Big & Beautiful

DAILY BYTE

There is one final image of growth in this parable that I would like to call you attention to. It is an image that is both big and beautiful ... it is the sheer size of the harvest.

God blesses the farmer who sows with such crazy abandon beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Normally, the farmer who reaps a two-fold harvest would be considered fortunate. A 5-fold harvest would be cause for celebration throughout the surrounding village, a bounty attributable only to God’s particular and rich blessing.

But this foolish farmer, who in a world of scarcity, casts his seed on soil everyone else knows is worthless and is blessed by God in shocking abundance: a harvest of 30, 60 and even 100 times beyond what he sowed.

‘Listen!’ Jesus is saying. If you aim to rule the world and to gain all its wealth and acclaim, then the problem is not that you are aiming too high but TOO LOW! This is because the whole universe and the real essence of that universe – God’s Kingdom – could be yours if you looked to grow God’s way.

This wondrous growth, up to a 100 times, happens not just inside the church or among Christians, but rather here and there and countless places throughout the wide world which God loves. It happens where anyone acts from a sense of mercy, justice, compassion and love. It happens whenever relationships are mended, wounds are healed and hope restored.

For the Kingdom of God HAS come among us!

God has blessed us richly, and God’s people have been entrusted with that which is most precious in this world. Ironically these priceless commodities only gain value – they only bear fruit and bring growth – when God’s people scatter them absolutely heedless of who is worthy to receive them.

Perhaps this is why Jesus sandwiches this parable with the command to listen. Because we are called to treat God’s love, justice and blessing - precious as they are - as if they are absolutely limitless in supply for one simple reason:

They are. They really, really are.

PRAY AS YOU GO

O God of gracious and loving generosity, help me now to go out into the world as a sower of the seed that you have so graciously lavished upon me. Let me sow grace and forgiveness and hope wherever I go not worrying about who deserves it but sharing with crazy abandon. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

READING

Mark 4:1-9 NRSV

Jesus began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them:

“Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”