Isaiah 53:4-12
Psalm 91:9-16
Hebrews 5:1-10
Mark 10:35-45
Familiarity with the psalms,
especially through regular recitation at the daily office, makes their verses
sometimes to arise in one’s mind almost instinctively in response to other
parts of Scripture or to the events in our lives. Sometimes one particular verse will
surprisingly link two seemingly disparate themes or ideas. As we looked to celebrate the harvest here in
Hanford – with its themes of celebration and thanksgiving, and as I prayed through
the lessons appointed – with their own themes of suffering, difficulties and
rejection, words from the 126th psalm came immediately to mind:
“Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed,
will come again with joy shouldering their sheaves.” (Psalm 126:6-7) I am no farmer, but I can only imagine the
intense effort involved in such an endeavor; not only its physical demands, but
the worry and anxiety attendant on each planting, carrying with it as it does
the real possibility of ruin should the harvest not yield the expected
return. It is not difficult to discern
how in the poetic language of the psalms sowing is accompanied with tears –
tears of concern and perhaps even tears of hopefulness. Every sowing is a kind of sacrifice –
sacrifice of time, labor, resources.
Bear in mind that for many in the ancient world the very seed they were
sowing was potential food to live on through the spring and summer; and sowing
it in the dark earth was no guarantee of a successful harvest and thus further
provision.
Jesus often used the language of
seed, sowing, harvest in his teaching.
He used it to highlight the nature of Christian discipleship: “Very
truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it
remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John
12:24) He used it to in parables to
explain the subtle nature of God’s kingdom: “The kingdom of God is as if
someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and
day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the
stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes
in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29) In one case, he used it to the urge his
disciples to mission: “the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead
of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful,
but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers into his harvest.’ ” (Mark 10:1-2)
In all the instances of its use by Jesus, the language of sowing and
harvest carries overt or implied resonances of sacrifice and suffering, which
find their fullest expression in his own death and resurrection. As the hymn says: “In the grave they laid
him, Love whom hate had slain…laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.” The writer of the letter to the Hebrews
expresses this reality in these words: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered
up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears….Although he was a Son,
he learned obedience through what he suffered;…[and] he became the source of
eternal salvation for all.” (Hebrews 5:7a, 8, 9b)
No, however much we may rejoice at
the harvest – if we are fortunate to rejoice at all, the sowing is always done
with sacrifice, in the midst of tears.
It requires a giving up of ourselves for the possibility of something
greater than ourselves, and for the benefit of those well beyond our immediate
circle. Sowing is always a dying –
whether the dying of a seed or the dying of one’s will; and always in order
that the goodness – both physical and spiritual – made available by God’s grace
may be more widely enjoyed. It will not
surprise you that as I go into our kitchen day by day and spend time with our Soup
Kitchen volunteers, as I work with the Soup Kitchen Sub-Committee and we
negotiate the difficulties and unexpected eventualities which arise in the
daily progress of the kitchen’s work, I have come to see our Soup Kitchen as a
field – a field in which there are many sowers laying seed in the hopes that it
will yield a rich harvest in the life of others. And while, there are perhaps no literal tears
– well at least not often – there is sacrifice.
There is sacrifice of time, talent.
There is sacrifice of effort and of self, as various peoples from
different places and perspectives come together for the same purpose, the hope
of the kingdom’s harvest. And
increasingly I have begun to see that harvest as not simply satisfying people’s
physical hunger. The harvest we are
reaping – thanks be to God – goes well beyond that. It is also a harvest of fellowship. Certainly, for many who visit our soup
kitchen this may be the only meal they have all day; but also, it may be the
only opportunity they may have to sit down with another and have a
conversation, the only place they have in which to combat the hunger and
poverty of loneliness. In our volunteers
I witness Christians of many denominations – Roman Catholics, Lutherans,
Baptists, Episcopalians (of course) and others – Christians of many
denominations setting aside the several little foibles that separate us – dying
in fact to them – in order to labor and sow in the field of God’s world, in the
hope of reaping the fulness of God’s kingdom.
As Christians we should be always
sowing; sowing the seeds of kindness and charity, the seeds of justice, the
seeds of compassion, all in the hopes of a rich harvest: the fruition of God’s
reign of kindness, charity, justice, compassion. And, while we may not like to hear it, that
sowing will and should pinch just a little, perhaps bring a few tears. By its very nature the work of sowing those seeds
will carry with it some element of sacrifice, some dying: “Very truly, I tell
you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a
single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24) We sow all sorts of seeds – today they look
like canned food. Throughout this month
during our stewardship drive they look like pledge cards. If you enter our church building and look
down on the left, they look like socks.
On Halloween in Courthouse Square they’ll look like hot dogs and nachos
and bags of sweets. And we sow those seeds in all sorts of ways. Each day throughout the year it looks like
people cutting vegetables, changing light bulbs, printing bulletins, laying out
and mailing the Householder, washing altar linens, engaging compassionately
with the stranger and the dispossessed, sharing in fellowship. But the hope is always the same – an increase
in the harvest of righteousness to the glory of God and the full manifestation
of God’s kingdom. And so, while we may
indeed sow in tears, in sacrifice, we pray that we may – by God’s grace –
indeed reap the harvest of his kingdom with songs of joy. Amen.
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