Middle Eastern practice was that the seed was sometimes sown first and the field plowed afterward. Roads and Paths went through many fields and so the traffic compacted the surface so that it was too hard for seed to

take root in.

How many of us have heard stories or perhaps it has happened to us of the panhandler who accosts someone one on the street asking for money for food, only to be turned down. Jesus nowhere gave us criteria for judging when not to give. When the hungry ask, give, as you are able, don't be concerned about their motive. If they really need food and buy food, your generosity has borne fruit. If they have lied and used the money for another purpose, you still have made the effort.

If we look at this parable a bit differently then the Gospel writer intended, we might draw this analogy: the field is sown (your donations are made) and then life happens, the roads and paths of the world cut through the field and some of those donations become trampled or fall on the ground (people, situations) that is too "hard" for them to take root and flourish. Maybe the birds are those that take your giving for the wrong reasons. This does not discourage the sower, "you" from sowing the field because you know that some seed will do good.

This "seed" is not just money, we can give also of what is today a sometimes more valuable currency than money, our time. Sometimes our time may also be scattered on what eventually becomes infertile ground (an unsuccessful launch of a social program) or it may be spent in a successful, fruitful effort like PADS.

I have seen these seeds sown here at Kingswood for many years in our PADS program, our food, pantry, our mission at Rand Grove, our many mission trips, and giving opportunities that have been too numerous to mention over the past 30 plus years. All those sown seeds. Some have grown into healthy plants providing sustenance, while others have like seed sown on the compacted ground, not sprouted at all. That success or lack of it is not, however, how the sowing will be judged. If we tap the well of God's love that is within us and share the seeds we sow with love and selflessness, some of them will find fertile ground.   It is not the abundance of the harvest by which we will be judged, but it is or willingness to participate in the planting that we will demonstrate the love of God within us.