I miss the point
September 08, 2015
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Mark 4: 3-9
“Listen. What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled among the weeds and nothing came of it. Some fell on good earth and came up with a flourish, producing a harvest exceeding his wildest dreams.
9 “Are you listening to this? Really listening?”
Mark 4: 3-9 It is such an ordinary story. ‘I don’t see the point of this’ they must have been thinking. ‘I know this must be important, but I’m not getting it’. When we hear a story we often identify with a character or situation in that story. Many in that crowd would be very familiar with the experience of sowing, the heavy sack of precious grain, the dusty rocky ground, tramping up and down in the hot sun, the hard work. What is such a man thinking as he works? ‘I need to do this to feed my family. I need to get it right or we’ll go hungry, there’s not much more I can do once the seed is out of my hands the harvest is out of my hands too’. Many in the crowd would think “This must be a story about me. Maybe I am the person who sows God’s message and I need to keep working at it. I’ll just do what I am supposed to do, I think I’ve got it now”. But that would be wrong.
PRAYER
Lord, help me to be willing to revise my understand of things, of people, of faith.
May I have the grace to understand and forgive where I have been misunderstood.
Sometimes it feels like I miss the point.
I worry about my life, my place in the world, what I have achieved.
I miss the lessons that are there for me to see.
Help me with my tendency to see myself in the middle of things,
to assume guilt or responsibility where it is not truly mine,
to take credit or praise which is not fully deserved.
Make me curious to find out more and determined to grow and learn.
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