Recently I heard a fine sermon by Sarah Shelton, pastor of Baptist Church of the Covenant in Birmingham Alabama.  She referred to Jesus’ parable of the sower. In the parable, the sower strews seed over various kinds of soil, e.g. hard trodden down soil, rocky soil, weed-infested soil, and rich soil.

I confess that for years I struggled with those different types of soil. Assuming that ‘soil’ referred to human hearts, I kept asking the question of how do soils or hearts become characterized as in the parable. What makes them, hard or rocky or weedy or rich? Detesting the answers of either Calvinism or Gnosticism, I always ended up shaking my head in sad confusion.

However, the quagmire into which I had waded did not lead to the meaning of the parable. It was, as Sarah pointed out, all about the extravagance of the sower. He or she did not pick and choose just certain places to strew his seed. No, the seed was cast far and wide with no concern about any so-called worthiness of the soil.

What a wonderful reminder to us not to be stingy or discriminating with our acts of love, compassion, and care. Toss them out here, there, and everywhere! Trust that some will bear good fruit. And it may even be in ‘soil’ we might have thought unworthy or unproductive. Extravagance in love is never bad.