When we read in today's parable that the seed is the word of God, we automatically think of God as the sower and of ourselves as the various types of soil. A closer look at the text and context of the Gospel, however, enables us to see that Jesus wants the disciples and, therefore, us, to be in the role of the sower. The parable is told in the context of Jesus's training of the disciples for the apostolate. He clearly distinguishes between the disciples who have the mysteries of the kingdom revealed to them and the rest for whom only practical lessons are conveyed by parables. It is not that the latter are deprived but rather that the former are specially endowed for the task of bearing the seed of God's word to all shades of mankind. So, each one of us must take to heart the solemn injunction laid on Timothy by Paul in today's first reading, to confess Christ before the world, even as Christ confessed, by His life, before Pilate.