Homily for Wednesday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s parable was originally meant as an encouraging word from Jesus to His followers. In His public ministry before this parable, Jesus and His disciples met many difficulties and obstacles: The religious leaders accused them of breaking the Sabbath. They even claimed that Jesus had healed people by the power of Satan! Jesus’ own relatives wanted to confine Him to the house because they feared He had lost control of Himself. That was the context for Jesus talking about the farmer sowing his seed in the field.

The Galilean farmer had all kinds of obstacles to deal with, so that many of the seeds he sowed never took root, or never reached maturity. Yet, despite all challenges, obstacles, and setbacks, the harvest turned out to be great.

Jesus’ message is this: “Look beyond the obstacles, the setbacks, the disappointments; God is at work in my ministry and the harvest will be great in the end. "

We can all become absorbed by what is not going well, by the failures and the losses all around us. Today’s parable encourages us to stay hopeful in the midst of loss and failure, because the LORD is always at work in a life-giving way, even when failure and loss seem to dominate our vision of the world.+