The young man Eric was giving testimony to the turnaround in his life since he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. Two years before, he confessed, he had no appetite for the Word of God. On Sundays he used to shop round the neighbourhood churches for the priest that gave the shortest homilies. His idea of a good church service was one that took as little time as possible. The shorter the better. But now that he is born again he could sit down and listen to the preaching of God’s word for hours on end. Our disposition for the Word of God is a good indication of our relationship with the Lord. Today’s gospel is an invitation to review and renew our attitude to the word of God.

The Parable of the Sower likens the teaching of God’s word to the sowing of seeds. The seeds fall on different types of soil, the pathway soil, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and the good soil. Each of these types of soil is said to represent a certain type of heart with which hearers receive the word of God. The question each of us must ask ourselves today is, “What type of soil for the word of God do I represent? Am I like the pathway where the seed cannot even sprout, or like the rocky ground where the seed sprouts but has no roots, or like thorny ground where the word of God is choked to death by worldly cares, or like the good soil that bears much fruit? Comparing our different dispositions to different types of soil has one crucial limitation. Soil cannot help being what it is. We can. And so the question that follows is: “How can I improve the disposition of my heart so that the word of God can bear fruit in my life or bear fruit more abundantly? To help us answer this question we shall go back to the story of Eric.

Prior to his conversion, Eric did not relish the preaching of the word of God. Many young people today and many that are not so young are in a similar situation. The responsibility for this attitude to God’s word could be shared between those who communicate it and those who receive the message. Preachers often take pride in saying it “just as it is.” The fact that Jesus used stories and parables to teach tells us that it is not enough to say it just as it is. Truth is bitter and bitter pills are often coated in sugar to make them more palatable. One of the most successful preaching missions ever carried out was that made by the prophet Nathan before the adulterous king David (2 Samuel 12) and it was achieved not by saying it just as it is but by the use of a parable. People would be less averse to the word of God if preachers could devise more palatable ways of communicating the gospel truth which is sometimes bitter.

How the word is communicated is important, but the Parable focuses more on how it is received. In the parable the crucial difference between those who hear the word fruitfully and those who don’t lies in the understanding of what they hear:

When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. …But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit … (Matthew 13:19,23)

What is it that makes one person understand and another person not understand the gospel? Jesus tried to address this problem, especially in the Gospel of John. In John 8:43 we read, “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word.”

We often assume that people will accept the Good News if only they could understand, but the reverse is also true that people cannot really understand God’s word until they first accept God in their lives. This we see in the story of Eric who begins to relish and understand God’s word only after he submits to God and enters into a personal relationship with Him. A firm resolve to do God’s will in our lives is the best disposition for hearing and understanding God’s word, because “If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine” (John 7:17).

The frequency and intensity of natural disasters seem to have gone up in recent years. More than in the past, we hear today of earthquakes and tsunamis, hurricanes and tornadoes, landslides and floods, acid rain and smog. In biblical imagination, we can see these disasters as part of the “groans” of creation that Paul speaks about in today’s second reading taken from his Letter to the Romans. These groans of creation are not likely to end until we all heed the voice of Blessed Pope John Paul II calling all humankind to an “ecological conversion.”

The preservation of the ecological balance and harmony in all of creation, of which humans form but a part, has not been a major concern of many Christian churches. We have rather believed that the Creator gave us humans the right to dominate and exploit the rest of creation as we please. In our greed we forgot that “The earth is the LORD's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it” (Psalm 24:1). It is true, of course, as Psalm 115:16 says, that “The heavens are the LORD's heavens, but the earth he has given to human beings.” But God gave the earth to human not because God is no longer interested in the earth but because God wants us to care for it, tend it and give an account of our stewardship of the earth to Him on the Day of Reckoning. God created the world and saw that it was good and beautiful. He then gave this world to human beings on trust, so that we can maintain and enhance the goodness and beauty of God’s creation.

But what have we done with the planet that God entrusted to us? We invented ways and means to exploit the earth’s resources, not paying sufficient attention to the good of the earth itself. We killed the hen that lays the golden egg. We exploited the vast resources of coal, oil and ore in the belly of the earth and left the earth starving. We cut down the trees and forests in order to build our mega-cities, and left the earth naked and unprotected. We burnt fossil fuels and blow the smoke into the face of the earth, and now the earth is sick from second-hand smoke. No wonder the earth groans! Humans have enslaved the earth, and now the earth is groaning to be set free. “For the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

How did creation find itself in this state of bondage, in the first place? It came from the Fall. When humanity fell in Adam, we took the whole creation with us. Human sin accounts for the bondage and degeneration of the earth. It follows from this that when humans turn their backs to sin and embrace their true status as God’s children, then and only then, will creation be totally set free. That is why “the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains” (Romans 8:22) and “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” (verse 19).

Creation wants us to make the right choices. The Church also wants us to make the right choices in the way we relate to the environment. Many times during his pontificate, the Blessed Pope John Paul II invited all humankind to an ecological conversion. By this he meant a return to a simpler lifestyle of increased harmony with and sensitivity to the needs of all creation – animals, plants and minerals – but above all to the needs of our fellow human beings. We cannot hope to be fully free until all of creation is fully free.

A child of God cannot be indifferent to the welfare of our earth planet. Friends of God must also be friends of the environment. Let us all today resolve to be better stewards of God’s creation. We can start by resolving to implement more faithfully the 3Rs of environmental friendliness: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The Gospel of Christ is Good News for humans but also Good News for all creation.