Last week I had the chance to unpack the Parable of the Sower and Jesus’ related conversation (Mark 4:1-20) about the purpose of parables. I did not spend much time discussing the nature of each soil, though I did not entirely skip it.

Some hearers of the gospel are like hard ground (the path) that doesn’t receive the word at all – it gets snatched away by the enemy, Satan. Many don’t receive the word of God at all. They love their autonomy, their sin, their idols, and so the seed doesn’t penetrate the heart at all.

Others are like rocky ground where there is little soil. Initially, the seed sprouts and shows signs of life, but withers and dies when the heat comes because it has no roots. These show signs of initially spiritual life, but they are attracted to the crowds, to something ‘new and different’, to the idea of Jesus but not Jesus, to the emotional high of a revival but not the long slog of Christian living. They have no root; hence, they produce no eternal fruit.

The third soil is where I want to focus for a few minutes. The seed that fall on the third soil, the thorny ground, again produces signs of life. But the thorns grew up and choked out the plant, so it didn’t bear fruit either. Jesus explains that the thorns are ‘the worries of life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desire for other things.’ The rich young ruler represents one whose spiritual life gets choked by the lies of wealth. Susan, in Lewis’ Narnia series points to someone who succumbs to the ‘desire for other things’ – the desire to be liked, popular, invited, seen as fashionable, etc.

Let me suggest there is one particular species of thorn that people today are particularly susceptible to. Of course, wealth and popularity still have their allure, but ‘the worries of life’ are exceptionally challenging today. And let me get more specific – politics and the daily news cycle are threatening to choke out the spiritual life of many, strangling any vitality that might produce fruit.

I am not saying we should turn a blind eye to the news of the day or to the political goings-on. It is good to be concerned. But is it strangling your spiritual life?

What preoccupies your thought life – the passage you read in your devotions this morning or the article you read in the New York Times? Are you thinking more of eternal things or election cycles? Think specifically of the fruit of the Spirit and the impact the political climate is having. Is your consumption of Fox News or CNN strangling your joy? Is your doom scrolling and the algorithm you’re trapped in making you more patient? Is your rhetoric loving or menacing, even hateful? Do you sense a deep inner peace, or are you clenched up in your emotional and spiritual life, anxiety cramping you and choking off peace? I’ll let you go on through the rest of the list…

Christian, keep tending the ground of your heart. Deal radically with what might be choking out the word of God in your life and preventing the fruit from blooming.

(Thanks for my friend Aaron for helping me make this connection).