You Are God’s Field: How We Grow

Psalm 119:1-8

I Corinthians 3:1-9

This weekend I want to direct your attention to the growth that has happened in your life.  We don't grow all by ourselves.  There are always others in our lives who played some role - large or small.  The Apostle Paul reminds us to be grateful to all the people who have helped us, taught us, mentored us, inspired us, or who have simply modeled for us a compelling way to live. 

 

So let’s take a minute to reflect on some of the ways that others have blessed us, taught us or shared with us, inspired or mentored us.  What value or lesson or gift have we received from our families, perhaps from our parents or grandparents?   Was there an important teacher who helped us at some point in our lives?

So yes, there have been important people in our lives.  Let’s name them and be grateful for them.  Partly this helps us recognize that we didn’t get where we are all by ourselves.  We are the beneficiaries of a thousand acts of kindness and generosity from others.  But this exercise also reminds us how important it is for us to play this role in the lives of others.  If it’s true that our lives grow and mature in large part due to the kindness and generosity of others, then let’s make a commitment today to be that kind of blessing to other people.  How can we make some kind of small contribution to the flourishing of someone else’s life?

So it’s important to be grateful for the important people in our lives.  But Paul also reminds us to recognize that underneath all these identifiable influences in our lives is the hard-to-identify work of God's Spirit in energizing our growth.

"Your life is like a growing, flourishing field," says Paul.  Some have planted seeds in your life.  Others have watered those seeds.  "But God is the one who makes things grow." 

In order for us to pay attention to the work of God’s Spirit in our lives, we will have to learn to see two things at once.  We will have to learn to see our lives as what they are – troubled, limited, conflicted, and flawed.  But at the very same time, we will have to learn to see that these problem areas of our lives do not block the Spirit’s work in our lives.  Quite the opposite, the problems we face and the wounds we suffer are the precise places in our lives where the Spirit hovers, gently healing, tenderly re-weaving what has been torn.

This is good news for us.  It means that we do not have to get our ducks in a row before God will come to us us as the one who heals and blesses.  I do not have to belabor the point that in every area of our lives, we have trouble.  We have trouble globally, from the climate crisis to violent dictators to drug and sex trafficking to trade wars.  We have trouble nationally, from the highest levels of economic inequality in generations, to stagnant wages for the working class, to basic dishonesty at the highest levels of government, to a health care system and a system of higher education that are so expensive that none but the richest benefit.  We have trouble in our local community, with a lack of civility, with a hopelessness that manifests in substance abuse, with uncertainty about health-care and with stressful worries about the future well-being of our place.  There is plenty of trouble in our own families and in our personal lives as well.  We might conclude - given all our troubles - that there is not much else going on in our lives.

Notice that Paul is able to be honest about the struggles of a congregation, yet press beneath that struggle to honor the growth that is also real because of the mysterious presence of God’s Spirit.  Yes, the people in this congregation in Corinth are in conflict with one another.  Yes, they have an ugly habit of bragging about their gifts and strengths.  And yes, they have a pattern of elevating their own little groups as more important and more faithful than other groups in the congregation.  And yes, they are gossiping about the various leaders of the congregation, exaggerating the faults of the leaders they don’t like and likewise exaggerating the positive qualities of their favorite leaders.  So there is trouble.  Their lives together were meant to be a visible expression of the good news of God’s love for us in the crucified Jesus.  But they are such a mess that one can barely see in them any good news at all. 

And yet Paul can say to these selfish, short-sighted, angry and argumentative people: “You are God’s field.  Your life is like a field expertly cared for by a team of attentive farmers.  Some in your life have planted seeds.  Others have watered.  Still others have weeded and cultivated the field.  And so there is rich soil in your life.  And the light of the sun is shining on you.  God’s warmth is embracing your life in a way that causes these good things to grow in you.  And it’s happening right now, in spite of all the other troubles you might be experiencing.

Don’t miss the importance of this teaching: when we experience conflict, setbacks, failure, disappointment, struggle, loss and pain, this does NOT mean that we’re not growing.  This does not mean that nothing good is happening in us, between us, and among us.  And this is true on all the different levels of life we’ve mentioned.  I fear that there may be some of us here this morning who have grown bored, or cynical, or disappointed with our own lives.  Some of us see so much unexciting ordinariness when we reflect on our own experience that we cannot recognize the growth that is happening deep in the soil of our lives.  Some of us are so preoccupied by our weaknesses or mistakes, so focused on the hard things that have come our way and wounded us, that we can’t realize the beautiful, gently unfolding growth that’s happening deep in our lives. 

But let’s back up for a minute and think about whether this good news is really true.  Is it true that God’s Spirit is cultivating a flourishing of goodness in our lives even when our attention is fixed on all that’s wrong?  We live with ourselves every single day.  It might seem odd to hear that something is happening in you without you noticing it.  But now let’s imagine that all of us had the full range of our yearly school pictures here this morning.  I don’t remember every year of my school pictures.  But I remember my second grade year, when my mother finally agreed that I could wear my Miami Dolphins jersey.  And I remember another year when my glasses were completely crooked on my face.  How exhausted must that photographer have been to not even say, “Hey, fix your glasses because they look ridiculous”?  I remember the onset of oil and acne in my teenage pictures. 

But from day to day, from week to week, we can’t “feel” ourselves maturing physically.  We can’t detect the subtle changes that are slowly transforming us from kindergartners all the way through adolescence to our emergence from High School at 18.  We can’t pick out the changes that are occurring because they’re too slow moving and subtle.  But now back out to a wider frame: look at your growth and maturation and physical appearance as it changes across twelve years or so from Kindergarten to High School, and the changes will be unmistakable. 

That same growth dynamic is happening across our entire life-times because of the hidden, out of the way, hard to detect work of God’s Spirit in our lives, in our relationships, in our abilities to cope with loss, grief, and disappointment, and in the development of our gifts.  You cannot see it, because the changes are often so minute, but you are growing with wisdom, kindness, love, compassion and care, forgiveness, wonder, curiosity, and patience.  You are identifying your skills and strengths and using them to serve others.  You are slowly opening the dark, secret places of shame in your life to the gentle, healing work of the Spirit.  You are slowly beginning to realize that you can let go of some of the unrealistic expectations that have shaped your life so far, so that you can get busy living the amazing, wonderful life you actually have.  You are living with less regret and more joy. 

Across the many years of your life, God will help and encourage you by a variety of different leaders, pastors, friends.  And so there is no need to get too caught up about leaders either way either negatively or positively.  On the negative side, no single leader, pastor, teacher, mentor has the power to block you from flourishing.  (If you have ever been harmed or violated or betrayed by a parent, a pastor, or some other authority figure, I do not here mean to minimize the damage that can cause nor the pain you have experienced.  I am only wanting to say that no leader is powerful enough to block what God is doing in you.) 

And the same is true on the positive side, no leader is so important that you couldn’t grow without them.  Leaders aren’t magic.  Leaders can’t create in your something that isn’t already there in your life.  And a leader can’t do the work that only you can do.  Often we are tempted to project our own negativity and anger on our leaders so that we can avoid taking responsibility for the difficult work we ourselves are called to do.

There are other images of growth in today’s reading.  Paul also likens us to babies who grow and to buildings that are beautifully designed.  But I have drawn your attention to the image of your life as God’s field; to our lives, together, as God’s field.  Just look around in amazement and wonder, at all the beautiful things that are growing.  And we do not even see as of yet, what is still just beneath the surface of the soil, waiting to push up through the crust to reach for the sun’s warmth.