A week ago Friday, I happened to read John Carlson’s column in the Register. (1) He told about driving past a group of kids waiting for the school bus, and seeing the biggest kid pick on one of the small ones. Carlson drove past and in his rear view mirror saw the big kid swing a stick and hit that the smaller kid, who fell to the ground. The smaller kid appeared to have some kind of physical handicap. Carlson hit the brakes, did a U-turn, and went back to where the kids were. He pulled the car to the side of the street and got out. He said that the one who had hit the other kid had run off, and that that was a good thing, because he might have done something that he would regret.
Carlson went on to talk about bullying in his column. What was especially notable was the reaction to the column, which he wrote about in his column on Monday. Apparently he had touched a nerve, and almost immediately there were emails and phone calls and online comments from readers who shared that they had gone through the same kinds of experiences. One told about an event that happened when he was in second grade, in 1946. Sixty-three years later, he still remembers it like it was yesterday. In one way or another, readers told about experiences that had stayed with them and impacted their lives.
In a certain way, Carlson’s story illustrates the scripture from today. Seeds are sown and there are results of our sowing, results far beyond what we might have imagined. The main difference between Carlson’s story and the parables Jesus told has to do with the kind of seeds that are sown. But for better or worse, seeds are sown and bring forth a yield.
We read two parables this morning in which Jesus illustrates what the
The second parable is more familiar but also more difficult. The parable of the mustard seed is perhaps too well known – it is almost like a cliché. How many times have we heard, “If you just have the faith of a mustard seed?” But perhaps we have not really understood where Jesus was coming from in this story.
Nathan Nettleton suggests that Jesus is actually telling a joke here, making a parody, but that we tend to miss it because we are unfamiliar with the culture surrounding the story. It’s like making a reference to Jack Benny or Milton Berle when talking to teenagers – they won’t understand what you are talking about.
Jesus’ story parallels one of the visions of the prophet Ezekiel, which we read this morning:
Thus says the Lord God: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain height of
But what does Jesus do with it? His parable is similar enough to the Ezekiel reading that people would have understood the connection, but Jesus has turned the story on its head. Instead of being like a cutting from a cedar tree, the
The
But here’s the deal: you just can’t get rid of mustard. It’s a noxious weed that will not go away, It refuses to die. It just grows and spreads and grows and spreads, and sometimes your best efforts to get rid of it only make it spread more.
We had some herbs planted in a whiskey barrel a couple of years ago. After a storm, we had to have some broken limbs cut out of the top of a huge sycamore tree, and we had to move the barrel so the tree company could get their truck into our back yard. The old barrel fell apart when I tried to move it, so I decide to salvage some of the herbs. I planted the chives on the side of the house.
Anybody want to guess what’s happening? The chives are spreading. I have to keep after them or they will take over the whole area. Well, imagine mustard as being like chives on steroids. It’s like dandelions or crabgrass. It’s insidious; you just can’t stop it. It’s like the Cubs losing every year.
The seeds that are planted will grow. For good or bad, they will grow.
Some years ago, reporters were interviewing Boris Yeltsin and asked him what gave him the courage to stand firm during the fall of communism in the former
It’s not too much of a stretch to say that an ordinary woman in
Through Facebook I have reconnected with friends whom I had not had contact with in years. One of those friends was a student at Virginia Tech when I served there as a seminary intern in campus ministry. Kirk was a transfer student from Old Dominion. When he bought one of the IBM PCs that had just come out, I bought his old computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80.
Kirk seemed to have leadership potential, and the nominating committee asked him to run for president of the student campus ministry group. These were Baptists in the South, and there were close to 100 students in the ministry. As I remember he was elected that spring as president of the group.
Anyway, Kirk and I reconnected through Facebook recently, after about 24 years. I learned that on July 1 he will officially become the new president of
Jesus uses parables to describe what the
While we do not own it or control it, we have a part in the work of the kingdom. We are sowers of seeds.
And the thing is, half the time we are sowing seeds without really being aware of it. So often, we don’t know the impact of what we do or what we say.
Mary Ann Bird was born with multiple physical problems. She was deaf in one ear and had a cleft palate. Her nose wasn’t straight and her feet were deformed. The teasing words of her classmates left emotional scars.
At school, there was a hearing test each year, And Mary Ann dreaded it. In those days before an audiologist came to school with technical equipment that made various tones, the hearing test was a lot simpler. The teacher would call each child to her desk, and the child would cover first one ear, and then the other. The teacher would whisper something to the child like “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” This was “the whisper test”; if the teacher’s phrase was heard and repeated, the child passed the test.
To avoid the humiliation of failure, Mary Ann would always cheat on the test, secretly cupping her hand over her one good ear so that she could still hear what the teacher said.
One year Mary Ann was in the class of Miss Leonard, one of the most beloved teachers in the school. Every student, including Mary Ann, wanted to be noticed by her.Then came the day of the dreaded hearing test. When her turn came, Mary Ann was called to the teacher’s desk. As Mary Ann cupped her hand over her good ear, Miss Leonard leaned forward to whisper. “I waited for those words,” Mary Ann wrote, “which God must have put into her mouth, those seven words which changed my life.” Miss Leonard did not say “The sky is blue” or “You have new shoes.” What she whispered was “I wish you were my little girl.” Those words really did change her life, and Mary Ann went on to become a teacher herself, a person of inner beauty and great kindness. (2)
We are sowers of seeds. We simply sow the seeds, and the
How do we sow seeds? In all kinds of ways, often in ways that we would not think of as seed-sowing at all. I don’t think Miss Leonard gave a lot of thought about what she would say in Mary Ann Bird’s whisper test. It wasn’t premeditated; she wasn’t trying to change her life and probably wasn’t trying to do anything. She was just being herself – a kind, gracious, caring person with a heart for children, especially those who have a difficult time. And in simply acting in a loving way toward a child, she sowed seeds and changed that child’s life.
Through friendship, through a kind word, through a warm welcome, through acts of kindness, through valuing others, through speaking up for what is right, through working hard and showing respect, through encouragement and sharing our gifts and recognizing the potential in others, through deep prayer and heartfelt worship, through our gifts of time and talent and money, through the example of our lives and through the power of our words, we are sowing seeds all the time, seeds that may bear fruit in ways we will never know.
Have you ever wondered who Albert Einstein’s third-grade math teacher was? Or whether that teacher had any idea what he was doing when he encouraged a little 8-year-old boy in his love for the simple processes of addition and subtraction and multiplication and division? Have you ever wondered who Georgia O’Keefe’s art teacher was in junior high? Who was Beethoven’s first piano teacher? Who first encouraged Barack Obama to get involved in politics? Who was Shawn Johnson’s first gymnastics teacher? Who was Simon Estes’ first music teacher?
And who was Walter Brueggeman’s junior high Sunday School teacher? Who first told Billy Graham about Jesus? Do you suppose any of these people imagined the effect that their words and attitudes and teaching and encouragement would have?
Kathy Galloway is a minister in the Church of Scotland, a member of the Iona Community, and a poet. Her poem “The Sower and the Seed” speaks to the seeds that we may sow, and the way that God may use them. Here is a portion of that poem. (3)
My seeds are small. But they have great potential.
I don’t know where they will take root.
So I want to sow well, with care;
seeds of friendship and respect, and value for people.
Seeds of justice and love.
Seeds of reverence and encouragement.
I want to sow seeds of peace.
I can only sow.
For the rest, I trust, and I let go.
Amen.
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