Waste and Grace

A book I recall reading many years ago was entitled Cheaper by the Dozen. It recorded the hilarious adventures of a large family growing up about 80 years ago.

It was so funny because of the actions of the father in the family, who was an efficiency expert by profession. He tried out his many ideas gleaned from from assembly-line factories and businesses to the accomplishment of household tasks in the most efficient manner possible.

His efforts very often went awry, not necessarily because the family members were uncooperative, but because they were people and not machines, and do not always respond in logical or efficient ways.

The family survived and thrived, sometimes in spite of his proposals.

No, efficiency is not the sole measure of what is good, important, or true.

For example, surely we cannot talk about love in terms of efficiency.

By its very nature it is extravagant; the crochety would call it wasteful.

Your beloved surely doesn't need a flower, chocolates, or a kiss...or does she?

Saying “I love you” in a computer-generated voice is not enough.

So with that thought in mind, we turn to the Gospel lesson today, Jesus' story about the sower and the seed.

This is not an efficient operation.

The sower goes out to plant and flings the seed everywhere.

Some falls on good soil, but much also goes into the thorns or the rocks or the road and seems to be wasted.

As the years go by, we are more attuned to recycling, turning off unneeded lights, and avoiding waste, but this sower seems profligate.

His actions seem to be pointing to the idea that there may be what we would call waste in God's kingdom.

Wouldn't it have been better if in the beginning of Matthew's Gospel if the wise men could have searched in some other manner than by going to King Herod and getting him all riled up and suspicious so that he killed all the young boys of Bethlehem to get rid of any possible threats to his throne.

It is a waste of young lives, which goes along with the wasteful and extravagant gifts which the magi brought to the infant Jesus.

The wastefulness continues.

Great crowds of people are following Jesus around.

So many of them are the merely curious, or thrill-seekers, who quickly fall away when Jesus talks about sacrifice.

All those crowds...and only twelve are disciples, and even Peter denies Jesus.

How inefficient of God to work this way!

And what could be more wasteful than for Jesus to lay down his life for the likes of Peter, Andrew, James, John, and me?

Why should he bother with us?

This is part of the wonder and mystery of God, that he does.

There is so much working against the farmer in Jesus' story – lousy soil, rocks, and weeds.

There is so much working against the Gospel of Jesus Christ wherever it is being proclaimed in the world today – greedy people, inattentive people, those who are anxious to murder the ones who bring Good News.

So many take a summer vacation away from God, and even worse many more are extending that summer vacation into a permanent vacation from the gathering and work of God's people.

Is it a waste for the pastor to bother preparing a sermon when 2/3 or ¾ of those ostensibly on the membership roll are not present?

Is it wasteful and inefficient when I put as much care and effort into preparing a funeral sermon when I know that there will be about 6 people present as when I anticipate several hundred?

Is it wasteful and inefficient when I sit and talk with one distraught person rather than addressing a crowd?

Is it wasteful and inefficient when we provide the best Vacation Bible School experience we can even with a small number of students?

Or are these things part of the graciousness of the Gospel itself, a graciousness that includes both the easy times and big crowds as well as the rocky times and all their uncertainties?

Is there purpose in spreading the seed so widely that some falls on rocky areas?

I've always thought about this story in reference to ourselves, but it suddenly occurred to me that there is more to creation than mankind.

The seed on the rocks may not do anything to feed us, but it may feed other parts of creation, the small animals that need to live also.

Maybe this Gospel seed that we spread so widely will accomplish things that we do not even see or recognize, but in God's good time may at length be revealed to us.

What good did the radio station do in Ethiopia, the station which the Lutheran churches sponsored for many years?

We don't know exactly; but evidently it was preparing the Lutheran Church in that land to endure horrible times of oppression, and to now be growing by leaps and bounds, so that it is one of the largest in the Lutheran World Federation.

A college chaplain was often asked how many students came out for the events that he organized. His answer regularly was: “Only a few, but enough to keep the campus nervous.”

A pastor wrote of a woman in a former parish who tried for years to persuade that parish to reach out to its neighborhood and open a day care center for senior citizens.

She talked and talked and cajoled for 10 years, and managed to get it to a vote, and was defeated.

In exasperation, she gave up and moved to another congregation.

Three years later she was surprised at a regional meeting to see representatives from her former parish there and enthusiastically taking part.

“We're here to learn how to better organize our Senior Center that has been in operation for over a year now,” they told her. Amazing!

But that may be the way things are in this wonderful kingdom of God.

Seed may be sown widely, apparently wastefully, but the result is up to God, not to us.

In a parallel way, our Stephen Ministers always remind each other that we are care-givers but God is the cure-giver.

We are the sowers commissioned by Jesus, but God will give the harvest, in his way, and in his time.

Yes, there will be a harvest. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.