RELAX AND GROW

THURSDAY AFTER FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT 2015

Today is Mark 4:1-20 with Bishop Wright focusing on verses 1-9. I am wondering if you feel like you do not need to read it, as you may well know this parable, I must tell you I had to slow myself down to read this passage. Bishop Wright’s exposition is again terrific. He notes how Jesus’ message is a revolutionary message and how it will take keen insight to receive it. He also points out that most everyone he was talking to probably (most not all) were thinking they were on his side. He was saying that not all of them would be fruitful. Now just pause and think of what Jesus has basically said so far in Mark’s Gospel…that he is the new king, the long awaited king that will come put things right. He has demonstrated that with teaching and signs of real power…he has called the symbol laden 12…If you are a Jew, you are thinking, “Here is our man” and your man has just told you that not all of you are really going to stay with the program—Jesus has not read Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people…He is not a politician. Why won’t all the seed take root? Because the people, while excited that a new kingdom is being established, will not embrace the message and method of this kingdom…its message is peace, love, faith…its method is the way of the Cross.

I have been thinking about ME. I have a great gift for this self-absorption. I have been thinking about how worry and trial and more get at me. Am I good soil? Is God bearing 30, 60, dare I think even 100 fold? But isn’t thinking this way exactly the wrong way to think, the wrong focus? This is exactly what Jesus said in the parable…that some of the seed even gets snatched away. Being good soil, is not so much a passive thing…you do need to watch what you put in yourself…what you read and look at…what you think about and focus on…but it does have a limit. At some point you simply have to let the seed do what seeds do…germinate and grow. Today if you have read the parable and taken the time to read this bit then I think you are taking care of your soil…so relax a bit and let Him grow.