Friday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time (July 27, 2018): How's your dirt?

When my son, David, was ten years old, he informed me that his sister spent all day trying to find ways to make him look like a “pile of dirt”. When the two of them got into trouble, according to his perspective, he ended up being The Only Punished One.

His sister, Tammy, knew how to charm her parents with a smile that said, “Okay, I’ve learned my lesson. Now I’ll move on to the next activity, for I’m a jewel in your forgiving heart.” To a sibling in rivalry, that’s a blatant attempt at dirt piling.

But hey, Jesus called us “dirt” in today’s Gospel reading. Well okay, he said, “soil,” but the point is that if our dirt’s fertilized and watered, we become rich soil and we yield a huge, fruitful crop. It’s not bad to think of ourselves as dirt as long as we remember that we want to be tilled and seeded.

If our dirt has been trampled down by people who cruelly walked all over us, making us hard and our hearts cynical, and if we remain unhealed of this degrading treatment, the seeds of love that God sows in us are easily stolen away by the devil who is telling us that we don’t deserve better treatment or that we must seek revenge.

If our dirt is embedded with rocks, if we’re hard-headed and hard-hearted, and if we like throwing hard words at others, the seeds of love that God sows in us won’t reach the soft soil underneath where the roots can grow. We need to be pulverized by the hardships of life (and you thought your life shouldn’t be so dramatic). The setbacks and persecutions that so easily make us falter in our faith will either harden us or teach us compassion — it’s our choice.

If our dirt is producing hurtful, prickly briers and we’re causing others to suffer, the seeds of love get choked by our stubborn disregard of the feelings and needs of others. In preferring self-centeredness, we get strangled by anxieties and stresses and loneliness. We need to prune out the briers and burn the thorns by humbly going to Jesus for help in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and, when possible, by personally reconciling with those we’ve hurt.

If our dirt is fertile ground for new growth, and if we let God nourish us with his Word and refresh us with his healing waters, God’s love will sprout within us, our awareness of being loved will grow and blossom and we’ll produce a bountiful harvest of great love for others.

How’s your dirt? The next time you feel ashamed because of something you’ve done (the next time you feel dirty), ask yourself what kind of soil this is. If you’re letting God hoe you, you’ll soon be sprouting seeds that will eventually bless many people!

My Lord, give me the necessary strength and faith to leave behind everything that blocks me from following You and from letting you work in me the wonderful change You want to make in my life. Amen.