All Things Beautiful #4 – Ken Williams

“Volunteers?”

Volunteers help make all things beautiful. Volunteers? Plants that sprout from the ground without a human planting the seed. Such plants are a witness to the truth Jesus declared on the Cross, “it is finished.” After this he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30b) How do volunteers witness Jesus’ victory over evil?

Author, Robert F. Capon writes, “…all the antagonism in the world has already been aced out by Jesus…aced out: finessed, tricked into doing God’s thing when all the while it thought it was doing its own thing.” “Kingdom, Grace, Judgment”, Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus, P70b

He sees this truth in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. Here’s a guy who liberally throws seed (representing the Kingdom or the Word, Jesus himself), some seeds were scattered on a path, some on rocky places, some in weeds, and amazingly some landed on good soil. The Sower appears to be careless by scattering seeds in infertile areas. But what’s with throwing seeds on a road where they are easily eaten by Satan’s birds? Mark 4:1-20 NRSV

The evil one thought he could hinder God in spreading Life on the earth. He sent birds to devour life-giving seeds off the road. Capon explains that the Sower tricked Satan into helping. How? The birds that ate the seeds flew off and pooped the undigested ones wherever they flew. The unintended result is the Word, the Kingdom, is being spread. Sowing seed on the road was not being careless, it was God finessing the devil into helping spread the Word, the Kingdom.

We are reminded 2,000 years after Jesus gave this parable to give due consideration to negative news and ask, “O.K. what does this mean? Jesus defeated all evil on the Cross. Satan is defeated, so why am I allowing him to distract me from Jesus?”

It’s late winter and early spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s cold but the sun is “higher” in the sky, and thanks to the earth tilting on her axis we are receiving more sunshine, and more penetrating warmth. “Sunup” is earlier and “sunset” is later making “longer” days. Some of the snow is melting and the ground is warming.

On a walk I noticed volunteers popping up out of the thawing earth. Some black walnut seedlings have popped up where squirrels stored them for winter but forgot where they hid them. I picked up a discarded shell and marveled that the 120’ tall tree came out of a seed like this. Life is powerful and beautiful! I spotted maple tree volunteers well outside the tree’s radius and recalled the seed was attached to an extension shaped like a helicopter propeller blade. Last fall’s breezes blew through the tree’s beautiful fall-colored leaves and lifted its seeds into the air, landing a distance from the tree.

The location of the maple and black walnut tree volunteers are easily explained but what about the volunteer cherry tomato and squash plants popping up too far from gardens that would explain where they came from? Capon’s interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the Sower of seeds comes to mind; birds feasting, flying and pooping describes the bird’s behavior where we live. They too help spread life and food. But I also consider the aging fall vegetation, their winter death, their radiating life in the spring, and in summer growing strong and bearing fruit. The earth is alive and Life has filled the earth and defeats death.

Nancy and I are elderly, but Life is in us. Galatians 2:19b-20

Stay tuned for “All Things Beautiful – 5

Ken and Nancy Williams served for some 25 years in pastoral ministry, and then almost another 20 years serving and mentoring other pastors.  With the heart of a pastor Ken continues to write and blog from upstate New York where he and Nancy live close to their grandchildren.