Sow Good Seeds

 

Scripture

 Galatians 6:7-10

⁷ Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. ⁸ If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh, but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. ⁹ So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. ¹⁰ So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.  (NRSVUE)

 

Amos 8:1-2

8 This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. ² He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,

“The end has come upon my people Israel;
    I will spare them no longer..."   (NRSVUE)

Devotion

 The past several days have heralded the coming of fall in my community.  Yes, it is still hot out, but there is something about the breeze and the look of the sky that points to the changing of the seasons.  And as the summer fruits come to an end and we begin to look forward to fall harvests, people are reaping what they have sown.  

Sometimes, folks are pleased with their baskets of crops.  Other times--like the year a friend talked me into putting what turned out to be way too many cucumber plants into our community garden--harvesting the results of what you have planted in the world seems to be more curse than blessing.  Either way, what you get from your garden depends in large part on what you first put into it.

Considering that ancient Israel was an agricultural society, it shouldn't surprise us that this image of reaping what we sow is found throughout the Bible.  The prophet Amos, for instance, warns the people just as fruit is harvested in the summer, so are the people about to reap the harvest of their actions...and it isn't going to be good.  The apostle Paul offers a similar warning: if we sow seeds of sinfulness based on our own desires, we will reap the painful consequences of our actions.  But if we sow good things based on God's desires, we will reap life-giving things not only in the present, but for eternity. 

This kinds of warnings are necessary, because doing the good thing--the right thing--often goes against our human inclinations.  If we think from the position of short-term self-interest, who in their right mind would want to give to others something they could keep for themselves?  Who would want to be fair to others when oppressing or exploiting them would give us more of what we want?  God's warnings through Paul and the prophets encouraged us to consider the long-term consequences of our actions. They remind that being unfair or unkind to others builds up and comes back to us in the end.  Likewise, the good we do for others may seem to gain us nothing in the moment, but we can be assured that if we do not give up on doing the right thing, we will end up harvesting grace, mercy, justice, and peace for all God's children.

As summer transitions into fall, I invited each of us to consider the that we have been sowing.  What have we been putting out into the world, and what might we harvest from it in the long run?  If, like the people who sowed corruption and injustice in Paul's and Amos's day, we do not like what might show up in our spiritual fruit baskets, then we should get to work planting something else.  If we truly believe that we have been sowing good things according to the Holy Spirit, then we can find the encouragement to keep doing so. 

Prayer

O Holy Spirit, inspire me to sow good in the world so that when Christ comes again, we may reap a bountiful harvest.  Amen.