Hope is a seed.
It seems that once again the weeds of the world have
sprouted. The violent actions at the Boston Marathon are the blossoms of seeds
of violence. And like weeds gone to seed, that violence has spread anger, fear,
and suspicion around the world. On the other hand, we have the opportunity to
choose what seeds we will scatter in the wake of this event: fear and anger or
hope and peace.
Mark 4:1-8
Jesus began to teach beside the lake again. Such a large crowd gathered that he climbed into a boat there on the lake. He sat in the boat while the whole crowd was nearby on the shore. He said many things to them in parables. While teaching them, he said, “Listen to this! A farmer went out to scatter seed. As he was scattering seed, some fell on the path; and the birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where the soil was shallow. They sprouted immediately because the soil wasn’t deep. When the sun came up, it scorched the plants; and they dried up because they had no roots. Other seed fell among thorny plants. The thorny plants grew and choked the seeds, and they produced nothing. Other seed fell into good soil and bore fruit. Upon growing and increasing, the seed produced in one case a yield of thirty to one, in another case a yield of sixty to one, and in another case a yield of one hundred to one.”
Jesus began to teach beside the lake again. Such a large crowd gathered that he climbed into a boat there on the lake. He sat in the boat while the whole crowd was nearby on the shore. He said many things to them in parables. While teaching them, he said, “Listen to this! A farmer went out to scatter seed. As he was scattering seed, some fell on the path; and the birds came and ate it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where the soil was shallow. They sprouted immediately because the soil wasn’t deep. When the sun came up, it scorched the plants; and they dried up because they had no roots. Other seed fell among thorny plants. The thorny plants grew and choked the seeds, and they produced nothing. Other seed fell into good soil and bore fruit. Upon growing and increasing, the seed produced in one case a yield of thirty to one, in another case a yield of sixty to one, and in another case a yield of one hundred to one.”
I believe that the seeds of our violence toward each other
find their root in the compartmentalization of the human and the natural
worlds. It is a hierarchy that sees the plants and animals as commodities for
our use, and then when we dehumanize others we can see them as items for our
use as well. We have the power of life and death over them, and too many times
it is easier and more gratifying (seemingly) to choose death. Maybe, just
maybe, if we learn to love Creation as equals instead of hierarchically we can
begin to build a world where violence is a last resort instead of solution. And
maybe planting a seed really can be an act of hope.
Jesus’ parable uses a sower as the protagonist. My guess is
that the hearers of this story thought this particular farmer must have been a
bit of an idiot. Seed was not an unlimited commodity and I’m sure that even
when hand-scattered (the original meaning of “broadcast” by the way) it was
done judiciously. But Jesus’ farmer throws the seed willy-nilly all over the
place: on the good soil, on the path, in the rocks and thistles and thorns and
everywhere. In the ensuing explanation of the parable, Jesus says that the seed
is the word. In Luke and Matthew the explanation says, “word of the Kin-dom” or
“word of God.” The gist of the parable seems to be that we are not to be
concerned with where we scatter the seed, our job is to scatter it like idiots
everywhere. Some will eventually find its good soil.
What is asked of us, I believe, is to figure out what kind
of seed we are casting about. Diana Butler Bass has coined a phrase for the
denigrating, fear-mongering stuff on the 24-hour news casts: disaster porn. I
believe Jesus thought that we, as his followers, had better stuff to broadcast.
Jesus wanted particular kinds of plants to grow in the Kin-dom: peace, justice
(NOT revenge), love, equality, compassion, and more. In science fiction they speak of
terraforming: recreating a hostile planet to be more earthlike. Maybe by
planting the seeds of Jesus’ teaching we are doing a different kind of terraforming.
We are reclaiming the Creation of love that we were meant to be.
