"I Have Grown More Simple"

As the world has grown more complicated,
I have grown more simple.

As the world trips and stumbles over its plans, policies and procedures,
I simply follow Jesus on the path of love.

As the world argues and complains,
I grow more silent.

As the world busies itself building monuments to itself,
I simply stand in awe of the beauty and majesty of sunrises and sunsets.

As the world clamors for money and power,
I pray for peace of mind, soul and spirit.

As the world rejects and denounces God,
I hide safely under the shadows of his wings
And walk with him in the cool of the day.

As the world grows bitter and lonely,
I enjoy his sweet Presence.

As the world wars with itself,
I walk in the peace that passes all understanding.

As the world grows dim,
I live enlightened by God.

As the world talks and says nothing,
I listen to God and receive wisdom.

As the world has grown more complicated,
I have grown more simple.

OUT OF THE SILENCE

I keep returning to the concept of “out of the silence.” God can speak through anyone and any thing. But in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13:18-23, Jesus seems to indicate that well cultivated and good soil is where the seeds do their best. So I cultivate the soil of my soul; I lay the wood for the fire; I mend my nets for the catch. Pick a metaphor, it’s the work done before hand, the time and energy expended, and then the laying it all down, being still, and listening in the silence of my thoughts to God’s thoughts, that I will hear God speak best.

Maybe that is where the age factor comes in. I can’t remember yesterday’s events unless I’ve written them down. So in the morning everything is new. I knew it all when I was young. I could argue with the best of them. Now I can’t trust my mind. I must listen and depend upon God’s wisdom. My part is to make a hospitable place for the seed of God’s word to grow.

This makes a change in my work. Researching for answers becomes resonating with what is. The studying for information becomes sitting for inspiration. It’s looking beyond the work to hear the word of God that comes out of the silence. I don’t think that just applies to spiritual issues; it is more of a total lifestyle. Imagine a society that followed this pattern; or those who handle the world’s matters. If I saw everything I do in this light it certainly will create and produce good fruit in whatever I do.

As a writer I want that; as a person I want that. I want to live my entire life out of the silence. Cultivate what I can, plant what I want, and then wait…for the plant to bear fruit, the spark to light the fire, the net to gather the catch. Out of the silence is a lifestyle I choose to live.

MISSED MIRACLES

John 9
How many miracles do I miss by getting fixated on an issue and defending my
position on that issue; or by being angry because something happened to me; or by just not attending to a specific situation or my life in general? How many miracles do I miss?

The man in this story was born blind. Jesus heals him and he is able to see for the first time in his life. That immediately puts him in the middle of a controversy between the Pharisees, his parents, his neighbors, and Jesus. No one rejoiced that he could now see. Since he was a beggar no one cared about him at all, except Jesus. The disciples used him as a theological question. The Pharisees used him as one more sticking point to nab Jesus How many miracles do I miss by getting fixated on an issue and defending my with. Even his parents seemed unaffected by his new sight. Rather than being celebrated, he was cast out.

Jesus found the man. This time he offered him more than his physical sight. This time Jesus gave him eternal life. The man’s testimony was simple; “One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

The disciples, the Pharisees, the people all around this man missed the miracle. The man wasn’t seeking, wasn’t schooled, and wasn’t sophisticated. He was simple. He was simple in his response to the Pharisees; “one thing I do know…” and he was simple in his response to Jesus; “And who is he that I might believe n him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” The man simply said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshipped him.

Prayer: Lord, keep me from being blind to the miracles you do all around me. Keep me simple in my vision and in my words. Amen

GOD'S SEMINARY

There is a huge difference between knowing about God and actually experiencing God. A lot of people know about God. We study theology and argue and debate issues about God, but are we experiencing God? Is the knowledge going from the mind to the heart? This to me is what worship should be. Not just more words or more information but inspiration. It is in worship that we should experience God, sit in his Presence and feel his love and acceptance. This is the “only one thing needed” in the story of Mary & Martha. Martha was busy serving Jesus while Mary was experiencing Jesus.

We have seen this tension before. “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me you evil doers!” (Matthew7:15-23) Again in Matthew 25:1-13, “Later the others also came. Sir! Sir! Open the door for us! But he replied, I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.” And again in Luke 13:22-27, “Sir open the door for us.” But he will answer, “I don’t know you or where you came from.” Then we will say, “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But he will reply, “I don’t know you or where you came from. Away from me all you evil doers.” These are very sobering verses. People who thought they were believers (Christians) because of what they did or knew about Jesus, about God, are now being told by him that he never KNEW them. There was no connection, no relationship, just knowledge and a theology about God.

God doesn’t want worker bees, people running around aimlessly doing things “in his name” for him. God wants a relationship with his people. He wants us to know him and plant his will in our hearts. Right relationship starts in silence and emptiness, not fullness and lifeless facts. God calls us into relationship with him, to be quiet before we speak, to know him before we speak of him and for him. Moses and John the Baptist prepared for their ministry in the quiet barrenness of the desert. Jesus followed in their footsteps in the sand of the desert before starting his ministry and then went out and called his disciples to “come and see,” to be with him for awhile, to learn of him, and walk with him before going out on their own. This is God’s seminary.

ATTENDING TO THE SOUL

Cultivation takes a long time. I see how many years it has taken me to add and subtract things from my life to make it more in alignment with what it was created to be. It just doesn’t happen overnight. It all has been work and that takes time. People are so hurried these days. Being busy is a goal some people set for themselves. It matters little what one is busy at…just so one is busy doing something. I am not like that and I’m not sure I ever have been. I like process and enjoy the time that process takes. Being fallow is often just as important as being fruitful. While I live with intention, I don’t live driven. I make time for what is important and to me that is simply being available to the moment at hand. It’s strange to watch people make themselves busy and then complain about how busy they are…as if there is some award to be won by being busy or some guilt erased because we are too busy to do something we know we should do. God never seems driven or rushed and he certainly does more than anyone else I know. He works in time and in season.

I feel very productive at times, but it has very little to do with what I was doing. It had more to do with my BEING. When I am cloistered with God, people respond to the love that pours out of me through no effort of my own. It is truly God in me. I feel easy and that is what people respond to. I have heard about being an empty vessel and at times I experience it. It is nothing I can manufacture, or even be trained in. It is simply tending the soil of my soul and planting the right seeds and allowing God to work it all through.

God is in the details, not just the end product. He isn’t driven by profit or production deadlines. He’s a process intender. How things get done is as important as getting things done. My times are in his hands. That is my sense of security and peace. That is the peace of attending to what needs to be attended to.

FRUITFUL LIVES COME FROM WELL CULTIVATED SOULS

I want my life and my work to be rooted in good soil; soil rich and healthy and energized by the Holy Spirit. I don’t just want good ideas or quaint fads. I want conformity, not with the world but with the will and mind of God. That comes from being intentional, in my thinking and in my living. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

I am convinced that the energy behind ruling this world’s system has an agenda. That energy requires conformity and fights to get it. That energy’s intention is to draw people away from God. The enemy is deceptive because he makes it look like the power is given to the people; but it isn’t. “Again, the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone Satan.’
The energy behind this world’s system is Satan but the power is God’s. What we are lacking today is people to say “Be gone Satan.” The church is too busy doing other things or fighting amongst themselves. The only voices being heard are saying to get more power and control, voices that come up empty, with nothing backing them up. That is not the soil I want to cultivate my life in, nor do I want to even work with.

Fruitful lives and work come from well treated and well cultivated soil that is subject to God’s will, has the interest and mind of Jesus, is filled with the Truth, energized by the Holy Spirit, interwoven through with love and mercy, and fully composted with obedience. That soil will be good soil and will produce a healthy and sustainable crop. Those nutrients are not found on most TV, in most media, or on the lips of many of those who are in positions of leadership in the world.

The energy behind this world’s system has caused us to question God (“Did God actually say” (Genesis 3:1) and has encouraged us to act on our own understanding (“Come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). We do not learn from our history of mistakes and we continue to listen to the one who has no true power or control.
“My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
I do not want to continue that pattern. As it says in a hymn by C.M. Windsor
“Lord as to thy dear cross I flee,
And plead to be forgiven,
So let thy life my pattern be,
And form my soul for heaven.”

NO DIMINISHED RETURNS

It makes me sad to walk into a bookstore and see the Bargain Book table. There, for $2.00 to $5.00, are the results of someone’s time and life energy that at one time sold for regular price. Diminishing returns to be sure. I have always wanted to write a book and see it displayed on the “Just Arrived” shelf, there in big, bold print for someone to buy and hopefully appreciate my time and energy to say something important and meaningful to them. But I wonder if that is still my dream when I see the Bargain Book table.

You will not find my book on either the Just Arrived shelf or the Bargain Book table. You will find my book in my storage unit, safely packed away in boxes to be completed at another time. My dream world of being a writer was safely packed away in my mind as I participated in the real life that most of us live in; a life busy with responsibilities and duties that living in these times seem to drag us into. Family, home and work aren’t necessarily bad things but they often take precedence over our dreams of the life we’d rather be living.

The thing that always intruded and took over my illusive life as a writer was my work and my ministry. My work had always been with people, either as a camp director, a teacher, a counselor, or a church leader. Working with souls of others takes all the time and energy one has. There is very little space left for the great book to be written.

But then I reflect on those people who intruded in on my writing time and absorbed all my creative energy. One is a psychologist helping people become whole. One is a college professor who is enhancing the minds of business students who will be a positive power in the future world I live in. Several are environmental scientists working hard to help us survive on this earth and sustaining that survival for generations to come. A couple are ministers in the church truly working with the souls of the people in their care. There are a few lawyers, a camp director and yes, even a writer or two.

This expenditure of my time and life energy will not end up on any Bargain Book table. No diminishing returns here. Just full blooming trees and fruits developed from seeds that I have knowingly and unknowingly sown over the many years of my life. It seems that all books eventually end up on Bargain or For Free tables or on dusty bookshelves somewhere. But seeds grow into living, creative things that constantly contribute energy.

Someday I may walk into a bookstore and see my book on the Just Arrived shelf or even on the New York Times top ten list. But for now I’ll just enjoy the better world that is being made by those inspiring intrusions of mine.

ONLY ONE THING NEEDED

The cost of discipleship is high. Jesus said, “Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). The cross is where the flesh and the Spirit intersect. It is the point where the decision to be aligned with God’s will or not be aligned with God’s will is made. The choice is always ours. We need to consider our choices seriously and intentionally just as a builder of a building, or a king going to war. The life of discipleship is an intentional life.

Intentional living is tending to and caring about the details. It is consciously and mindfully attending to life, not just simply letting life pass by us or allowing others to steer and direct us. The intentional life will be a simple life because it takes time to take care of things well. There are just so many things one can pay attending attention to.

I enjoy listening to the director’s notes that are now on DVDs. They describe all that went into making the movie the final product that shows for a couple of hours on a screen. Most movies take years of preparation. Nothing is instantaneous. Details are tended to in a delicate way, no matter how minute they may be. Inspiration doesn’t mean instantaneous. A foundation must be laid before inspiration can come. That is the process. There is intentionality and care put into every little detail. Will people see them? Will they notice the significance of the scenes of water in Yentle,
the color red in The Sixth Sense, or the feather in Forrest Gump?

Martha was distracted, busy preparing to entertain Jesus. Mary was intentional in her devotion to Jesus. She chose to sit at his feet and listen to what he said. Mary chose the “only one thing needed” and Jesus honored that choice.

GOD WANTS LIVING FRUIT, NOT POTTED PLANTS

A potted plant can get root bound, which is unhealthy for the plant. It can’t get the proper nutrients from the soil and so it eventually dies. People can get root bound as well when they remain potted. People get potted and feel safe and secure within the boundaries of doing things the way they have always been done. This leads to spiritual mediocrity. Confined to a pot the roots have nowhere else to grow except around each other and then they start strangling one another. Roots need space to grow. People need space to grow. Potted plants and potted people need pampering. They are no longer free in the natural world where God provides for them. They need other people to water and feed them, and to nurture them.

One peril of a provided for people is that issues of control will always enter in and people respond to that control by often acquiescing to it. The trade off for the provisions and the care is a loss of freedom of being who you are. You are obligated to be who others think you should be. To remain in the supposed safety of the pot, or community, you may say and do things you don’t believe, just to make other people happy. You start hiding your beliefs so you will look the same as the rest of those in the pot, or community. You begin to kowtow to everyone and never take a stand on anything if it goes against the group. Phil Gulley writes in Life Goes On, “Once you get in the habit of forsaking your convictions in order to be liked, it’s hard to stop. I will catch myself nodding my head in agreement to things I haven’t believed in years, then later despising myself for my cowardice.” Eventually you will become crushed down, robbed of dignity and hope and the life will be strangled out of you.

I love indoor plants but I know that pots are not their natural God given habitat. People aren’t meant to be spiritually potted either. The Spirit can’t be captured by one group, one set of doctrine, or one set of beliefs. The Spirit is like the wind and while it has various patterns and waves it does not succumb to a static system.

Jesus makes us free to be all that we are meant to be in God. He is the giver of life and we are to be rooted in him, not potted in doctrine, rules, human philosophies or theologies. When we are rooted in the Spirit of Jesus, we have the freedom to grow into who we are and the freedom to worship God in the way God seeks to be worshipped, “in spirit and in truth.”

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

As I think about what discipleship is and what it is not, I find myself continually seeing how simple it really is. It’s basically just following the two greatest commandments…love God and love one another. If all the people in the world simply did those two things what would life look like? Of course, while the commands are simple, actually doing them is difficult. People are human and come with all kinds of baggage. It is hard to love people. People who harm you, annoy you, are annoyed by you, disappoint you, disrespect you, lie to you, and the list goes on. I find it easy to love people until they do that one thing that makes them unlovable. But we are called to love as God loves. “Looking beyond their faults and pouring love out on their needs.” (Brian McLaren) That’s sacrificial love and humans don’t like to sacrifice their rights and feeling, at least I don’t. We live in a society that doesn’t like to sacrifice, which makes it easy to follow the world rather than Jesus. Of course, it’s easier to follow the world in all things. That’s the problem. The world appeals to our flesh and the flesh doesn’t like to sacrifice. It wants to be pampered and feel good all the time. Everybody is here to make me happy, successful and feeling good!

The cost of discipleship is high. It is picking up my cross and following Jesus. My cross is where my flesh and my spirit intersect and I have to make a choice. Making the choice to follow Jesus is the choice of life and love and secures his presence with you.

It is a strange phenomenon. People who annoy me or I really don’t like will come up to me and at that moment in time I feel this deep love and concern for them. When they are not in my presence I can easily find all their faults and find all the logical reasons not to like them. Standing next to them I lose that ability and see them as human beings just trying to live out their lives. This must be the agape love manifesting itself at that moment. “Where two or three are gathered, I am in their midst.” (Matt 18:20) When I am face to face with someone, Jesus arrives and transforms what I feel for that person.

Eventually I would like to feel that all the time, especially in the annoying times or times of dislike moments. I feel more and more like all people are really just doing the best they can at dealing with life. That includes me. We are all human beings in all our imperfections. It really is easier when I just love people and not care about all the other stuff. If my heart is cloistered with God, then the only thing that can come out is love. That’s how Jesus was upon this earth. He knew people were imperfect but he simply loved them and they responded to that love. The power of love will remove the dross and align the imperfections. Jesus, reduce me to love!

ROOTS THEN FRUITS

We human beings generally want what we want and want it now; hence, impatience and wars. The root of fleshly desires is very strong and needs to be severed and uprooted. Then the seed of the Spirit can be planted in our hearts. The Spirit will root itself and become our instructor, leading us into a relationship with the person and teachings of Jesus (John 15: 26; 16:1-15).

We human beings generally want to live by feelings. “If it feels good, do it….If it doesn’t feel good, why do it?” Feelings are not fruits and to live by feelings can be shallow, impermanent and at times dangerous. My life as a disciple of Jesus must be solid and secure, like the taproot of a plant. We are not always going to feel good. Jesus didn’t feel good when he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. He felt abandoned by God and by his friends and the very people he was going to be crucified for. If it had been me I would have said, “The hell with them. I am out of here.” He acted on the word he had from God, not on his feelings about it. This is difficult for me to do sometimes, especially in a culture where there is no Christ centeredness and the Scriptures are put aside very quickly the moment they interfere with what people want to do in their lives. Legalism is not the solution. It’s more a matter of BEING than doing. Using the Scriptures and the teachings of Jesus as the spring of living water we drink from and the bread that we feed on will give an inner direction to holiness, not an outer law or rule to be obeyed.

Fundamentalism has taken on a negative meaning these days. But fundamental simply means elemental, basic, and essential. It is the taproot that keeps things healthy, whole, and from going adrift. Jesus lived a fundamental life, rooted in God and Truth. I want to live that kind of a life.

PONDERING PSALM 19

This is a lovely Psalm. No complaints, no cries for vengeance, no weeping or seeking of great penitence. It simply talks about the glory of God and the delightful ways we can benefit by heeding God’s law. The Psalm is attributed to David but there is no hint as to where or what his circumstances were when he composed it. I can imagine it to be during his early years, as a shepherd in the fields watching over his sheep. I can imagine him at night, his sheep finally settled, simply lying on the ground looking up at the clear star filled sky. All is silent and yet that silence is completely filled with the glory of God and all of creation. Spending one’s life out in nature, away from the hustle and bustle of city life, one can connect with the silent rhythms of God. In those rhythms we find that the natural law within us is not so different from the external law that God asks us to live by. The law is not the heavy burden we at times think it to be. It is a natural response to the love of the One who created us. It revives our soul, it makes us wise, and it gives joy to our heart and light to our eyes. God’s recipes for life are more precious than gold and sweeter than honey. How could there be any other response than a desire to obey a God that loving and gracious? I can feel the peace of that quiet night, lying on the ground being surrounded by God’s Presence. My heart would cry out as David’s did…to have the words that come out of my mouth and the things that I think about and meditate on, be pleasing to God and match the glory that surrounds me.

MAKE MY LIFE AN ACT OF WORSHIP

“I love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliver, my God.” (Psalm 18:1, 2)

David was a man after God’s heart. He was a man whose relationship with God brought forth the praise and worship recorded in the Psalms; a man who knew God delighted in him; a man who depended on God for his protection, guidance, and well being; a humble man who spoke intimately with God and knew God to be his all-in-all.

David was not perfect in his doing, but he was in his being. When he failed in keeping true to God’s desires it grieved his heart. He knew it hurt the One whom he loved and turned to God in repentance, not out of fear, but out of love. David’s life was one of worship. He sang, danced, clapped and lifted his hands high to God, whom he loved and adored with all his heart. His heart was in a state of worship throughout the day and throughout the night. His life became an act of worship in all he thought, said, and did.

When our hearts are filled with the love and the adoration of God, they just naturally overflow into our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. Agape love, God’s love, just can’t be contained. It makes us smile, even when there is nothing to smile about. It makes us feel safe, even when surrounded by fear. When we become people after God’s heart and people whom God delights in, then, like David, our lives will become acts of worship and God will pour out his love in abundance.

"A Song of Peace"

I was brought to tears by a song today
A Song of Peace for a war torn world
It came as a plea as we read the news
Of killing and fighting and bombing and death.

I’d forgotten how to feel, to cry
For the perils of others so far away
But as we sang, the tears did come
It surprised me…but then I knew.

The passion I believed was gone
Had never really left for good
Just hid away behind my life
Awaiting the time when I would rest.

So here I came and rest I did
From all the busyness, stress, and strain
And when my soul could finally move
I was brought to tears by a song…and I knew.

The passion inside, it was not dead
Just buried deep inside somewhere
Beneath the debris of all the things
Distractions that had come and stayed.

I was brought to tears by a song today
A Song of Peace for our war torn world
And now that I’m awake and see
I’ll guard that passion more carefully.

YIN & YANG OF SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

As I was reading about Teresa and Ignatius I felt like I was experiencing the yin and yang of spiritual devotion and exercises. Teresa’s devotional methods were much more passive and developmental where as Ignatius’s seemed like devotional boot camp. Teresa talks about the watering of a garden, with each step bringing us away from doing and more into BEING. Then she talks about the silkworm, spinning its cocoon, dying, and then being transformed in a butterfly. Her descriptions are so gentle and calming and draw you right into that space of forgetting about the action and enjoying the contemplation.

Ignatius, on the other hand, sets up his spiritual exercises like a devotional “boot camp”, examining, confessing, ordering one’s life, setting priorities, and achieving goals. I was exhausted just reading about the exercises without even yet attempting to try them. His military background came through loud and clear. Schmidt suggests that he left his legacy in the Jesuits, who are “called to do something, not merely to be something.”

Fortunately there is a need for both methods because people are different and respond differently to methods that work best for them. What is even better to combine the methods and create a balance of doing and being. I think Teresa did this as I read her saying, “It won’t do for everyone to spend long hours in prayer, because there must be someone to cook the meals.” There are always conflicts about being vs. doing in the Christian walk. I must admit I would put the being first, and then the doing would be truly fruitful.

WATCH - WAIT - LISTEN

Peter gets all excited after experiencing the transfiguration of Jesus up on the mountain (Luke 9:28-36). It was, after all, a magnificent event. He is already to build things and do this and that for God. He tells Jesus what is good and what to do. God’s voice intervenes in Peter’s plans, acknowledging Jesus, and tells Peter to “Listen to Him.” We do way too much of the talking when we are in God’s Presence. He is the Creator of the universe. He is the one true God and Jesus is His Word to us. We need to be quiet and listen to Him!

God repeatedly throughout the Scriptures says to stop our way and listen to his. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways.” (Isaiah 55:8,9) “Lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5,6)

How many times have we been like Peter? Seeing something exciting and then running around planning on building shelters to keep that something, yet all the while “not knowing what he was saying”? Often times it’s our shelters and establishments for our religious experiences that cause a majority of the problems of life these days. God’s plan is much simpler…”This is my Son, whom I have chosen, LISTEN TO HIM!”

WEARING HIS SANDLES

“She (Mary) will bear a Son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins (that is, prevent their failing and missing the true end and scope of life, which is God)” (Matthew 1:21 amplified). Is God really the true end and scope of our lives? In listening to conversations or watching television or observing how people busy themselves, I would wonder if God is even a blink on the radar screen of most people’s minds. Would people say I reveal God as the true end and scope of my life? I believe he is, of course, but does my life reveal that message? And how would my life reveal that? What do I talk about? What do I do during my waking hours? How do I respond and react to situations? How do I communicate and commune with other people? It seems to me that if God IS the true end and scope of my life, then the fruits of the Holy Spirit would manifest themselves in all of what I do and say.

There are some folks who use “church speak” in all of their conversations that make others uncomfortable. To me that is like wearing the robes of the Pharisees, so that people can see them and be impressed. I desire to wear the sandals of the fisherman who spent time with Jesus and people would know I had been with him.

When my brother worked in a deli making submarine sandwiches all day, we always knew when he entered the house because he carried with him the aroma of where he had been. Somehow we should carry the aroma of our time spent with God as we enter places and others would know where we have been.

SCATTERED SEEDS

Matthew 13:1-23…”A farmer went out to sow his seed…”

We live in a world of scattered seeds, sound bites, and bullets, talking about God. Flip through the channels on any given day and you will hear preachers giving sermons, yelling and screaming about God, about the evil in the world, about end times, or what we need to be thinking, doing or believing. Many books, magazines, daily devotionals, newsletters, and pamphlets containing articles and writings about God fill the bookstores. Then there are the multitude of churches on Sunday, each with their own message and teaching. All of these are scattered seeds…by well-intentioned sowers of seeds, telling us what they know about God. With all that religion being scattered and spread, one would think this and this world would be a much better place in which to live. But, it’s not really about the seeds or the sowers. It’s about the seed finding a place to grow, good soil in which to be planted. Good soil prepared and cared for, a place to put down roots, to grow and mature into healthy spiritual fruit. How does that happen? What makes good soil in people? Jesus says it is hearing and understanding that are the necessary elements of good soil. But what does he mean by that?

Before Jesus explains the parable of the sower he says that “this people’s heart has become calloused; they are ever hearing but never understanding, ever seeing but never perceiving.” Understanding is not only a mind thing; it is a heart thing. But what is a calloused heart and how does that prevent us from hearing and seeing?

“Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.” (John 12:37) It has always perplexed me that Jesus would go around doing all these miracles and healing people but all the Pharisees were concerned about was that he was breaking the rules. He healed a man and rather than be excited about that they argued with him because it was the Sabbath. He raised a man from the dead and they got angry. Where was their love and compassion? Surely they had passed by these people every day. How could they not see them and stop to help them? Is this calloused heart, blindness and deafness a consequence of
a lack of love for God and a lack of compassion for God’s people? Were they not supposed to be the deliverers of love and compassion rather than merely the keepers of the law and rules?
Is this not true today? People are lost and hurting, greatly in need of God’s love and compassion and healing. Are we a people who have a calloused heart, ears that hear but never understand, and eyes that see but never perceive? There are multitudes of religious programs and impersonal ways that can introduce people to God. There are a lot of people who believe they are doing God’s work here on earth. But is it effective and fruitful? If it isn’t I would wonder how much of the religious work being done is actually God’s work. Jeremiah 2:13 says, “My people have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Is this true of us today? If it is then it is time to stop what we are doing and find another way.

I took a class in organic gardening one term at Pendle Hill, a Quaker Retreat & Conference Center. As a class we were responsible for preparing, planting and tending the garden that provides a lot of the food for the center. We did not simply scatter seeds. Each seed we planted was carefully nurtured until it germinated, planted in soil blocks, and watered daily until the plant was big enough to plant. Then we would take the soil blocks and put them out of the green house for a part of the day to harden them and get them used to the elements. Then we planted them in the soil that we prepared by digging and loosening up so the roots of these plants could dig deep in the ground to be fed and watered on their own. It was a beautiful experience to watch these plants grow tall, bear fruit and eventually be part of the salad we ate at lunches during the summer.

I think it’s time to stop simply scattering seeds and be more intentional in our commission of making disciples. First we need to apply the salve of God’s love to our hearts and then to the hearts of the people in this world so that the hearts are no longer calloused. This is preparing the soil to receive the seed. We need to tenderly handle the seeds of truth we give other people. God’s words are for healing and making people whole. They need to be planted in hearts that are prepared to hear them, the calloused hearts softened by the love and compassion rooted in the love and compassion of God. Then the seeds will grow tall into the plants that will bear good fruit.

BREAKING UP THE FALLOW GROUND

NEW BE-ATTITUDES
Matthew 5: 1-12

It is easy for people to allow their hearts and lives to become like the hard ground of winter. We do the same things over and over by habit or we are surrounded by so many difficult things that we just simply shut down and stop feeling anything. It is then that we calcify and become hardened. Life is difficult. Often it is easier to do things like we have always done them, keeping our thoughts and attitudes the same, not allowing the shovel and hoe to penetrate the hardness so we can get a new and maybe different perspective of life. We see things as unfair or unjust or just plain sad; yet feel powerless to do anything about the circumstances or situations. So we become hardened, discouraged and cynical.

The people Jesus was speaking to were also living in difficult times. Many were poor, outcasts, discriminated against and even persecuted. Something drew these people to come and listen to this new teacher who was saying new things about a new kingdom that was coming, one that they could be a part of. His words were full of hope and speaking to their condition. But they were words that at first didn’t make much sense. The ideas he was expressing seemed upside down, not the usual ways things go. He was saying those who are “blessed, happy, to be envied and spiritually prosperous, are those who are poor, meek, persecuted and reviled against.” How could that be? How could people in those circumstances feel blessed? And then this teacher honors those who are merciful, pure in heart and are peacemakers. Be merciful, pure in heart, and peacemakers in a society that tortures us? How can this be?

Jesus’ words were cracking through and breaking up the hardness and futility that had grow around their hearts and minds just as a plow breaks up the fallow ground of winter so that new seeds can be planted. Jesus wanted to show them a new way of seeing their lives and their circumstances and create new attitudes and new ways to BE.