Berks County farm fields yielding a hundred-fold.
July 16th Fifteenth
Sunday Parable of the Sower MT 13: 1-9
"A sower went out to sow the seed
and birds came and ate some seed
the sun rose scorched other seed
the thorns
grew up and choked more seed
But some seed fell
on rich soil and produced fruit,
a hundred or sixty or
thirtyfold.
Despite some of the unpredictable weather of the past spring,
the corn and soybean crops are doing well out in Wernersville where
I live and in other western parts of Berks County with its careful soil management. The sixty thousand farms in Pennsylvania
generate over $7 billion a year in annual sales. So different from the basic subsistence
farming in the time of Jesus!
The one thing that the farmer cannot control is the
weather. Poor weather will stunt the
crops and affect the yield. Should Jesus
want to tell the parable today, he would talk not about soil but about the weather......especially about the weather in Africa where drought abetted by conflicts has raised the specter of hunger and starvation for millions all across central Africa from parts of Nigeria to east and south into Mozambique.
Still it is difficult for us who are not farmers and get our
daily rations at the supermarket to have the same sense of concern that a
farmer might have looking over his crops in fields that have been for him a
source of great care and worry. We city
and suburban slickers must find that experience elsewhere. In my
own case I recall various experiences with nature....
These two fortunately in a favorable climate: I reach back to my own
childhood amazement at some of the simple things of nature; the blue eggs in a
nest that I saw in the midst of some tree branches
and the first fish one summer morning that I caught on my own. It was a simple sunfish younger and more
innocent than I at age nine. (Photo provides an example!) My
family was visiting my aunt at a small cottage with a dock on Trout Lake in the
nearby Poconos. I carried the small fish
right into the kitchen and insisted that I should eat it. Perhaps I thought the fish ought to have
the dignity of giving its life for some purpose. My mother humored me, helped me dress the
little creature, got out some butter and a frying pan and I had an early
lunch. I grew up in a land of plenty.
Please God, continue to help us provide for one another. Rain down, rain down.....
These two fortunately in a favorable climate: I reach back to my own
childhood amazement at some of the simple things of nature; the blue eggs in a
nest that I saw in the midst of some tree branches
and the first fish one summer morning that I caught on my own. It was a simple sunfish younger and more
innocent than I at age nine. (Photo provides an example!) My
family was visiting my aunt at a small cottage with a dock on Trout Lake in the
nearby Poconos. I carried the small fish
right into the kitchen and insisted that I should eat it. Perhaps I thought the fish ought to have
the dignity of giving its life for some purpose. My mother humored me, helped me dress the
little creature, got out some butter and a frying pan and I had an early
lunch. I grew up in a land of plenty.
