Daily Readings, August 10, 2004

Today's Readings

Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly. In many ways, this is a statement about stinginess and greed, and that is certainly a valid and appropriate interpretation for this reading. A couple Sundays ago, the Gospel was about a man who built a new barn so he could store away more than what he needed for himself...then died. He did not benefit from his hoarding and neither did anyone else.

But as much as this is about material things, it can also be interpreted more broadly and be more of a metaphor for how we live life. We all know people who are able to live to the fullest...who have a great attitude and are always figuring out a way to accomplish something new and fantastic. They are the ones who, when they die, have wakes filled both with sorrow, but with laughter and appreciation at what they have done in life.

They are the ones who are with you when it is hard to be and who are always willing to take on the challenges, even the though ones, when God calls them forward. They reap generously and their lives are generously adorned in return.

The Bible is pretty clear on how we are supposed to behave: we are supposed to rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord; I say it again, rejoice! This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

It doesn't say that we should rejoice in the Lord unless we are having a crappy day. Or that this is the day that the Lord has made unless something bad happens. And the people who live to sow generously know this. They don't have to work at knowing it; they just know it.

These people do what they are supposed to without sadness or compulsion. They are cheeful givers not because they have to be, but because that is who they are. And in their giving, they receive as much as they give and more because God has graced them with the peace that exceeds all understanding.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus says something that seems to be unrelated...that unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it will not produce fruit. This is obviously a prophecy about Him. But it is also a prophecy about us.

If you think about it, what is the willingness to take on what the Lord has given to us and do so while rejoicing, if it is not dying to self? That phrase gets used a lot and it often reads like a description of Lent. I don't want to give up chocolate, but I have to because it is Lent, so similarly, I have to give up everything I like and live miserably.

Wrong! That is not rejoicing. It is not necessarily sin to have air conditioning or a second TV or high-speed internet. But you need to do the work and go through the discernment process and make sure that's what God wants for you.

The bottom line is that the Father, the Author of the universe, will honor us if we serve Him. Imagine that! Imagine God honoring us! Even better, imagine the hope and honor that we can bring to others just by being what He wants us to be.