Powerful Seeds
Mark 4:26-34, The Rev. Dr. Dale G. Tremper
We never quite know what will result from the care that we show for one another. Sometimes, even the predictably unreliable conditions of our lives actually lead to something lasting and important.
Glenn and his girlfriend were a devastatingly beautiful couple. They could have been models, although they were both young professionals. They stood out, even in a large crowd of attractive people. I got to know them rather well as an Associate Pastor. One of my jobs was to serve communion in a little chapel down the hall after the last Sunday morning worship service. Glenn and his girlfriend were there every Sunday, kneeling together to receive God’s presence in their lives. No matter who else was in the room, it was obvious in their eyes how fixated they were on one another. It was also obvious that he was at church because she wanted to be there; he was going to be wherever she was, as often as possible.
You could almost see the neurotransmitter dopamine flowing in both of their brains. Dopamine has been called the “natural cocaine” of brain chemicals. It is the reason that humans feel the way we do when we are in the condition called “falling in love”, which generally tends to wear off after about 18 months in a new relationship.
But there was something more than dopamine going on inside Glenn. Several months after they began coming together, Glenn stepped up and joined a small group, called a Covenant Discipleship Group, which is a group of no more than a dozen people who meet together for an hour each week to encourage one another in living a deeper, more honest and fulfilling life with Christ in the world. I was blessed to be in the group that Glenn joined. His spiritual growth and honesty were an inspiration to us all.
A few months after he joined our group, Glenn got our attention by disclosing to us that the FBI had been meeting with him for quite a few weeks. Glenn told our group that his name and the name of the commodities company for which he worked would soon be in the news. Glenn had been hired by that company for the sole purpose of dealing cocaine to high-powered young traders who worked there. Glenn had already agreed to a plea bargain; he knew that he would be going to prison. The FBI was talking with him to learn more about the “criminal enterprise” that he was part of in the middle 1980s.
Sure enough, a few weeks later, Glenn’s name hit the front page of the newspaper in Little Rock, as the case came to trial. In that process, Glenn admitted to our group that while he had never been a cocaine addict, he had been a closeted alcoholic for a long time. In addition to our group, he found an AA group and a sponsor. Glenn continued in his spiritual growth and in his sobriety all through the trial and throughout the next three years of his life in prison and up until today. His girlfriend, understandably, left him and left the church as the story came out.
I have Good News for you today: Often our awkward, uncoordinated, random attempts at caring for others can produce life-changing miracles, by God’s grace.
Let’s face it: most of the time we grope our way through life, having very little idea what may come next. We know that we would like to make a difference in the world, or at least in somebody’s life, but so often we are so afraid of screwing up that we keep to ourselves, wasting our time, accomplishing nothing, wondering why our lives seem so empty.
God provides us with a way of living with real depth, real growth, real change. Jesus called the Way “the reign of God” or “the kingdom of God”. He taught this Way in parables, like the parables in Mark, chapter 4, mostly having to do with seeds and growth. Actually, in the brief passage we have read today, there are two short parables. The first one features a farmer. The main point seems to be that the farmer doesn’t have to understand the DNA of seeds in order to throw them into the ground and later bring in a harvest. Of course, we know and Jesus knew that for seed to grow would also require fertile soil, moisture and sunshine. The second parable is also very simple: one little seed, planted in the ground, can produce a huge plant in one season. Look at what one little mustard seed can accomplish! We might just as easily look at a pine nut that over several years can become a huge lodge pole pine.
Ian Morgan Cron was a brilliant young man, raised by an equally brilliant but brutally alcoholic father. Ian struggled after his father’s death, in spite of the success in his life. His struggle took the form of frequent panic attacks, part of what Ian referred to as “rapid-onset madness”. He had the good sense to go see his family physician, who said, “Ian, I can see that you need help that I can’t give you. I would like to refer you to a good friend from my church, a clinical psychologist named Dan.”
With some faint hope, Ian began to meet regularly with Dan. Over several months, they built trust with one another, but disturbing symptoms continued. Dan mentioned to Ian that his referring physician had revealed that Ian’s liver was enlarged and that Ian was an alcoholic. Reacting angrily and defensively, Ian asked what right the doctor had to say such things. Dan calmly informed him that Ian had signed a release form, giving the doctor permission to communicate whatever information he deemed relevant.
Calming down a little, Ian responded, “I don’t drink as much as my father did.” Dan retorted, “So, is that your benchmark?” Later, Ian admitted, “Dan, I love getting high.” He went on to explain that he had given up on his illicit drug use, admitting that he had limited his intake to alcohol, fearing that if anyone knew that he was using drugs, his career in youth ministry would come to an abrupt end.
Ian recalls the exchange that happened next: Dan put his legal pad and pencil on the antique side table next to his chair. “I won’t see you again until you stop drinking,” he said.
I sat back down on the couch. “Why?”
“Three reasons,” he said. He held up a finger to enumerate each. “First, you’re an alcoholic. Second, you’re an alcoholic. Third, you’re an alcoholic.”
The first time he said it was the knife going into my abdomen. The next time twisted the knife. The last time was the upward thrust to ensure that my survival was impossible.
I leaned forward. “That’s crap,” I said. “Do you have any idea what a real alcoholic looks like?”
He didn’t blink. “I’m a recovering alcoholic,” he said. “I’ll have thirty years of sobriety next year.”
“You go to AA? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The second word in AA is Anonymous, Ian. I don’t tell people I’m in recovery unless I feel it will help them get sober as well.”
I fell against the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling. I was pinned. There was only one way out. I sat forward again. “Maybe we could use a break,” I said.
I had expected Dan to back down or ask me to reconsider. Instead, he stood and extended his hand before I had time to get up. “Call when you’re ready to see me again,” he said.
As I walked down the hall, I heard him close the door to his office behind me. The sound reverberated down the hallway. Taking a break is a good idea, I thought. I rolled my shoulders like a defiant boxer readying himself to get back into the ring.
My heart skipped a beat as I realized I was now fighting alone.
(Cron, Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir of Sorts, Nelson, 2011, pp. 204-5)
It took a thoroughly humiliating blackout experience during and after a family New Year’s Eve celebration before Ian went back to see Dan and received the help he needed. Ian returned because Dan had planted the seeds of respect, honesty and deep listening in Ian’s heart. I have learned this week that some of the most powerful words we can utter can come in the form of a question: “Do you want to talk about it?”
This is not a sermon “about” drug addiction or alcoholism. It is about the seeds of caring for ourselves and others that God plants inside us. We are not all the same. The seeds of faith and effective living are planted in us in different ways, according to our needs, personalities and life experiences. We put ourselves down when we compare ourselves to the brilliant, exceptional, one-of-a-kind people we may have met or read about or seen on television.
David Galenson and Malcolm Gladwell remind us of “Young Geniuses” we have heard about. Anybody with a musical background knows a little bit about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. When he was three years of age, he was paying attention while his father gave a music lesson to his seven year old sister on the clavichord. He paid such careful attention that he began playing the instrument himself. By the time he was five, Mozart was composing his own music. By the time he was seven, he and his sister began traveling all across Europe, performing young Wolfgang’s original compositions. Their father gave up the composing that he had previously done in order to advance the career of his brilliant child. While Mozart only lived until age 35, an abundance of ethereal music poured out of him. It is as if he popped out of the womb with greatness from his first breath.
Pablo Picasso painted “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” at age 26. This painting has been judged by many art critics as the greatest painting of the past 100 years. While he lived to be 92 years old, none of his other paintings would ever rival his great early work. Einstein wrote his first theory of relativity at age 26.
Do you remember the name Maya Lin? She won a national competition to design the Vietnam War Memorial at age 23 and has rarely been heard from since then. And that is the interesting thing about Young Geniuses: they rarely repeat the brilliance that burst out of them at the beginning.
Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird at age 34, a brilliant novel that revealed the racial injustice in the Southern criminal justice system, and, as we see now, in the entire American justice system even up to today. Although she is now 88 years old and a semi-invalid, the world has heard very little from her since Mockingbird. In the past several months we have learned that a man going through her papers has discovered another novel that she wrote before Mockingbird that is due to be released next month!
But Young Geniuses are not the only people doing creative work. Paul Cezanne is an example of the type of artist that has been called an “Old Master”. His creative process was characterized by sweat, anguish and constant revision. Gladwell writes, “He (Cezanne) would paint a scene, then repaint it, then paint it again. He was notorious for slashing his canvases to pieces in fits of frustration.” But as Old Masters keep working, they keep learning from teachers and mentors in their lives. They keep on practicing their craft and getting better at it.
Gladwell is the one who has proposed that it generally takes 10,000 hours of concentrated work before most humans become adept at what we are called to accomplish in life.
Most of us will never have the opportunity to become a Young Genius. But we do have the chance to become Old Masters at something that we care enough to practice. Most people have heard the old story about the young woman with the violin case who entered a cab in New York City, asking the driver, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The driver wisely responded, “Practice, practice, practice.”
I want to take you back to where we started and where Jesus started with us. Jesus taught us that the revolutionary Reign of God almost always happens beyond our wildest expectations. As we allow the seeds of new life to be planted in us, as we allow them to gestate and to grow, in the fullness of time, they produce an abundant harvest, in ourselves, in others that we have the privilege to care about and in the church that we love. Let those powerful seeds grow in you. Prepare your hearts to produce the life-changing miracles of God’s grace!
Sources:
Len Wilson, Think Like a 5-Year-Old: Reclaim Your Wonder and Create Great Things, Abingdon, 2015.
Rob Moll, What Your Body Knows About God: How We are Designed to Connect, Serve and Thrive, Intervarsity Press, 2014.
Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw, Back Bay Books, 2009.