When I was a kid no one could ever have confused me with one of those freckled boys in overalls and a straw hat posing in front of a 40-pound watermelon or a 300-pound pumpkin. For one thing, I wasn’t raised on a farm and for another I didn’t have a green thumb. That isn’t to say that I didn’t try my hand at growing things. I did. But I had no idea how to help plants grow. I was given to what you might call magical thinking about growing things. I suppose cartoons guided me most. I thought that if I stuck seeds in the ground and put water on them, once, like Jack’s beanstalk, they’d grow up overnight or, at least, in a week or two. But it rarely happened. In fact I don’t recall that it ever did. I remember very carefully planting a penny in the back yard, thinking that it would grow into a money tree. I even watered it, but nothing happened. I was very disappointed. I believe that was the same summer that I got in into my head to dig my way to China, but I didn’t succeed at that either. I think I gave up after about 3 feet down – as long as my arm could stretch. That disappointed me too. After my various childhood escapades in gardening I gave it up for the better part of 30 years.

Now I dabble in gardening, as I did back then, but with somewhat less disappointment. That’s because I’m far less magical in my thinking about it, and put much more intentional work into it. I don’t just put a seed in the ground and put water on it, hoping, magically, that the seed will grow into a full, healthy plant -- bearing the hoped for fruit, vegetables or flowers. I’ll take the seed and plant it in potting soil in one of those clear, plastic greenhouses. I’ll water it and place it in the sun. Then, when a shoot does poke its way through the soil, I’ll wait until it has some strength to it before I take it out into harsh rigors of the world. At that, I’ll even put enriched soil into the hole, tuck the fledgling plant in snuggly and water it – not just once, mind you, but over and over again. I might even add fertilizer and some sort of mulch. Even then, a few plants may gradually whither and die, but most live, thrive, blossom and bear what I hoped for. It takes time, work, and the appropriate measures of soil, sun, water and nutrients, but it’s worth the effort.

The same holds true for the proper growth and development of any living thing. Everything that lives needs its own particular -- one might even say peculiar – resources to thrive, grow, develop and reach its full potential. It doesn’t just happen magically. And that includes what we’re fond of calling spirituality, these days. That was Jesus’ point in today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel. What Jesus had to say primarily related to new converts to faith – those who receive the seed of the Kingdom of God. But it really applies to everyone at various points along the way in our spiritual lives. Spiritual growth doesn’t happen magically – automatically, simply because we vaguely want to be spiritual.

Now, Jesus always used similes in His explanation of spiritual principles. Usually they came from people’s ordinary experiences of life -- often from nature, as today’s parable did. That’s because the Creator of the universe is elegant in the simplicity with which He made everything. The way God created things seems to be interconnected with everything else and to mirror how everything else works. That’s probably why physical nature and its laws so conveniently illustrate the way things work spiritually, and why Jesus was able to use parables from nature to illustrate spiritual truths.

Take today’s parable. The seed refers to the message of God’s Kingdom – the Gospel. Like a seed the Word of God in the Gospel – has life within it. As Isaiah said in our Old Testament reading, “My word shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish the purpose that I have for it.” The message of God’s Kingdom has life – spiritual energy – as a seed has life latent within it. But the spiritual energy of God’s message never overrides the will and the choices of the people who hear it, as seed doesn’t grow on its own. It has spiritual life force within it, but isn’t magical. The will of the individual has to cooperate with the seed of God’s Word to germinate within the person. Even then God’s Word doesn’t just magically grow into Christian spirituality and blossom into Christian discipleship on its own. It requires the proper measure of appropriate nutrients to promote its healthy growth, and the particular nutrients used will influence how it grows.

Jesus mentions a few of the conditions -- nutrients -- that are essential to healthy spiritual growth. He said, “Some seeds fell on the path, and birds came and ate them up.” Then He went on to explain that people of the path are those who don’t understand or hear God’s message in the Gospel, and it eventually gets gobbled up by the spiritual forces opposed to God. In other words, like soil on a path – packed down and hard, some people can be inwardly hardened so as not to be receptive to God’s message in the Gospel. They won’t, therefore, be able to receive it and it’ll gradually fade away. Jesus also said, “Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they didn’t have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, but since they had no root they withered away.” He went on to explain that people need to let the Word of God in the Gospel take root within them in order to withstand adverse conditions, like persecution, or else the spiritual growth that takes place will wither away under pressure. Similarly Jesus said, “Other seeds fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked them.” He explained that the thorns represented the cares of life and the lure of wealth – that these forces stunt spiritual growth and eventually strangle the spiritual life out of a person. Likewise Jesus said, “Some seeds fell on good soil and brought forth fruit.”

We’ve all known people – perhaps even ourselves -- who at one time or other have fallen into one or more of these conditions. People of the path are those who seem hardened against spiritual growth or are resistant to faith. People of the rocks are those who turn away from God when the going of life gets tough and they experience pain and loss. People of the thorns, and that may be many of us, are those who become distracted and then completely preoccupied with the experiences of daily life – its concerns and pleasures – and so they become less sensitive to matters of the Spirit. People of the good soil take deep root and bear much fruit – of the Spirit, of love and of good works. But what makes good soil?

As I see it these are the conditions that produce optimum spiritual growth: