Most of us are familiar with
the parable of the sower (Mark 4:2-9). A farmer scatters seed all over his
field; some of it grows, but much of it doesn’t. Mark even tells us what the
story means later on in the text: the seed represents people; and the growth of
the seeds (or lack of it) represents their responses to the gospel message. But
what if we set Mark’s interpretation aside for now and focus not on what the
seed represents, but on the seed itself and what the farmer does with it? What
if the seed is just… seed? What interpretation does this little story offer
then?
At one level, it’s about the
extravagance of the farmer. He sows seed everywhere,
not like today when we put the seed exactly where we want it. In the time
of Jesus, the seed was scattered all over the field. Some seed fell where it
would sprout and bear grain; while some of it fell where it would never grow. The
farmer didn’t worry about that, though. Scattering the seed everywhere was part
of the job. Instead of focusing on the seed that didn’t grow, farmers counted on the fact that some seed would grow; and they trusted God to
provide a harvest from that seed.
Nature is just like that
farmer. When a tree forms seeds and drops them, that tree doesn’t know how many
of those seeds will sprout to form another tree. It just drops them all around
without worrying about the ones that won’t grow, because some of them will grow! Some animals have lots of
babies for the same reason. Frogs lay hundreds of eggs each spring. Lots of the
eggs won’t make it into tadpoles. Many of those tadpoles won’t survive, either:
they will be eaten by fish or by water birds. Others, though, will grow up to
be new adult frogs. Laying hundreds of eggs seems to be extravagant; but it’s
nature’s way of making sure that at least some of those eggs will produce new frogs
each year. Of course, that’s exactly what happens.
And the amazing truth is that
God is the most extravagant of all! God spreads grace around just like those
seeds that the farmer scatters. God doesn’t even ask us in advance if we are
going to use that grace. God knows that some people will ignore it, some will
laugh at it, and others will play around with it and then decide that it isn’t
worth the effort in the long run. But that doesn’t stop God from scattering
that extravagant grace around all over the place! What takes root and grows
more than makes up for the grace that people throw aside.
Now, we aren’t comfortable with
that kind of extravagance. We want to know the outcome of what we do before we
do it. We want to minimize the risk and maximize the profit in everything that
we do. After all, we have limited resources; and we don’t want to waste things
that are in limited supply. But we often don’t try anything because we aren’t sure whether it will succeed; and doing
nothing is just another way of wasting the resources and gifts that God has
given us. After all, if the farmer didn’t scatter anything at all, nothing at
all would grow!
So what if we tried things
without worrying so much about the outcome? What if, instead of saying, “We
tried that once 20 years ago, and it didn’t work,” we said, “Maybe it’s time to
try that again!” What if, instead of saying, “We only had 8 people show up, so
we wasted all that preparation time,” we said, “Those 8 people experienced a
real closeness to God!” What if, instead of saying, “We need to worry about the
number of church members we have,” we said, “Let’s concentrate on spreading
God’s grace around extravagantly, and God will take care of the rest.” What
would that mean as we plan our church activities? It would mean, for starters,
that we would try many more things; and I’ll bet that it would also mean that
we would have many more successes.
The reality – and this should
be obvious to anyone – is that we can’t spread God’s grace with what we don’t do!
Successful athletes know that. Wayne Gretzky, who holds the record for career
hockey goals, said, “I missed every shot that I didn’t take.” They also know
that for every success, they fail multiple times. The basketball phenomenon
Michael Jordan confessed, “I missed more than 9,000 shots, which means that I
failed over and over. But THAT is why I succeeded!” Extravagance knows that
some (if not much) of what we do will be wasted; but it also knows that some of
it will succeed.
Can we be more extravagant?
Sure we can! Spreading extravagant grace doesn’t take a lot of people. What it does take is a willingness to try all
kinds of things and a trust that God will use what we do for good. Just like
the farmer’s seed, some of what we scatter will never take root; or it will be
crowded out by other things. But some of the seed that we plant will not only
take root and grow; it will yield a harvest beyond our wildest imagination. If
you have ears, I hope that you’re listening!
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