I Samuel 15:34-16:13; Psalm 20; Mark 4:26-34Faithis confidence or trust in something or someone. We trust our insurance agents that if we wreck our cars or if ahurricane hits, the bill will be paid. Wetrust the surgeon that she/he knows what they are doing and will restore ourhealth. We trust our accountant thatshe/he will file our taxes properly and keep the IRS from taking our stuff. We trust that our 401K it will provide enoughmoney for us in our retirement. We trustthat our spouses will be faithful and love us. We trust in ourselves, because we buy into the notion that we are the onlyperson we can really depend on. Whatabout God? What about faith in God?
We may say, “I trust in God,” but if we putour trust in others or even ourselves, why do we need faith? Do we need faith so we can live into thepromise that God will not abandon us to the grave, that we have insurance ofsomething beyond the grave? Do we needfaith in order that we can have God’s spiritual and possibly physical healingwhen we get sick or when we face pain and disease? Do we have faith so, when bad times come, wecan know God will be with us. Yes, yes,yes but there is so much more to life in which we trust God. Trusting in the insurance agent, surgeon,accountant, 401K, our spouse, or even ourselves is a false hope. We as Americans, tend to believe we can pullourselves up by the bootstraps and make things happen. We believe we can help ourselves, that we canovercome all obstacles, that we do not need anyone but ourselves. If we buy into that, we have bought intofalse hope.
Wemust never forget that God is creator and we are creature and as such, we areutterly dependent on the source, which comes from outside ourselves. We trust in the Master because we are themaster’s handiwork and not our own. Ilove this little poem written by Simcha Bunim: “Everyone must have two pockets into which to reach from time to time asthe need requires: In the one pocket it shall read, ‘For my sake were theheavens and the earth created,” and in the other pocket, “I am but dust andashes.’ We get a little reminder of ourown mortality our utter dependence on God, on Ash Wednesday. “Remember that you are dust, and to dustshall you return.” As creatures, we are thebeloved dust of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. We are loved and accepted, but we aredependent. We are utterly dependent onGod: the Father, the creator, the source, the beginning, and end, the Alpha andOmega. We are utterly dependent on God:the Son, the redeemer, the reconciler, the healer. We are utterly dependent on God: the Spirit, thesustainer, the teacher, consoler, encourager. We are mere dust, fertile soil into which God:Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, places the seed of hope, love and grace in us andthrough faith, through trust, our lives become the abundant crop of hope, loveand grace.
Ourfaith like seeds, are little bundles of great optimism, hope, and anticipation. Jesus used the parable of the seeds becausein an agrarian society, the people understood the significance of planting andharvesting. Today, we live in a time ofadvanced agricultural technology, vast farming operations, rapid distributionchains, and a plethora of retail food chains. We are a bit detached from the parable of the seeds in this 21stcentury food machine. However, eventoday, farmers still put seeds in the ground and crops emerge. Farmers plant and they trust that a crop willcome forth. Their livelihoods are atstake, and yes, they trust.
Evenwith all the technology, a farmer would never take her precious seeds, hidethem in a container in the barn, and say, “These are my seeds, I’m going tohold on tightly to them for myself and keep them hidden until the harvestcomes.” Does that even make sense? No, a farmer takes the seeds, those preciousbundles of optimistic trust, digs into the soil, and places them deeply intothat rich, fertile, dust. The work doesnot end there. She or he works every dayto give those seeds the best opportunity to come to full growth. The farmer pulls weeds so they do not chokethe plant. She adds fertilizer to helpthe little seedlings emerge. She insuresthat there is enough water available to keep the plants alive. She adds a little organic, non-carcinogenic pesticideto discourage other critters from taking her crop. The farmer does not hide the seeds in thebarn, she does not merely plant them in the ground, and she works on the littleseeds coaxing, encouraging, and supporting their growth and fulfillment. Faith is not something we claim for ourselvesand merely place on a shelf whenever we need it. Faith is not something we receive once andsay that is it. Faith is something wemust cultivate, tend, foster, support, and nurture.
Togrow the crop of trust in God, we must explore, communicate, and act. Cultivating the crop of faith requires us toexplore the narratives of faith shared by other folks who have gone beforeus. Study is the fertilizer offaith. Read scripture daily if only oneverse. Immerse yourself in stories ofthe saints who have gone before. Add asprinkling of someone else’s trusting God into your mix of soil, and watch thesprouts emerge. Cultivating the crop offaith requires us to communicate with God and each other in holyconversations. Communication is thewater of faith. Pray daily. Speak to God plainly. Share your hurts, disappointments, anddesires. Offer up your thanksgivings,celebrations, and joy. Talk with God;that is prayer. Talk with otherstoo. Share holy conversation with each other. Engage in sharing how God is working in yourlives and you will be surprised at the common threads of grace you discover. Add abundant holy conversation into your mixof soil, and watch the plant of faith come to life.
Cultivating the crop of faith requires us toact and to remove those things that get in the way of growth. Sometimes we need to get outside ourselvesand see the plight of others. It helpsus pull the weeds of our own complacency, self-focus, and lack ofcompassion. Sometimes we need to immerseourselves in the weeds of someone else’s existence, so that we can see ourown. Work in the garden of the least,lost, and lonely, your sisters and brothers here and beyond here, so that wemay help their gardens flourish and mature. To grow the crop of trust in God, we must explore, communicate, act, andthen, we must share.
Faithis not merely something for us, but through us, it might become hope for others. My Uncle Marvin Loftis every year planted a gardenthe size of a small village. He not onlyran, along with my Aunt Anna Mae, a busy little country store, but he spent allspring, summer, and fall tending this garden. Tomatoes, potatoes, corn, cucumbers, okra, beans, you name it, andMarvin grew it. I remember visiting himduring the summer and as much as I wanted to go fishing with him (one of hisother favorite hobbies), that just had to wait. Even when the fish were biting, Marvin could be found in the tall cornlovingly cultivating the garden, anticipating the coming of autumn, awaitingwhat was to come, and getting ready for the harvest.
Ialways knew that the rustling of leaves, the return to school, and the fall ofthe year was just around the corner in East Tennessee, because without fail,Marvin and Anna Mae would begin taking Sunday afternoon journeys to go andvisit with family. We all knew that Marvinhad harvested the garden because when they came to visit, and as they enteredthe house, he would say, “I brought you all little something from the garden.” It never failed, we always received from thewonderful couple huge grocery bags filled with huge ears of corn, more tomatoesthan one could ever eat, cucumbers galore, beans of every variety and type, andthe best okra you ever tasted.
See for Marvin, cultivating his garden, allthe love he put into it, all the long hours of fertilizing, watering, andweeding was not so he could hoard it all for himself and Anna Mae. The joy of gardening, the joy of all thathard work came not from the canning, storing, and eating of the abundant crop,but it emerged from the sharing. Marvintook those little seeds he had, put them into the rich, red East Tennesseesoil, fertilized them, watered them, and weeded the rows, so that he could goout among those whom he loved, and share it. That is what our faith is really all about! We are given the gift of faith, of trust inGod, so that we can cultivate it, but not merely for ourselves, but so we canshare it. We are given the gift of trustin God, so that it might be an abundant witness, so others may be able toreceive it, be transformed by it; by theshade of God’s grace that sprouts, grows, and emerges in and through us. "With what can we compare the kingdom ofGod, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is thesmallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomesthe greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds ofthe air can make nests in its shade." Plant, fertilize, weed, water, and grow; so that others may share in theabundant grace of God in you.
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