He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.""The earth produces of itself." I heard John Polkinghorne recently on Speaking of Faith talking about how the God has made creation capable of creating itself. Polkinghorne says, "God brings into being a universe; it has great potentialities, great possible fruitfulness, but creatures are allowed to explore and bring that fruitfulness to birth."
That's what this parable makes me think. Of course, creation isn't fruitful completely by itself. We plant the seed (the Word) and something amazing happens. This is the true beauty of the kingdom of God. As we take share the love of God with the people around us, new possibilities -- but not really new, just possibilities we hadn't seen before -- emerge. The world blooms around us, bringing forth the wonderful potential that God built into it.
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Your comments about the fecundity, if you will, of the reign of God reminded me of some recent serendipitous "sharing" opportunities that cropped up in my life. When we give ourselves over to being instruments of God's love, God tends to take us up on the offer...sometimes in surprising ways.;-)
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