Word to the Wise
Saturday, September 20, 2008 - St. Andrew Kim, St. Paul Chong Hasang et al. Korean Martyrs
[1 Corinthians 15:35-37 and Luke 8:4-15]What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind. (Paul) The seed is the word of God. Those on the path are the ones who have heard.......(Jesus' parable in Luke)
As someone who gardens for a hobby, I have a strong preference for growing things from seed and not buying plants already started in a nursery. One reason for that is that I am continually amazed at the transformation of the tiny yellow seed into the full grown Kung-pao or Cayenne pepper plant and bright red hot peppers, or the tiny black seed into the aromatic Basil or Rosemary herbs, or into the colorful spreading Petunia plant (believe me, Petunia seed is very small!). Great and beautiful things come from such small and seemingly insignificant seeds. The fascination with the process has been going on for as long as humans have realized the possibility of growing things by collecting seed and planting it. The seed-to-plant-to-fruit-to-more-seed process lends itself as a metaphor to the imagination. Both scriptures today refer to the process. Saint Paul is trying to respond to fanciful questions about what the human person's "resurrection body" will be like. After all, some Christians were being torn apart by lions, or burnt and the ashes scattered. How will God bring it all together? St. Paul responds that we just know there will BE a body but we don't know what it will be like. He uses the seed/plant image as a way of imaging the transformation. The seed and plant don't resemble one another at all and yet they are a unity! Jesus' use of the metaphor is in response to the apostles' concern about why people differ in their response to the preaching. Some don't accept it. Some accept it but do not persevere. Some manage to form fruit but get distracted and the fruit never ripens. Then there are those who receive the seed, sprout, grow and bear fruit. Any preacher has to be aware of the "mixed results" just as a gardener knows that not all the seed will grow or flower. In any case, the seeds and the subsequent plants preach to me about the same things that St. Paul and Jesus are trying to say. As a preacher myself, I guess I do some watering and weeding and pruning (and hope somebody will do the same for me on occasion!) AMEN
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