Mystery of Reclamation ...

Not many of us prefer to ponder the idea that our tap water may well have gone through our sewer system at one point or another.  It is a difficult concept to grasp that water that was once filthy and unfit to drink could somehow be chemically “cleaned” to the point where we would not hesitate to fill our ice trays and drinks with it.  Perhaps it is equally ironic, if not disturbing, that the quality of our soil can be richly enhanced by adding fertilizer to it.  The chief ingredient of fertilizer being excrement.  Yet after adding perhaps the most disgusting substance on planet earth, which itself is composed of nothing but “waste” materials fit for no other purpose, our farm lands or gardens produce much better crops than if we had simply left the soil without this “precious” resource.  When we look at a bright fresh bowl of fruit on our kitchen table, and enjoy digging in to a fresh cold sweet harvest of berries, or citrus, we really have no idea “how” an infant seed, exposed to disgusting ingredients, in a generally polluted world, through a process of growth we did not witness, nor cause … results in such a delicious treat our bodies long for and enjoy.  We have a notional idea of how crops grow, and how resources can be reclaimed, but the details remain mostly a mystery.

The composition of the human mind and heart are infinitely more complex than the simple seed which will one day become a sweet berry, or an ear of corn, or an herb we season our food with.  The mind, like our soil and untreated water, can become a place of great pollution, waste, and darkness.  It is the inevitable result of having embraced the addiction of self-love and sin we are covered with.  It is a degenerative process, which would have us slide deeper and deeper into a muck fit to grow nothing, add no value, and become something only bent on taking, and “offering” little & only when there is a chance at greater rewards for doing so.  Our minds of greed, and our hearts of stone, are hardly the right place for any seed to grow.  To plant a seed of Love here, could only be done by a Farmer we would call “insane”.  We, are not good ground in which to grow anything.  We, are a toxic un-reclaimed section of scorched earth, with a history of destroying everything we touched.  We, are known for causing pain, not for relieving it.  Yet somehow, our Father God, chooses to do the unthinkable.  He comes to plant seed here, in us, and on purpose.  Why?  What does He know that we do not?

The mystery of how a corrupted mind and heart can be reclaimed is unknown by us.  And this is not a new phenomenon.  Peter recalls to John Mark in his gospel in chapter 4 the continuation of this theme and analogy that Christ used to teach us about salvation.  He begins in verse 26 recalling the words of Christ saying … “And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; [verse 27] And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.”  We do not see the seed opening up underground.  We do not see it take root.  We only see it when it emerges from the earth and begins to grow.  “Why” a seed grows is not just a metaphysical question, particularly when considering why “this” seed grows, but that one does not.  The farmer in this analogy plants a seed and time passes, and it grows.  But the “why” it grows remains a mystery to the farmer.  The “process of growth” is NOT up to the farmer.  The human farmer in this analogy is a “witness” to the growth, not the cause of it.

Understood in the context of spreading the gospel … “we” do not “save” others.  We may have the joy of spreading the “seed” of the gospel.  We may introduce people to Christ.  But that is where our part of the story ends.  The “process of growth” is NOT up to us.  We do not get to rush it, and should not slow it down.  This is true in ourselves, and in others.  The “process of growth” is contained WITHIN the seed itself.  In this instance, the “Seed” can overcome the pollution it comes in contact with.  The “Seed” is capable to reclaiming the excrement and untreated water of our lives, and purify it, for the purposes of making something wonderful grow within us.  The Love that grows within us, is the love of Christ for others; as it grows it will become evident to the world around us.  We begin to treat other people differently.  This is the key evidence to us, and to those around us, that the seed is taking root and springing forth.  All of the sudden, the focus is no longer on the earth, it is on the plant.  All of the sudden, the pollution and muck of our lives, is no longer the focus, it is the plant of love that is springing forth from our muck, despite all the odds against it.

“How” this occurs is a mystery to us.  Peter continues recalling the words of Christ in verse 28 saying … “For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. [verse 29] But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.”  The growth that takes place is not immediate, or completed in an instant.  It takes time to transition from seed, to blade, to ear, to corn.  Trust takes time.  Full submission takes time to achieve.  We must come to realize that what we “give up” to Christ, are not things we wanted or needed in the first place.  What we “treasure” today about ourselves, are things we come to despise later when we see them for what they truly were.  The things about us that we take pride in, are the very things we would be better off without.  In short, when diseased soil looks at itself, it does not think badly about what it sees.  But when pure water sees what untreated water looks like, it cannot imagine ever “wanting” to be that dirty.  As we learn to trust God, we come to see He does actually save us in spite of ourselves.  As we see Him tenderly pick us back up after we have thrown away His victories, and continue to tend to us, despite our lack of response, we come to “know” that He is bent on saving us.

It is unfortunate that we are such slow learners, but the level of our disease is great.  Despite the process of growth taking time however, it does continue to occur.  And at every point in time, there is an evidence of how mature His Love in us actually is.  We can measure our progress by how deeply we care about others, and how little we care about ourselves.  If those scales do not tilt the way we wish they would, perhaps we are not as mature as we would like to think ourselves as being in the Christian journey of transformation.  Again this is not a measurement of how complete our doctrinal understanding is, it is a measurement of how deep our passion for others is.  What is planted within us is a seed of Love, not a seed of mere wisdom.  We can already be “smart”, or “wise”, but lack all notion of what it means to love another.  A brilliant Christian can expound on the meaning of scripture, and the interpretation of prophecy, and still have NO concept of who Jesus is, and how He loves others.  It is Love that saves us.  His love for us, and His love for others reflected through us.

What is most evident to the Farmer … this time the heavenly Farmer … is when the growth process has been completed and when the harvest is ready.  It is the sickle that is used to gather the ripe ears of corn to feed those in need.  We are cut off from the lives we once knew.  We are taken away from our past, though the seed of the corn remains with the Harvest.  The self-perpetuating seeds of Christ, are still found in the berries, the corn, or the herbs.  Even when the fruit is cut off from the plants, the seed remains.  Without Christ we could never be saved.  If we were to be cut off from Christ, we would wither and die, and our love for others would die as well.  It is His undying love for others, which can remain ever green within us.  It is His strength to love the unlovable that can inspire us to do the same.  We do not need to rely upon our own strength to “be good people” and to love others.  Instead we can “reflect” His love for them, and His passion for them, through us.  We can simply get out of His way, and not limit Him, but provide Him unlimited access to strengthen our Love for others, and renew our physical being when we would otherwise be exhausted by human weakness.  Instead of attempting to be good, we can simply let go control to Christ, and watch Him actually make us into something we never thought possible.

The Harvest can feed the world.  It is not the process of growth that saves others.  It is the offering of fruit, the offering of Love for them, of meeting their needs, that awakens them to how much God loves them, which begins the process of saving them.  We do not offer the world in need a green leaf from the corn plant, something that is not ready yet to love, and cannot offer sustenance of love the hungry needs.  We offer them fully ripe, and ready harvest, the fruit that is laden with the Seeds of Christ and His love for others; offered in a tangible way.  It is not the idea of Love the world needs, it is the tangible meaningful example of Love it needs.  Speaking words is not enough, the fruit is driven to do something.  The fruit is so driven, because it is no longer just holding a single seed.  The seeds within the fruit have multiplied such that the fruit can hardly contain them all.  The Love of Christ for others reaches such a growth point within us, that we are literally driven to DO SOMETHING for others.  We do not sit still and remain steeped in our apathy, because our apathy has been driven from us.  We have so much passion, we MUST do, we have to do, we will not … just sit.

What was once a plot of muck and mire, a mix of untreated sewer water and excrement, has become a fruit of brilliant color and excellent taste.  The focus is no longer on the dirt from which we emerged, or the sins that once dominated our existence, but it is on the Love of Christ we are now so fully reflecting to those in the most desperate need of it.  We have become a delicious berry, or a wholesome ear of corn, or a seasoning herb that enriches the meals of others.  Our purpose is no longer to simply grow, it is to feed others.  This was the mission all along.  The growth was only the journey that would lead us to become something that would feed the world.  Our goal was not simply to produce a leaf, or get a little taller.  It was to reach maturity in the reflection of His Love to the world, as demonstrated within us. 

The magnitude of what we can become in this theme needed further clarification, and so Jesus continued to teach Peter and the others, as John Mark records in verse 30 saying … “And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? [verse 31] It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: [verse 32] But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.”  A grain of a mustard seed is indeed a very small herb in its seedling state.  When looking at how small a thing it is, one could hardly imagine how large it can grow.  Well beyond a bowl of berries, or even a dozen ears of corn, the mustard seed will grow until it is a large tree with great branches shooting out in space.  It will offer the world shade, and become a place where even birds can make their nests.  Not only can our love for others become nearly infinite, as we begin to reflect the infinite love of Christ, our love can reach out to our physical world and the animals He created in it.  A tree does more than just feed humans, it offers other benefits that nature enjoys.  While providing shade, and bird lodging are hardly its first priority, they are certainly not omitted from the list of benefits it provides.

Think of the literally millions of seeds a single mustard seed tree can provide.  Think of how the time of harvest comes year after year from the plants God sees fit to save and grow, and reclaim.  There is a reason why God prefers the math of multiplication where it comes to spreading the gospel.  While He is fully focused on the single seed planted in you, He fully intends to see a harvest grow that will multiply exponentially the love for you He has, into love for others that was there all along.  The point was to save more than just one seed, but in so doing, to multiply the harvest in others.  Your reclamation project was not about changing the soil composition, or purification of the water in the mud of your life.  It was and is, about changing the focus from the ground, to the plant, to the fruit.  It was about altering who you are, to a point where you can hardly recognize who you were.  The goal of your reclamation, was not to teach you “how” the transition takes place.  God knows the “how”.  The goal of your reclamation was to be re-claimed, and re-created.  Attempting to control the “how” only slows down the process.  Submitting and trusting in God, speeds it up.

Mark concludes in verse 33 writing … “And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. [verse 34] But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.”  Christ chose to speak to His followers, both then and now through scripture, in the form of parables of storytelling because it was effective.  It gives us a chance to learn truth, every time we reopen the word.  These themes and analogies have much to offer, as long as we continue to view them through the lens of Jesus Christ, and His ultimate mission to see mankind redeemed, reclaimed, and reconciled to God.  Like any story, not everything is literal, and not every analogy holds up in every single point of detail; but the themes of salvation and redemption can be easily seen, if one chooses to look.  While we may never understand “how” Christ saves us, what is clear from these stories, and the example of His life, is “why” He chose to save you and I … He loves us.  It was Love that motivated God to reach out and save us, even when we were not certain that is what we wanted.  It is Love that can awaken the heart of the unbeliever to the knowledge that there is something more out there, and something better, and they too can experience it.  It is Love that is the Seed of Christ, planted in a human heart. 

I would pray to become the fruit, driven to feed others; and not remain the dirt mired in a focus of only our pain and past.  I would see my apathy, replaced with passion that cannot sit still.  There is so much more than we have hardly imagined … and Peter’s gospel through Mark was still in its infancy.