Wednesday January 29, 2025 - Good News Ministries

Good News Reflections:
Making scripture meaningful to your daily life
by Terry Modica

Only as a community can we offer the world a taste of what God’s kingdom is really like.

Good News Reflection for:

Wednesday of the 3rd Week in Ordinary Time
January 29, 2025

Today’s Prayer:

Beloved Jesus: Give me the grace of not falling into those temptations that block Your Word from producing abundant fruit in me and in those people You send to me. Amen.

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Today’s Readings:

Hebrews 10:11-18
Ps 110:1-4
Mark 4:1-20
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012925.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-january-29-2025

What’s growing in your soil?

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus gives us that oh-so-familiar parable about the different types of soil. You are the seed that has landed on fertile soil (or else you wouldn’t be reading this reflection). So let’s dig into what it means to be the grain that springs up from the fertile soil and produces a crop of “hundredfold”.

My friend Nancy Viola, a long-time member of Good News Ministries gave me this modern-day parable from her own personal experience, and it’s so good I want to share it:

I was eating coleslaw with my fried shrimp and God said, “Look at the coleslaw. What’s the main ingredient? Cabbage! The coleslaw started out as a head of cabbage. Has the cabbage changed in any way because of the other ingredients that it’s mixed with? Not at all. It’s still cabbage. But you didn’t ask the waitress for a head of cabbage; you ordered coleslaw. Why? Because cabbage that’s chopped and mixed with mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, sugar, and spices appeal to the taste buds much more than a plain piece of cabbage.”

I wondered, “Yeah… so what’s your point, Jesus?”

“The cabbage in the coleslaw is no less than what it was created to be. But if it had not given up each stage of its existence (the seed dying in fertile soil to become a sprout, the sprout growing into a head, the head chopped into slaw, the slaw mixed with other produce), it would not have become a delightful salad for your nourishment.”

Nancy’s story points out that true Christian faith is more than just sprouting as seedlings from good soil. Faith is bland unless it becomes part of a salad, mixing what’s good about us with the good in others for the sake of nourishing those who want Jesus to minister to them. Or to put it another way: Faith is pointless unless we put it to use as part of a parish community and other faith-based groups that have a mission of serving others.

As seeds, we sink into the fertile soil alone, but we don’t sprout alone. Growing requires Father God’s participation as he waters us and gives us warm sunshine. However, our strongest flavors that help others in the biggest way come from the hardships we’ve endured. So Jesus comes along and plucks us out of the comfortable ground to do an important work for his kingdom.

Meanwhile, life on earth chops us into slaw, ruining our nicely shaped cabbage head. Instinctively, we try to pull ourselves back together. Even if we understand the value of using our troubles for the good of others, the fact is we’re still shredded and our flavor is still limited. We need to mix it up with others. We need to find people who are like mayonnaise and spices for us. We need to become part of a community of other vegetables and fruits. (Yes, even people who are fruits and nuts add flavor to the salad!)

Only as a community can we offer the world a taste of what God’s kingdom is really like. Only together do we make a good harvest in the kingdom of God. Christ’s love, power, and salvation are revealed through our teamwork and collaboration with one another, not through our isolated individuality.

BTW: If you have a flavor to add to the Good News Ministries salad, we’re always open to adding more team members. Please visit this page: gnm.org/about-join/.

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