Tell you a little story and it won’t take long
About a lazy farmer who wouldn’t hoe his corn.
The reason why I never could tell
For that young man was always well.
He planted his corn in the month of June
By July it was up to his eyes
Come September came a big frost
All that young man’s corn was lost.
Everybody’s busy. Busy, like wealth, however, is a relative term. My old friend Eddy used to marvel that I took a full load at seminary, while working a full time job. What he didn’t realize was that I had studied rather much of what was covered in seminary when I wasn’t busy, before seminary, as a teenager. Nor did he understand that once I took, “Lounge around the pool reading People magazine” out of my schedule, I had plenty of time. We feel poor because we fail to be grateful for what we have. And we feel busy because we fail to be grateful for what we’re able to do.
We suffer from the folly of Lot. He had received God’s richest blessing, and then got confused over what that blessing was. By living in close proximity to Abraham, Lot drank deeply from the collateral benefits that came his way. His flocks prospered. He had an increasing number of servants to tend those flocks. But those servants found themselves at odds with Abram’s servants, and Lot chose the lot next to the heathen. He thought the wealth came from him. He thought the combination of his shrewd business sense, his eye for fine grazing land, and his hard work was the source of his prosperity. He, no doubt, mentally shook his head at his uncle’s failure to negotiate wisely when Abraham offered Lot the pick of the land. Proudly then he surveyed all that was before him, and chose the green place, conveniently overlooking the rainbow triangle flag flying over the adjacent town. He noticed, no doubt, the lovely window treatments on the homes, but apparently didn’t notice that Sodom’s birthrate was 0%.
I’m not denying that God works through means. Rather I want to affirm that while God was the source of Lot’s prosperity, the means He worked through wasn’t Lot’s hard work. Instead it was the character of his uncle. But more important still, it was the very wisdom of his uncle that was the wealth. What made Lot a rich man wasn’t flocks and herds, nor South Beach property, but that his uncle was a man of wisdom and character. What made Lot a poor fool wasn’t that he failed to tend his flocks, but that he failed to tend his soul.
Here is a great paradox- Jesus taught in paradox, He twisted words that we might see reality, not because we are twisted, but because reality is. Lose your life to gain, be last to be first, die that you might live isn’t a literary technique, but the substance of reality. C.S. Lewis got at this point (actually, I think, in one place or another, he alluded to virtually every point there is to make) in The Screwtape Letters. There Screwtape encouraged Wormwood to encourage his charge to think in grand categories, and to fail to think in the small. A man who can taste the heady draught of a “love for humanity” but can’t force himself to love his neighbor in the pew has already lost the battle. Cultivating a love for humanity, however, is like growing plastic fruit. One need not worry about root rot or bugs, and one can display the “fruit” of one’s labors, but the real deal isn’t there. But Lewis missed an even bigger point. It isn’t enough for the wise man to move his gaze from the amorphous humanity to the neighbor in the pew. If he would do better still, he must turn his gaze inward. What he should be looking to, if he would love both his pew neighbor, and the body of Christ around the globe, is his own soul. The only way to be outward looking, in other words, is to look inward.
Of course there is a deadly and deadening navel gazing. Analysis paralysis is not what I’m calling for. It wouldn’t have done the lazy farmer any good had he, instead of frequenting the parties in the surrounding culture, instead stood in the midst of his growing corn just to look at it. No, we look to ourselves that we might be at work in ourselves. We look inward because what the world needs now isn’t simply one less sinner, but one less sin. The kingdom grows not through, but as we put to death the old man, as we put on Christ.
But there is still another layer of paradox, because, paradoxically, not only does Jesus work through paradox, but so must the devil. We lose our lives when we seek to save them; we become last when we seek to be first. In like manner, the devil is about the business of lulling us to sleep, or encouraging our spiritual sloth. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands, and we are as unconscious as the foolish virgins. The rest he seduces us with, however, is nothing but slave labor. When we are not diligent about the business of bearing much fruit, we are instead busy either making excuses, or pushing rocks up Sisyphusian hills. Changing the world is chasing after the wind. Changing ourselves, in and through the means of grace appointed, is running the race. The devil, who is more crafty than any of the beasts of the field, seduces us into waiting for that beast in the jungle, that one glorious moment of opportunity, where we will usher in the kingdom with our devastating argument, our best-selling book, our cinematic triumph, our Christian president. Meanwhile, the beast is at work in our hearts, where the real battle is, where he turns our gardens into jungles.
All there is is “Abide in Me.” Before we dicker over what this means, let’s remember what we know- we are to bear fruit. The answer to “Abide” is found in “Me.”
For therein is His glory. A certain farmer when out to sow. But this farmer scattered no seed on the rocky ground. This farmer, the one whom Mary “mistook” for the gardener, has promised that having begun a good work in us, He will complete it until the end. The great thing about the call to cultivate fruit is that we are the fruit that He is cultivating. The great thing about the call to working out our own salvation in fear and in trembling is that it is He that is working in us both to will and to do His good pleasure. As we work in all diligence, we rest in the arms of Jesus. And one day, all His bundles will bow, in joy, before Him.
