Parable of the sower offers lessons in business virtue

In many people’s minds the phrase “business virtue” is an oxymoron, as though virtue is the antithesis of commerce. Commerce is all about profits, they say, and virtue is not. Really?

While it is true that a person is not virtuous simply because he or she is successful in business, it is equally untrue to think that a person cannot be virtuous if he is.
 
Consider how often Jesus points to merchants and commerce as metaphors for the kingdom of God. An example of how virtue and the talents of business can work hand in hand emerges from the backdrop of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:3-9.

The dominant metaphor in this story is the varied receptivity of the ground to the seeds that are sown. In this parable, the soil represents people. The Word is accepted by some, but not appropriated, and so their faith withers. For others, the Word is accepted, but only superficially, and so the Word is discarded or betrayed. There are varying degrees of understanding and tenacity, but in only one case does the faith produce spectacular growth, and that is only when it is permitted to penetrate deeply.

To truly grasp this parable requires, at some level, an understanding of agriculture, the dominant business of the first century. Still, the story raises many questions we might confront even in our own day: is nature our friend or our enemy? What do our minds have to do with productivity in making land more receptive to growth? What does human industry and ingenuity have to do with prosperity?
 
In the same way that the kingdom of God will not appear all at once but requires preparation, cultivation, and waiting, so too does the land. Preparatory work and the right conditions are required.

The preparation of the soil requires human hands directed by human intelligence. Skill, study, experience, and good management are all necessary. What is at play here is not only the legitimacy and dignity of human work and intelligence but also their necessity.
 
Contrary to some contemporary sentiments, it is the very manipulation—in the truest meaning of the word, that is, “fashioning with one’s hands”—of the natural environment that makes an otherwise barren plot fruitful. Effort must be applied to the soil. Some today seem to think that a pristine environment untouched by humanity is somehow morally superior to land that had been “worked.”
 
And here is where the vocation of business arises. The truth is that a jungle is not always preferred to a garden.
 
For those who hold to a kind of environmentalist religion, Jesus’ parable will be incomprehensible. The sower can only prepare the ground if he is its owner or under contract by its owner to do the work. This assures that the land and its increasing value (that is, productivity) will be protected from invasion, looting, or expropriation.
 
Of course, the purpose of the parable is not to offer a seminar on the legitimacy of business, but it does presume private ownership and some level of managerial proficiency. Economics is not the point either of the commandments or of the parables. Private ownership is simply assumed as part of the structure of the story, and indeed as a demand of human nature in its temporal reality. This is what gives rise to business in the first place: to satisfy human needs. The parable of the sower and other similar stories would not make much sense without postulating private property.
 
This is the first part of a two-part series. In the second part of this reflection, to be published in the May 2023 issue, we’ll look at the connection of business and virtue by considering the human dimension of commerce that both inspires and requires virtue.

FATHER ROBERT A. SIRICO is president emeritus and co-founder of the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, MI. His latest book is The Economics of the Parables (Regnery Publishing).