Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever
a man sows, that he will also reap. (Galatians 6: 7)
The Bible says that we reap what we sow. That’s
true, but that’s not ALL.
Paul and Jesus talked about sowing and reaping with a kind of it’s-common-doggone-sense
assumption that their listeners (us) would understand that sowing and reaping
includes the process of TENDING.
But common sense
ain’t all that common, is it?
We forget that we
reap WHAT we sow, but ONLY if we TEND
what we sow.
Paul said, “ I
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who
plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
Now
he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own
reward according to his own labor. (1 Corinthians 3: 6-8)
The reward, the
“reaping,” comes from God, but that reward is based on not only the labor of planting (sowing), but also on the
labor of watering (tending).
We reap WHAT we sow, but only if we TEND what we sow.
Mathew chapter 13
records Jesus’ famous Parable of the Sower.
This is the story where a farmer’s seed falls on different types of
ground, representing the different mentalities in which people hear and respond
to God’s Word.
Our favorite line
from the Parable of the Sower is “Others fell on good ground and yielded a
crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Mathew 13: 8)
We remember that and
shout, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” (verse 9)
But we’re supposed
to hear more than that one line.
We’re supposed to
hear that some of the seed, sown by the same Sower ---- died and produced
NOTHING.
Where the farmer
didn't put up a working scarecrow, the birds ate up his seed; and the seed
produced nothing for him to reap. (Mathew 13: 4)
Where the farmer had
not added supplemental top soil, the fresh shoots died from lack of depth and
yielded nothing for him to reap. (verse 5)
Where the farmer had
not arranged for sufficient shade despite knowing well the climate in which he
farmed, his new plants did not survive; and from those plants he reaped
zerofold. (verse 6)
Where the farmer had
done a poor job of clearing thorns before sowing time, and didn’t then follow
up by aggressively clearing the weeds during the growing season, the fresh
shoots died; and the farmer reaped NOTHING from what he had sown. (verse 7)
The good soil that
yielded thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold wasn’t good just because the soil was
rich. The scorched soil was equally
rich, but the farmer didn’t reap there.
The thorny soil was great for growing (just ask the weeds), but the
farmer didn’t reap from that space.
The good soil was
good because it was in an area that the farmer diligently tended in the time
between sowing and reaping.
We reap what we
sow, but only if we tend what we have
sown.
That ought to be
common theological sense. But clearly
theological sense isn’t that common.
We have propagandized and commercialized the “Law of Sowing and Reaping” to the
point that Christians actually think that they can drop money on a patch of
carpet in a church or in a little basket, call their money “a financial seed”
and then reap a return without tending to the thorns of sin and distraction in
their lives, or addressing the shallowness of their spiritual practices, or
spending time in the shade of a genuine relationship with God, or changing the
company of scavengers in which they still socialize.
We expect to reap
after sowing and without doing anything else.
And it just doesn’t
work that way.
If you aren’t seeing
the great harvest you expect from what you ”sowed” on Sunday, then perhaps you
should give more attention to how you are (or are not) tending to your life
between worship services.
You reap what you
sow, when you tend what you have sown.
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T.
Graves II is pastor of
Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of
the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization
(SAYNO) and director of rural leadership
development for the National Institute for Human Development (
NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
You can help support
this ministry by clicking the
DONATE button on the right-hand sidebar.
Support by check or
money order may be mailed to
Hall Memorial CME
Church
541 Seibles Road
Montgomery, AL 36116
