot of hardened, unyielding ground. There's no hope there, no openness to the miracle of a wilderness bloom.
A poem comes to my mind as I think on this parable this morning. It is from the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai and speaks of the openness which is necessary for the desert to blossom:
"From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood."
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