Early Sunday morning, I was looking at my notes for the class I’m preparing about pastoral care. I was writing about the early days of the church in Jerusalem.

What Acts says is that after listening to Peter preaching, “those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

And I thought, “They were prepared soil, and the seeds took root and grew as the apostles kept planting.”

It’s because I was also reading the parable of the soils for Sunday. When talking about the fourth soil, Jesus says, “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

But here’s the thing. 

Some of the people listening to the teaching of the disciples in these days after the resurrection, after the ascension, would have been people who were in the crowd that heard Jesus tell the story of the farmer planting seeds. And likely were NOT in the small group who heard the explanation. They would have been part of the large crowds, the ones who showed up for the feedings and then disappeared, who showed up on the hike from Jericho to Jerusalem and then faded away.

In fact, no one, not even the disciples, had stayed loyal all the way through those darkest hours.

Jesus was gracious and forgiving and aware that soil can be loosened. Understanding can take time. We worry about how we are failing and falling short and being the wrong soil.

Being attentive, “devoted”, to the words of the apostles rather than distracted by falling short can lead to growth. It can be the depth of a tree. It can be the breadth of a field of grain.