Is the glass half full or half empty? Even though we all see
the same thing people can come to different conclusions. Like optimists, the
thinking goes, see the glass half full while pessimists view it as half empty.
Who’s right? Are either of them? Maybe there’s another way to look at the
glass? Well it all depends on your perspective.
Which makes me curious,
what is your perspective on our reading from the gospel of Matthew? Good news
or bad? A sower went out to sow, Jesus begins, and this sower ends up scattering
a copious amount of seed everywhere - on the pathway, on rocky ground, among
thorns, and on good soil - all with varying results. Then comes the
explanation. The seed, Jesus says, is the word of the kingdom sown in the soil
of a person’s heart. And depending upon the condition of one’s heart whether
it’s beaten down, rocky, distracted or receptive, the seed either takes root or
not and yields a great harvest or nothing at all.
So is this good news or
bad? Judgement or joy? If what we hear is primarily a story about bad soils
and, therefore, bad hearts, then this becomes a parable of judgment - on us and
on others. And from that perspective we may think that what we should be doing
is going around judging ourselves or others as good or bad, right or wrong,
open to the word of the kingdom or closed. But this point of view in no way
produces good fruit or a bountiful harvest which should be our first clue that
that is not what Jesus wants us to hear. He never says, “Therefore, I tell you,
be of good soil!”
He doesn’t say that
because the good news, the hope we have is not found in the condition of the
soil, but in the character of the sower. The sower who scatters seed
everywhere. Instead of judgement, there is joy and delight in the image of this
carefree, extravagant, generous sower that has an abundance of seed and holds
none of it back. A sower that we can identify as God. For God is always sowing
seeds - the word of the kingdom, the Word that is Christ, the word of life and
love and mercy and grace. God is always sowing those seeds into our lives and
into our world.
But seeds, by their very
nature, take time. And they are easily overlooked. Nonetheless, seeds are
powerful as they push their way through dirt, rocks, and other obstacles. They
are also persistent, working night and day to grow and flourish. Seeds do all this
work out of view until the time of harvest comes and we can actually see what’s
been there all along.
And the harvest, Jesus
says, turns out to be thirty, sixty, even a hundredfold. Which would have been
the real shocker for those who first heard this parable. Back in Jesus’ day, a
seven or eight
fold yield from one seed
was considered quite good. Ten fold was great. Anything more was simply unheard
of. To talk about an increase of thirty, sixty or one hundred fold, that was
more than being optimistic, that was talking about a whole different way of
seeing the world. Seeing with a hope, a vision, a confidence which can only
come from the perspective of the Kingdom of God.
But in this kingdom, God
is not the only generous sower of these powerfully determined seeds. We, who
are created in the image of God, are made to be sowers too. To likewise be
carefree, extravagant and generous in our sowing because we have been given
this vision of abundance, both in seed and in harvest. But that’s not to say
that we look reality in the face and deny it. Hardly. Right now the whole world
is reeling from all the fallout of this pandemic. Death, suffering, loss,
uncertainty and anxiety abound. And yet in the midst of all this there are also
seeds and harvest. Countless people sacrificing for the sake of others, a
growing movement for racial justice, a new appreciation for the simple things,
those, to name a few, are both the sowing of seeds and the reaping of harvest.
For when we look through the lens of God’s kingdom we see the seeds of God’s
life and harvest of God’s love everywhere.
Because, when you really
look at it, the glass is not half empty, but neither is it half full. There is
more there than meets the eye. Water is in the bottom half. The top half is
filled with air. From that perspective the glass is not simply full, but like
the kingdom of God, it is overflowing.
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