Jesus now called the Twelve and gave them authority and power to deal with all the demons and cure diseases. He commissioned them to preach the news of God’s kingdom and heal the sick. He said, “Don’t load yourselves up with equipment. Keep it simple; you are the equipment.” The Message Luke 9:1-3,
When I was nine, the most adventurous place I knew was my grandparents’ cow barn. My cousins and I played hide-and-seek in the haymow, carefully avoiding the terrifying trapdoors. We caught mice in the silo; the one who caught the most would win. Or we would force the kittens into doll clothes and make them play house with us. In the end, their mewling impelled us to free them of their straitjackets.
One day we found a room we’d never seen before. There was a ladder nailed to a sturdy wall. We ventured up and looked over the edge. Oats! I remember the smell of them, the fuzziness their dust gave in the sunbeams from the loft window. We climbed into them, invading the loft with our laughter and rustling. We created new games there, hiding a softball in the oat mountain to see if someone could find it. As I lay very still, my cousins covered all but my face. The oats swaddled me in a prenatal warmth and coziness.
When we heard the dinner bell, we ran to the sunporch, yanked off our shoes, shook the oats out of them, and slapped away the chaff. Grandpa had seen us coming up the sidewalk and had figured where we had been. “Kids,” he said, with warning in his voice, “the oats you found are my seed oats. They are not for playing! They are for planting!” He was a man who rarely got angry-I still remember his face.
“A sower went our to sow.’ Some of us would rather stay in the coziness of the seed barn than go out into the field. There is no risk that our seed will be eaten by birds, scorched by hot wind, or strangled by thistles. But the seeds of the kingdom of heaven, the gospel of our Lord, the gifts of grace gathered inside the walls of the church are not meant to stay inside those walls. They are meant for planting.
Our geographic locations, relationships, job opportunities, prayer lives, and leadership roles are all means of readying the soil for planting. Yes, we will encounter hard ground and harder hearts, dry ground and drier spirits, tenacious weeds and rapacious birds. But sowers go our to sow. Planting with best efforts, freely, fully, investing the precious seed for future growth, is where the gospel adventure starts.
Mary C. Miller
Reflection
Where have I sown even a tiny seed of the gospel today?
Prayer
Jesus, forgive me for hoarding such a treasure, and help me to go out and sow joyfully and energetically, trusting that your Spirit will do the rest.
“There is a subtle false teaching that says we can be evangelical without being evangelistic. It has us believe we ‘go’ to church rather than we ‘are’ the church.”
—Chris A. Lyons, pastor
