July 12, 2026

Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 65:10, 11, 12-13, 14 (R. “The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.”); Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-9/or 1-23

      The Scripture passages for this weekend’s Mass use images that connect with farming and gardening experiences: need for moisture (rain and snow) to water the earth to make it fertile and fruitful; sowing of seed; harvesting; produce of the land for food; places of rocky or poor soil; and those darn weeds! Of course, these images are not used to teach us about farming or gardening. If they were, the first thing we might tell the sower in Jesus’ parable is that he’s wasting a lot of good seed. As valuable as seed is today, imagine how valuable it was in Jesus’ day! Yields might be tenfold in a good year. From that yield, seed for the next year would be saved, before the family and perhaps a couple animals would be fed. Something else we could say to the sower is that today we have far greater yields than even 100-fold! We have learned much about soil, seeds, cultivation, pesticides, herbicides, etc. In all of that, may we not forget the value of the land and harvests entrusted to us, for they come from God’s goodness.
      These agricultural images point us to God’s creative goodness and persistence. God continues to rain down (pun intended) his love and mercy upon us. These images point us to the power of God’s persistent word and grace, for they do not return to God until they have accomplished the purpose for which they were sent: the word “shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it” (Is 55:11).
      As we move from Isaiah to Jesus’ parable of the Sower, we might do well to remind ourselves of another significant saying of Jesus: “… be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (Mt 5:45; cp. Lk 6:35b). In The Sower, it appears that God also sows in much the same way! This parable opens Matthew’s Parable Chapter (as in Mk 4). In this chapter, Matthew has a number of parables:

• some are also found in Mark and Luke: The Sower (Mk 4:1-9; Lk 8:4-8b); The Mustard Seed (Mk 4:30-32; Lk 13:18-19); Of the Fig Tree (Mk 13:28-32; Lk 21:29-33); 
• The Leaven is also in Luke, but not in Mark (Lk 13:20-21; Mt 13:33);
• The Weeds in the Wheat (13:24-30), The Hidden Treasure (13:44), The Pearl of Great Price (13:45-46) & the Dragnet (13:47-48) are found only in Matthew.

In addition to the parables themselves, Matthew also attributes to Jesus some explanations of them to the disciples:

• of The Sower, Mt 13:18-23, which is part of the long form of today’s Gospel passage (cp. Mk 4:13–20; Lk 8:11–15);
• of The Weeds in the Wheat (13:36-43);
• of The Dragnet (13:49-50);
• as well as a couple passages about the purpose of speaking in parables: 13:10-16, 34-35 (cp. Mk 4:25, 33-44 & Lk 8:18; 19:26).

My favorite definition of “parable” is from a former professor, Dr. Scott, who inspired my interest in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew & Luke): “A parable is a mashal that employs a short narrative fiction to reference a transcen­dent symbol.”^* Mashal (מָשָׁל) is the Hebrew word that is translated into Greek as parabolé (παραβολή). The Hebrew term comes from the verb “to be like”; the noun can mean compari­son, metaphor, proverb, sym­bol, riddle, parable (the word is used in the title, The Book of Proverbs). Only the evangelist Luke uses “parable” that broadly. Mark and Matthew normally use it only to refer to the short stories that Jesus tells. This is probably how most of us think of the term.
      Dr. Scott’s definition also points to how Jesus uses these stories. Literally, the Greek word para-bolé means to throw (ballō) something alongside (para) something else. In this case, Jesus throws a “short narrative fiction”^** alongside “a transcendent symbol”, namely, the Kingdom of Heaven/God (Mt prefers “heaven”). This is made explicit in how Jesus introduces The Mustard Seed: “To what shall we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed…” (Mk 4:30-31a; see Lk 13:18; cp. Mt 13:31a, which has no questions, but notes, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed…”).
      We can remember this and imagine that Jesus, when telling The Sower, may at times have begun with “The kingdom of heaven is like a [sower went out to sow].” Thus, the entire image created by the sower’s sowing—however extravagant, careless, senseless—is “like” the Kingdom of Heaven/God. This “transcendent symbol” is never defined by Jesus, but he does say it is “at hand”. The “Kingdom” is, however, “imaged” when Jesus throws a “short narrative fiction” alongside it. “Kingdom of God/Heaven” does not refer to some place or territory of Heaven/God; rather, it refers to what the King—in this case, God—is doing. Kingdom of God/Heaven, then, is a symbol for how God ‘gods’, how God goes about ‘godding’—and the Kingdom is “at hand”, it is always present. It would be good to remind ourselves that the name of God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14 is a verb. In Hebrew, “I AM” is not something static and theoretical, but it points to what one is doing. That is, God is known by what God does. In Hebrew, we, too, are who we are because of what we do. So, Kingdom of God is a metaphorical way of referring to what God is doing, which is why some recent translations use “Reign of God/Heaven” as a way of relaying this understanding. We do NOT build up the Kingdom/Reign of God/Heaven (a pet peeve of mine, in case you hadn’t noticed). God is doing his reigning, his kingdom, here and now, for it is “at hand”. Are we responding to and cooperating with what God is doing?
      The way the sower sows is the way God acts: giving to the good and the bad, the unjust and the just. Sower sows until the seed that is sown achieves its purpose. The parable itself focuses on the sower’s sowing. The “explanation” (Mt 13:18-23), however, focusses more on each kind of soil. Most scholars think that the parable was told by Jesus, but the explanation, which allegorizes each kind of soil, may come from the experience of the early Church. Regardless, “Rain down, rain down, rain down your love on your people, … God of life” (from the hymn “Rain Down” by Jaime Cortez). The world, the Church, our local faith community, our families, each of us are God’s field, so to speak. God is sowing (Isaiah might say “raining”) his grace, love, peace, forgiveness, word on this vast field so that we might produce a good harvest, such as the fruits of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22b-23a). Where in our own selves and in our community is the soil still hard, rocky, or shallow? May we turn over (pun intended) that soil to God’s grace and power so that we can be transformed! Let us see, too, that in our own and in our community’s life great fruit is being produced for the Church and the world. May the harvest reveal the Church and community to be deep, rich soil. Thanks be to God for those areas in which we are open to the Kingdom of God/Heaven and thus produce the fruits of the Holy Spirit!
^*Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then a Parable. A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus, Minne­a­polis, MN: Fortress, 1989, p. 8).
^**BTW, “fiction” simply means that these short stories are not about something that actually happened. Good “fiction” makes a true point!