Seeds

This past week, Nik, my friend and co-worker did his devotion on Matthew 13:3-8, where the famer is sowing seeds and they are landing on all sorts of ground: rocks, paths where birds ate up the seeds, in dirt scorched by the sun, among thorns, and good soil.

He used this scripture as a basis to demonstrate that we are just like our kids. We just happen to have grown up differently, so our “plant” looks a little different. He was emphasizing that it is not “us” versus “them” but that we are all the same and had our “path” been a little different, we could have been a different plant, or not even have been a plant, but choked out by rape, hunger, abuse, or scorched by neglect, cold, drugs.

I had never really heard that spin on it, but I liked it.

George had a great quote that I thought really helped summarize what Nik was trying to say.

“We’re all beggars just trying to show the other beggars where the bread is.”

Isn’t that a beautiful reminder for us as believers? We are beggars made rich in Christ!!

I also just finished reading Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne. It’s a pretty radical book, but one of those ones that gives me the goose-bumps and challenges me in some unreal ways. (more blogs on this later hopefully)

He had a section in this book about this parable as well. I really loved what he said about it too.

He quotes a German theologian who says “In [Jesus’s] seed parable, he depicts not only the unstoppable growth of the reign of God, but also the frightening smallness and hiddenness of its beginning: still more, he describes the superior power of the opponents who threaten the work of God from beginning to end.”  (like the lives these resident’s have)

He goes on to explain that the power of God is not like a violent, quick revolution that takes over power, but rather it starts small (like a seed), grows silently, faces setbacks (sun, birds, rocky soil, abusive parents, drugs, sex exploitation, jail) but nevertheless permeates the world with love.

Claiborne highlights that this parable is also to encourage people of the Lord to continue sowing seeds. “Sow it everywhere, even when Herod cuts it down, and even when the world’s riches try to choke it. You never know when it will spring up and make great fruit.”

Man. If that isn’t challenging. It’s just not natural for us. We (well, I) face defeat and want to quit. I am quick to give up a hope for change. I am quick to become lazy. I am quick to quit. But no! I need to continue to sow that seed and permeate the world with love.