Scatter, Notice, Reap – Sunday 16th June

It would be easy to believe that the farming life is quite slowly paced and fairly uninteresting to those who have only ever observed it from afar.

Farmers, to urban people seem like one of those small so called ‘sleepy’ town you drive through in the more remote regions of this vast land. The town seems to talk slowly, move slowly, have a considerably less frenetic lifestyle (which is envied by some).

Of course, that is only a ‘tourists view’ of a town. If you stay for a while, you find that there is actually a lot going on in even these little towns.

But, this parable seems like one a farmer in a remote region would tell. At first, this parable Jesus tells seems a little ho-hum. Nothing is unexpected. Everything goes to plan.

The farmer sows the seed in the ground. He sleeps, he rises and he waits. It does not seem to matter what he does in terms of the seed growing. He does not tend it:  No spraying for bugs or weeds, no fertiliser spread in order to maximise yield.

This guy seems very laid back! He is not like my brother in law and his son whom I saw one year take the 200 or so tynes from their 60ft seeding bar and manually weld all 200 of them the same way to achieve a 10mm change in angle – all to get the absolute maximum rip and depth on that bar for their 9000 acres of crop! It took them two weeks of hard, hard work!

Isn’t that how we Western people do things? We are anything but ‘laid back’. We are busy. We are pushing for more. We are wanting to learn how to maximise everything we do. We hate missing out or wasting things. Doing so is just plain lazy, we believe.

But this farmer sleeps, wakes, and sleeps…. If this guy had a performance review on his key performance indicators there would no indicators indicating any performance!

Is Jesus saying today that we supposed to be that laid back?

Is Jesus saying to us ‘maximising’, busy Christians prone to being either oblivious to the kingdom’s growth, disinterested in its progress or simply misled by superficial observations of people and situations precisely because we are so stressed and busy, “just put your feet up, switch on the Telly and let me do it all”. “Relax people! “Chill out Christians. Take a Panadol Pastor and have a lie down. No need to do anything much because God will grow his kingdom with or without you anyway”.

To extend this call to trust God’s activity that grows his kingdom, Jesus tells us that even seemingly very insignificant seeds that are sown can be transformed into things much more substantial and surprising than we ever could see with our superficial eyes misjudging the potential. That’s what happens to the tiny mustard seed. Even that huge transformation happens all by itself, despite us.

This can’t be. This parable goes against everything I have learnt so far about how much effort it takes to sow seeds and reap them in people/kingdom terms! It goes against how I was raised and how I have been taught in the church. It is unsettling! I don’t like being told that I can’t control it, maximise it, plan it, strategize it, make it happen more, make it happen faster.

But here it is. And here I am and here we are – a church with a mission to share with this Jesus who will himself be The Seed rising from the dead ground to bring new life and growth to dead sinners son after he tells this parable.

Thankfully I found something else after a while. We do get to be involved in this sprouting of new life in people after all. We have a secondary role. We are called to do more than be sleepy Christians, disinterested Christians, uninterested Christian or unaware and silent Christians.

The farmer actually gets to do two things, maybe three.

• He scatters the seeds on the ground.
• He notices when the plant that has grown
• He takes the sickle to it.

He scatters and he notices and acts, and in between he waits.

Hmmm. That must be our part in this mission of Jesus.

Scatter, notice and act when the moment of harvest dawns.

This is different to our usual way of things. We usually work out the best plan, work the plan hard to maximise the results, and get the best results we can, sometimes for self and sometimes for others.

But here the rhythm of life and work and kingdom living is different:

Scattering, noticing and reaping – and we are not in control of all three.

Scattering seeds of the gospel must be exactly that; scattering gospel words, doing grace actions among others that can seem as insignificant as a mustard seed to them and us, but not the Lord.

Scattering for this farmer was a very inaccurate; even what we might call wasteful activity. No 60 ft seeding bars and agronomist to get the fertiliser and depth and GPS and moisture and….. just right. No, just human fingers throwing seed into roughly tilled soil and pretty much hit and miss as to germination. Scatter. Sow. Plant. An inexact activity but enough for the kingdom to take root and grow, it seems.

Is this how it is to work in this church of the kingdom?  Scatter, Notice and Reap.

I reckon we are good at the first one; scattering good news seeds. I see and hear of people doing this a lot among family, friends and associates. Every response a to God question, every word of witness to the hope you have….. Good scattering.

And I reckon a lot of us notice things. We notice the shifting sands of our culture – Christmas devoid of the Christ story, Easter heading the same way, cynical words about our churches and our faith…..

But what we seem to really struggle with is the confidence to get the harvest sickle going! It is like we are happy to trust Jesus for sowing and noticing, but find it hard to trust him when we reap, when we say something, do something that shows our faith to another.

What do you do when you notice there is an openness to a word about faith? What do you do when there is an opening for an action, a short exchange of something about your faith, that can say something true about who you know Jesus to be, your perspective on that particular issue?

Do you think we tend to put the sickle away for some reason?

Is it because we don’t like conflict or feeling uncomfortable or the sense that we may not like being less liked for a minute or two or more? Probably.

It may be that we have somehow heard all our lives so far that we have not got much of a story to share. Probably – even if totally untrue! We say at Shed Happens that every bloke (and girl) has story worth sharing.

It may be that we are just not that full of Jesus stories to share either. This is more likely the less we actually open the Word and hear these stories for ourselves on the days between Sundays.

But, even with our foibles, here is the good news. Ours is only a PART of this Kingdom of God’s grace growing! He is the heavy lifter with the bold plan and the mega resources to make is all happen.

Phew! I can try and it may not seem to grow. I can try and just get it all wrong. But mine is only a bit-part in this grand epic quest of Jesus to heal the world and love the world, including my disinterested or cynical friends.

And because he is the source of life and the one who makes the seeds of faith grow, I can do some things that help me participate in his sowing and harvesting work.

I can brush up on my Jesus stories and put them in my words. I have time to do that.

I can ask for help in getting my own story in place to share because I count and my story counts, no matter how ‘ho-hum I think it is. God doesn’t and neither will another person. The Lord will make sure of it!

Yes. We can relax alright.

We scatter as best as we can. It is not an exact science. It does not have to be.

We can notice people and the changes. We can listen a lot. We can wait and then share, act, invite, welcome, comment and leave it at that. Job done today. There will come tomorrow and another opportunity.

And we can grab the sickle when we sense there is a growing seed.

I have found that this can take ages. I have been friends with people and intentional prayed for their conversion to the gospel for one, two or three years as I have served with them, played sport with them, been in a club with them and etc only to find that eventually, they take the plunge and ask me a really heart-felt God question. In that moment, the sickle comes out and a story is shared, my hope is shared, my story is shared. The growing continues…. Until next time.

Scatter, Notice and Reap. That is the kingdom way. That is our way as God’s church in his mission here.

Amen

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