A Fourth Church Sermon by Adam H. Fronczek

October 24, 2010 | 4:00 p.m.

The Growing Seed

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 84
Mark 4:26–34

This week the Chicago radio show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me briefly mentioned a study about the optimism and pessimism of dogs, noting that some dogs may actually be pessimists. The study was based on an experiment in which a stanger placed an empty bowl was placed in a room while a dog watched, and while many dogs, predictably, ran to the bowl thinking, “Surely, there will be food in that bowl!”, many other dogs chose not to do so, perhaps thinking, “Oh, I’ve seen an empty bowl before. I’m sure it could happen again.” The way the radio show jokingly portrayed this study caught my attention because, I must admit, I generally assume dogs are optimists and have often said, at least jokingly, “How great it would be to be a dog, to not worry about all of the problems we humans deal with but to be happily occupied by thoughts of eating and sleeping and pooping, long walks no matter what the weather is like, and fetching a ball or a stick and doing so with immense pleasure, even though my master is just going to throw it away again.”

This kind of unlimited optimism is not the life that most humans live. Even if we are not “depressed”—and by that word I mean not only clinical depression, but also the simple fact of feeling down—even if we are not depressed, humans notice that things in this world are not the way they are supposed to be. Things go wrong; people suffer. We notice these things. It doesn’t matter if it’s war in Afghanistan, poverty and gun violence in Chicago, a friend in the hospital, or a fight with your boyfriend. There is an endless list of reasons to believe that things in this world are not easy, and most of those reasons are legitimate. All of us, at least some of the time, live as if the glass is half empty, or, to stick with the dog analogy, as if the bowl is probably empty. And yet there is something inside of us that suggests that we should get up and keep going. There is some little place inside of us that convinces us that there is something to live for, even if we cannot say exactly what it is. This afternoon I want to argue that that mysterious thing that keeps us going might be faith.

The parable we read today says that “the kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” On the one hand we might be dismissive of this passage. We twenty-first- century folks know about things like germination and photosynthesis; we can define the relationship between sun and water and can talk about how things grow. There is still, though, a “why” question: Why do things grow? What does it mean? What does it mean that things grow but that things also die?

This is the mystery of faith. In the midst of the things that should cause us to be pessimistic and give up hope, there is hope still. We keep getting up in the morning; we keep scattering seed, even though we don’t quite know how it grows.

One of the things that might create in us the greatest feeling of hopelessness is the Asian tsunami of December 2004. I watched a documentary about it this week and could hardly believe that it took place almost six years ago. The documentary was made over those six years and followed the lives of three people who lived through the tsunami. One of those people, who was a painter, found one of his paintings several years later in a field, far from his house. He had painted it to commemorate his son’s birth, a son he lost in the tsunami. When he saw the painting, all of the pain came rushing back. “I will never forget,” he said. But although one might think that he would want to forget, the man continues to deal with his grief by, of all things, teaching children to paint. Another person in the documentary lost his wife and all of his children, but years later he remarried and had another son. In a statement that shows the mixture of joy and sadness in his situation, he claimed, “I realize how much meaning I get from my child being alive, and it makes me wonder, what would my life be like if my child were gone?” Miraculously, these people whose lives were torn apart by the tsunami have found ways to go on living and to get up in the morning, and they’ve done it by finding the beauty of painting and teaching and watching a new child learn to walk and play.

Theologian Martin Buber wrote, “Our faith that God is the Lord of history may sometimes appear ludicrous; but there is something secret in history which confirms our faith.” Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground and would sleep and rise night and day and the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” The passage goes on to say, “The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come.”

Faithful living is about paying attention when the harvest comes. It is waking up in the morning ready to be thankful when the good things come and opening ourselves to the beauty that moves all around us.

It is our natural inclination, I think, to see the bad things in the world and ask how God allowed that to happen, and that question is OK, but for whatever reason, it feels less natural to be part of what is good and then remember to tell God thank you. And there is much to be thankful for. The sun not only came up today, as it always does, but it came out all afternoon and lit up the city and the parks once more with the brilliant colors of fall. Walking along the street or in the park today, you could feel a breeze that is a little warmer than we expect this time of year, and yet there are signs that winter is coming, that the earth will soon go to sleep and things will die and the earth will rest, only to be fully reborn again a few months from now. In Coffee Hour this morning, I talked with a little girl who showed me a picture of her new puppy, and I talked with a retired minister who was here remembering the seminary graduation march he took up this very aisle fifty years ago. If you are hungry and can’t afford a meal, there are people in the next room who will feed you after the service. They came in around 2:15 and spent their afternoon cooking tuna noodle casserole and carrots and applesauce cake. In order for that to happen, there was someone who caught fish and picked carrots and apples. There was someone who worked in a packaging plant and drove a delivery truck. That meal gets onto the table because worshipers in this church donate their money, because people all over our city give to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and because the health club across the street washes the tablecloths for us every week.

When you slow yourself down enough to give it some thought, the chain of praiseworthy little events that take place every single day is almost unfathomable. “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed,” the Bible says, “which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” The smallest of gifts in the world can yield amazing results. God is at work doing amazing things each day of the life you have been given, and you cheat yourself out of a lot of joy if you don’t stop to think about it. There’s something that feels good about saying thank you and meaning it.

One of the earliest memories I have is of pulling weeds in my father’s garden. I did it, even though at the time I didn’t have a clue why. I didn’t know anything about the relationship between weeds and vegetables or why it mattered that I carried those endless cans of water across that big backyard. I guess I did it because my father told me to. But I soon learned that out of that mysterious garden, in the fall, at this time of year we are in right now, there would be ripe tomatoes and squash and fresh herbs all spread out before me on the table. I didn’t know how it happened. I still kind of don’t, but it’s that kind of thing that should remind us to give thanks.

There are places in the Bible that are like this, some of which are even more mysterious. People often want to know why there are some laws in the Bible that don’t seem to make any sense. One of them is the law that forbade the Israelites from wearing clothes with mixed fibers. Some scholars have speculated that the law is one of many about keeping things separate in order to prevent them from intermarrying with other tribes. Others have suggested that other tribes wore mixed fibers, and this law was a way of distinguishing the Israelites. The bottom line is that we don’t know why this law existed. Rabbis have called these laws chukim. They don’t actually mean anything. The idea is that if you sometimes do something for no other reason than because God said so, you’ll remember to slow down and give thanks to God for other things. Seems like a good idea.

As we move into a time of music and meditation and prepare to come to the table for our meal of bread and wine, think about it: What are you thankful for today? What do you need to tell God? Even though there is much we do not understand, even though there are many things about which we should be concerned, give thanks for the blessings and the small gifts that remind us God is near.