“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
This text is packed with meaning, wisdom. But concentrate on the lilies. Consider the Lilies. This doesn’t mean “think” about Lilies, but meditate on them. And we will also listen to others who have considered the Lilies.
25 years ago I went home for a weekend visit with Mom and Dad. Saturday morning I joined my father at a church men’s breakfast at a local diner. One of the men in the church was giving a special talk. He had a PhD in agriculture and was a consultant for many nations on seed germination. Of course he drew a crowd. This was Atwater.
A good percentage of the men in our church owned farms, growing almonds, apricots, peaches, whatever they threw in the ground, it grew. These men knew seed. I was a pastor, what did I know about seed. I only went to spend time with Dad, say hello to men I’d known since childhood, and get a good greasy breakfast. I was not looking forward to the seed talk. It brought back memories of my college graduation ceremony. The governor of Indiana, talked about seed. Not as a metaphor, as in going out into the world and bearing fruit. No, he thought he was speaking at an Agricultural college, not a liberal arts Christian college. We were bored to tears. I was not looking forward to another seed talk.
The seed expert rose to his feet and in a monotone voice read John 12:24-25.
Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
At that point I felt like I was dying. I turned to the waitress and begged for more coffee.
Then the seed expert said, “I think Jesus got it wrong about the seed dying.” He proceeded then, in a spellbinding monotone voice, to unravel the inherent wisdom in seeds. Seeds have a fine-tuned evolutionary wisdom. They will not germinate unless there is the right amount of water and nutrients in the soil to sustain life. Each seed has a protective coating which is washed off only by the right amount of water and nutrients. If there isn’t enough, the seed will not germinate, it waits, sometimes years to germinate. The seed expert said, “Seeds don’t die. They let go of their protective coating. When they have what they need, the protective coating is allowed to be washed off, and the life within emerges.”
It’s the letting go of the protective coating that feels like dying. But only when we let the protective coating go will we trust God’s life within us, the life that is written on our hearts. The water which washes off that protective coating is God’s love, the acceptance and love of one another, and the trust that we are God’s Beloved. The meaning of baptism has expanded for me because of that seed talk.
Baptism is a symbolic washing in water. A washing that is like enough rain that washes away the protective coating, telling us, this love of God is enough for us to grow into. We can risk. Baptism symbolizes the many ways we will be washed with God’s love over and over that will help us let go of the protective covering of our egos and trust the life of God within to emerge and bear fruit.
There is a seed of God’s life in you, me. There is a longing for it to grow. There are fears around living into it. The seed’s own wisdom of having a protective coating is for good reason: it won’t thrive unless it has what it needs. So it will wait. But we must let the protective coating be washed off and risk emerging, facing the fears, and living fully.
Po Bronson’s book, What Should I Do with My Life? is a compilation of a thousand interviews with people about their life. He has unearthed much of the same wisdom as the seed expert – which says to me that God operates in our lives whether we acknowledge God or not – the wisdom is still there.
Po asked others to name their limiting beliefs, internal blocks, their own self-constraints. One woman said she wasn’t smart and couldn’t learn. A man said he could never ask for help – he had to fix everything. Another said her limiting belief was she never had enough money. Po asked himself the same question and this is what he discovered:
(A story of limiting fears: The story of Tim the Shopkeeper from Parker Palmer’s A Hidden Wholeness. Read from top of 67-middle of 68 or tell it.)
Here’s one way spiritual growth can look like. It is when you and I are, as Po writes, “closer to finding that spot where we no longer hold back our heart, and we explode with talent, and our character blossoms, and the gift we have to offer the world is apparent.” This is a picture of the seed that “dies” and bears fruit.
David Steindl-Rast wrote one of the most profound lines I’ve come across: “The antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest. It is wholeheartedness.” I have not talked about exhaustion, but the “toil and spin” of Matthew 6 comes from worry and anxiety, and leads to exhaustion. We become tired when we live out of fear, out of worry, out of limiting beliefs, that have wrapped our seed, our soul, in an overly protective coating.
Part of that protective coating is vital and has lots of wisdom. It will wait for the right amount of love, acceptance, and nurture. But part of that coating is a layer of protection we’ve put up because of limiting beliefs. It keeps us from spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is a life lived more fully from the heart, from the soul.
Listen to this poem by Mary Oliver: The Lilies Break Open Over the Dark Water, (p. 40 in House of Light.)
Inside that mud-hive, that gas sponge, That reeking leaf yard, that rippling Dream-bowl, the leeches’ flecked and swirling, Broth of life, as rich as Babylon, The fists crack open and the wands of the lilies Quicken, they rise Like pale poles, with their wrapped beaks of lace; One day, they tear the surface, The next they break open, over the dark water. And there you are, on the shore, Fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea – Some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild – they are devoid of meaning, The are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, What they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.
She points to the life of God that is in us, and when we get out of the way, it comes to life.
One of the most pervasive limiting beliefs we face is The Parasite of Perfectionism. Gerald May in his book, The Awakened Heart, makes an important distinction between love and efficiency, which is another way of saying perfection. Our culture, loves efficiency. It has its place. But spiritual growth is not about efficiency. It’s always about love.
He writes a little sentence that gets at the way we often go about efficiently growing in Spirit: “Just show me what to do, God, then I will go out and do a good job for you.” In other words, just show me the practices, the prayers, the actions, and then I’ll do the growing. But the more important love questions are: “What draws me? What calls to me? What is my deepest desire? What/Who is stirring my spirit and making me feel most alive? What is God growing in me?” Living these questions, leads to spiritual growth.
Thomas Merton, the 20th century monk wrote, “Love is not a problem, not an answer to a question. Love knows no question. It is the ground of all, and the questions arise only insofar as we are divided, absent, estranged, alienated from that ground.” Thomas Merton offers this prayer that makes room for our imperfections:
O Lord God, I have no idea where I am going, I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you, and I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire to please you. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to make my journey alone.
You and me, whether we believe or not, not only are we God’s Beloved, we have God’s life in us. And when there is enough love around us, when we let go of blocks, limiting beliefs, and fears, we will come to life, we will grow spiritually. The process of washing away, letting go of the protective coating, may feel like dying, but it reveals the beauty of the life God has put in each one of us. What will we do with it?
Listen to this poem by Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”.
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean – The one who has flung herself out of the grass, The one who is eating sugar out of my hand, Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down – Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down Into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, How to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, Which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?
Your wild and precious life is a gift from God. Washed in God’s grace and acceptance, our protective fears let go of, we will learn what to do with it, one day at a time. We don’t fall into the ground and die, we let go of our protective coating, and come to life.
Consider the Lilies one more time. “The Ponds”, p. 58 in House of Light, Mary Oliver.
Every year the lilies are so perfect I can hardly believe Their lapped light crowding the black, mid-summer ponds, nobody could count all of them - the muskrats swimming among the pads and the grasses can reach out their muscular arms and touch only so many, they are that rife and wild. But what in this world is perfect? I bend closer and see how this one is clearly lopsided – And that one wears an orange blight – and this one is a glossy cheek Half nibbled away – and that one is a slumped purse Full of its own unstoppable decay. Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled – To cast aside the weight of facts And maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking Into the white fire of a great mystery I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing – That the light is everything – that it is more than the sum Of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
Amen.
