June 8, 2021 – Message

This is a lily we planted after Easter last year.  It is blooming nicely this year. It is marvelous to see the creative power of God at work in the world.

You may have noticed the front yard of the church blooming with new life. We planted the lilies from this Easter on the hill and in the planter. They only bloom once a year, but return each year. A sign of the renewing power of Life. Life and wonder happen around us.

In our Gospel text for this Sunday, Jesus says the Kingdom of God

is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, ²⁷and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
It reminded me of a Jewish parable a friend of mine told me.

All their lives, the two young brothers had lived in the city behind great stone walls and never saw field nor meadow. But one day they decided to pay a visit to the country.
As they went walking along the road, they saw a farmer at his plowing. They watched him and were puzzled.
“What on earth is he doing that for!” they wondered. “He turns up the earth and leaves deep furrows in it. Why should someone take a smooth piece of land covered with nice green grass and dig it up?”

Later they watched the farmer sowing grains of wheat along the furrows.
“That man must be crazy!” they exclaimed. “He takes good wheat and throws it into the dirt.”
“I don’t like the country!” said one in disgust. “Only crazy people live here.”
So he returned to the city.
His brother who remained in the country saw a change take place only several weeks later. The plowed field began to sprout tender green shoots, even more beautiful and fresher than before. This discovery excited him very much.

So, he wrote to his brother in the city to come at once and see for himself the wonderful change.
His brother came and was delighted with what he saw. As time passed, they watched the sprouts grow into golden heads of wheat. Now, they both understood the purpose of the farmer’s work.
When the wheat became ripe, the farmer brought his scythe and began to cut it down. At this, the impatient one of the two brothers exclaimed: “The farmer is crazy! He’s insane! How hard he worked all these months to produce this lovely wheat, and now with his own hands he is cutting it down! I’m disgusted with such an idiot and I’m going back to the city!”
His brother, the patient one, held his peace and remained in the country. He watched the farmer gather the wheat into his granary. He saw him skillfully separate the grain from the chaff. He was filled with wonder when he found that the farmer had harvested a hundred-fold of the seed that he had sowed. Then he understood that there was logic in everything that the farmer had done.
The moral of the story: Mortals see only the beginning of any of God’s works. Therefore, they cannot understand the nature and the end of creation.