Reaping

Author/speaker Christopher Ash asks, “What are we to make of the Bible’s passages that seem to speak quite straightforwardly of blessings following obedience and curses following apostasy?” Ash urges that a distinction be made between the general truth of such sayings and absolute “every case” truth. He offers the following illustration:

Suppose an earthquake struck a well-planned place like Manhattan, with its clear and ordered grid of streets. If I wanted to go from A to B after the earthquake, I would in general still be best advised to go by the main roads. But whereas before the earthquake that would always be the best route, now I might find both that the main road has been blocked and also that some building has collapsed to open up some unplanned route.

It is a little like this with the created order after the disruption of the fall of humankind. In general, keeping God’s commandments and living in line with the created order will bring peace and prosperity. In general, for example, if I am honest and work hard, I will do better. But not always. And the final proof that righteousness pays will not come until the final judgment, when the disruption will be put right and the creation reordered as it ought to be.

The Dutch Defense Safety Inspection Agency launched an investigation about an F-16 fighter that suffered damage from 20-millimeter cannon fire during a routine training exercise. The problem? The damage came from its own cannons.

The aircraft is equipped with a Vulcan Gatling gun, which can fire over 6,000 rounds a minute. Those rounds travel at a muzzle velocity of 3,450 feet per second. But the aircraft is capable of flying much faster. So what appears to have happened is that, after a burst of rounds were fired from the aircraft, the pilot accelerated and collided with those rounds while still in mid-air. At least one of them struck the side of the F-16’s fuselage, and parts of a round were ingested by the aircraft’s engine. The F-16’s pilot managed to land the aircraft safely at Leeuwarden Air Base.

Potential Preaching Angles: God’s Word promises that we will reap what we sow. Be careful and just in your actions, lest the consequences become your own downfall.

Pasquale di Filippo was horrified recently by the violence his daughter was exposed to on television—violence he was partially responsible for.

The Rai TV network had recently aired an episode of their Sicilian mob drama Il Cacciatore (The Hunter), in which a character depicted his past as a mafioso. As part of a deal Filippo made with police to become an informant, Pasquale had previously admitted to four different murders, and had previously served 10 years behind bars. Since becoming a police informant, Pasquale had since entered the witness protection program, and had built a family with a different identity.

Understandably, all of that was news to his 14-year-old daughter, who hadn’t been around during that tumultuous time. According to his interview with local news service La Republica, Pasquale’s daughter shouted him, “Dad, what have you done?!” She has since retreated to her room, leaving only to go to school.

Subsequently, Pasquale sued the network, claiming defamation. He is seeking a million euros (about $1.1 million) in damages.

Potential Preaching Angles: Ultimately, darkness will not shield us against the truth. In God’s kingdom, the truth always finds its way into the light. It’s better to be honest with our children about our mistakes than to hide them and hope our kids don’t find out. Often, kids are too smart for that strategy to work.

A hunter was hospitalized after a goose fell from midair and landed on him.

Robert Meilhammer, 51, was out hunting with three others when his party noticed a flock of Canada geese flying overhead. From a blind, one of the members of the group fired a shot that struck one of the birds. In a burst of tragic irony, the trajectory of the plummeting goose aligned perfectly with Meilhammer's location, striking him directly. The impact left injuries to his face and head, including the loss of two teeth.

It was a "really unusual, freaky accident," according to Maryland Natural Resources Police spokeswoman Candy Thomson, who said the goose was approximately the size of a small turkey. "He's lucky," she added. "Those birds weigh a lot, and falling back down to earth, they're going to pick up a lot of speed. It's gonna leave a mark."

Obviously, hunting accidents like these are no better for the hunter than they are for the goose. Sources are unclear, however, as to how good they may be for the gander.

Potential preaching angles: Be careful what you ask for, you might just get it. You reap what you sow. Those who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Author Rosaria Butterfield says that being born with a sin nature is a little bit like inheriting a garden. In a radio interview Butterfield put it this way:

Let's say that you inherited an enchanting garden. And for 10 years, you just let it thrive. You let it do anything it wanted. You never pruned back the weeds. You never got rid of the pests. You never worked with the roses. You just let it quote-unquote "thrive."

And after 10 years, what is it? It's a disaster. It might even be way past the point of no return. And you go to a master gardener and you say, "Hey, this is not fair. I want my money back. I just did everything I could to let this garden thrive. I let it do exactly what it wanted." You know, the master gardener's going to laugh at you and say, "Buddy, gardens come with weeds! It's part of its nature and by failing to deal with that, you destroyed it."

Can we be guilty for sinful responses that seem to erupt in us automatically? Can we really consider sin voluntary if it is not consciously chosen? Consider the following illustration of how unintentional sin works:

Trained instincts—that's how fighter pilots can react immediately to rapidly changing situations as they operate multi-million dollar war machines. When a threat aircraft is closing in, there's no time for pilots to reason through what to do. They have to rely on instinct—but not just natural instinct. They need instincts shaped deep within then through years of regiment. The countless little decisions they make in the cockpit are automatic, but that doesn't mean they're involuntary. The pilot voluntarily trained for them, and in the cockpit he reaps the instinctive benefits of that training.

Like the fighter pilot's hours of training, our hearts are under a regimen of beliefs and values that don't align with Scripture, drilled into us through what we put in our heads, what we receive as wisdom from other sources, what we accept as normal from culture. All of these shape our unintentional sin.

Dorothy Sayers, the mystery writer, was also a devoted Christian. Dorothy Sayers was attempting to explain the moral law of God. She pointed out that in our society there are two kinds of laws. There is the law of the stop sign, and there's the law of the fire. The law of the stop sign is a law that says the traffic is heavy on a certain street, and as a result the police department or the city council decides to erect a stop sign. They also decide that if you run that stop sign, it will cost you $25 or $30 or $35. If the traffic changes, they can up the ante. That is if too many people are running the stop sign, they can make the fine $50 or $75, or if they build a highway around the city, they can take the stop sign down, or reduce the penalty, making it only $10 if you go through. The police department or city council controls the law of the stop sign.

But then she said there is also the law of the fire. And the law of the fire says if you put your hand in the fire, you'll get burned. Now imagine that all of the legislatures of all the nations of the entire world gathered in one great assembly, and they voted unanimously that here on out that fire would no longer burn. The first man or woman who left that assembly and put his or her hand in the fire would discover that the law of the fire is different than the law of the stop sign. Bound up in the nature of fire itself is the penalty for abusing it.

So, Dorothy Sayers says, the moral law of God is like the law of the fire. You never break God's laws; you just break yourself on them. God can't reduce the penalty, because the penalty for breaking the law is bound up in the law itself.

In a sermon John Ortberg once reflected on one of the greatest enemies of the human spirit. Though the sermon is close to three years old, it lays out a worthy goal for 2010. Ortberg writes:

For many years, Max Depree was the CEO of an innovative Fortune 500 company called Herman Miller. Depree has written classic books on leadership and anchored the board of trustees at Fuller Seminary for 40 years. Max is asked to speak a lot about leadership, and at one session somebody asked him what the most difficult thing was that he personally had to work on. This was Max's response: "It's the interception of entropy."

Entropy is a term from physics that has something to do with the second law of thermodynamics and the availability of energy. It speaks to the fact that the universe is winding down. It's the idea that everything that is left to itself has a tendency to deteriorate.

Entropy. It's not only one of the great enemies of the universe; it's one of the great enemies of the human spirit. A person becomes apathetic or complacent or settles for the path of least resistance in some area of life. Dreams die and hopes fade. A terrible thing happens: a person learns they can live with mediocrity.

Entropy is a great enemy of the human spirit, so the writers of the Book of Proverbs have a lot to say about it. One thing they say is that the wise person is always on the lookout for early signs that entropy is setting in. Proverbs 27:23-24 shows us the picture of someone who has livestock and how they need to monitor its condition. Though the words speak of livestock, they are true in any area of life: "Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations." Everyday you have to be on the lookout for entropy. Though things might have been okay yesterday, that doesn't mean they stay okay forever. Put any important area of your life on autopilot, and risk entropy that is both subtle and destructive.

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things.

—Bruce Barton, U.S. writer and politician (1886-1967)

If you were doomed to live the same life over and over again for eternity, would you choose the life you are living now? The question is interesting enough, but I've always thought the point of asking it is really the unspoken, potentially devastating follow-up question. That is, if the answer is no, then why are you living the life you are living now? Stop making excuses, and do something about it.

In a sermon, John Ortberg said:

A little while ago, my wife kidnapped me and took me to Napa Valley for a romantic, overnight getaway for just the two of us. I had never been to Napa Valley before. It's lovely. What struck me as I was going past the vineyards was all of the thought and action that went into the rows of vines. A fruitful, productive vineyard is a thing of beauty. But here's the thing about vineyards: they don't just happen by themselves. Vineyards don't just spring up by accident. Someone is behind them.

The writer of Proverbs 24:30–34 says: I was going past a vineyard, and it was a mess. There were thorns all over the place, the grounds were covered with weeds, and the walls were falling down.

To understand the angst behind this proverb … you have to understand that in the ancient Middle East, a piece of land capable of growing crops was one of the most valuable things in the world. To be the owner of a vineyard was to be blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime. …

Everybody gets a vineyard. When you were born, you got a vineyard. You got your body, your mind, your will, and some relationships. You got financial resources and the chance to do some good work. You got a soul. Everybody gets a vineyard, and that vineyard is your one and only shot on this planet. It's the opportunity of a lifetime, and you don't even have to care for it on your own. God will partner with you.

Nonetheless, God never forces anybody to take action and care for their vineyard. The writer of this Proverb says, "I was walking past a vineyard, and I thought of what it might have been." He sees that the vineyard could have been a thing of beauty. It could have been a source of pride, joy, and income to the owner. It could have been a blessing to everybody around it, because in ancient cultures, a place that grew things that people could eat or drink from was a blessing to everybody. But the vineyard the writer observed wasn't any of those things. It fell tragically short of what it might have been. The writer wonders why: Was there some catastrophe? Was there a drought, flood, fire, or some other disaster? No. It was just sheer negligence on the part of the owner of the vineyard. He had no idea what he had. He was throwing away the opportunity of a lifetime. That's the strange power of entropy. It's not even a thing. It's sheer neglect, and people throw their lives away because of it everyday. …

People have these fantasies: I want the perfect marriage, I want the perfect circle of friends, I want the perfect career and the perfect education; if I can't have that, then I won't do anything. The writer of Proverbs says we must start with reality. Work the land that is your land—your body, your life, your relationships, your work—because that vineyard is all you have. If it's ever going to be different, it won't be because the vineyard fairy comes and sprinkles fairy dust on it. It will be because you asked God to help you. It will be because you've asked him, "What's the next step that you want me to take?"

As tedious and tiresome as it can be, there's something soothing about the sound and smell of leaves as you rake, and something satisfying about seeing them all bundled up when you're done.

What is it about raking leaves that's so satisfying? It has to do with the harvest. Human beings have a primal urge to sow and reap, to gather a crop, to bundle the fruits of their labor. To a farmer, the harvest represents a year's worth of planting and tending, of watching and waiting and wondering. When the last sheaf is bundled and the storehouse is full, the farmer feels a sense of satisfaction and gratitude.

Most of us are not farmers, so raking leaves is about as close as we'll come to bringing a harvest home. But the satisfaction we find in gathering that weightless, worthless crop is an expression of our God-given longing to do something with our lives: to sow and reap a harvest of significance. When we come to the end of a year, or to the end of our lives, we want to have something to show for our efforts. We want to gather the fruits of our labor, and we hope for an abundant harvest.

How can we manage our resources in a way that yields an abundant harvest? According to Paul, the answer is to give generously. Paul writes in verse 6, "Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously." That seems to have been a popular saying of Paul's day. Something like today's "what goes around comes around." But Paul takes it to a new level of meaning.

It's often called the law of the harvest: you reap what you sow. If you sow barley, you reap barley. You'd have to be pretty foolish to sow barley and expect wheat. Not only that, but the more you sow, the more you reap. If you sow 10 acres of barley in the springtime, you can expect 10 acres worth of barley at harvest time. But don't expect a harvest of 40 acres if you only sowed 10. It doesn't work that way. The more you scatter, the more you gather. Paul applies that simple principle to finances: the more you give, the more you gather. In the same way that a farmer who sows generously reaps generously, a person who gives generously is blessed generously. Put another way, the more generously we give, the more abundantly God provides.

Several years after inventing radar, Sir Robert Watson-Watt was arrested in Canada for speeding. He'd been caught in a radar trap. He wrote this poem:

Pity Sir Robert Watson-Watt,
strange target of his radar plot,
and this, with others I could mention,
a victim of his own invention.