July 30, 2000
GRATITUDE FOR
THE UNHARVESTED
I Corinthians
3:1-9
The American poet Robert Frost
wrote:
"May something always go
unharvested,
May much stay out of our
stated plan,
Apples, or something
forgotten and left
So smelling their
sweetness would be no theft."
Frost's poem was inspired by his
experience of walking one autumn day in New England and
smelling something pleasant, fresh in the air. He looked
over a stone wall to find out what it was and where it
came from, and discovered that there was an apple
orchard. The apples of one of the trees had not been
picked but simply fallen and lay ungathered in the grass.
Unharvested and undisturbed, they had begun to turn
themselves into cider. It was their fragrance, the smell
of the unharvested apples, which the poet had
caught:
"May something always go
unharvested,
May much stay out of our
stated plan,
Apples, or something
forgotten and left
So smelling their sweetness
would be no theft."
*****
God has allowed us to accomplish
much this past three and a half years at Community
Church. I am content because of what we have done, but I
am equally content to leave just because all of our goals
have not been realized.
We have not harvested all the
apples! And we never should set as our goal to harvest
all. We should leave some harvesting for others. Paul
wrote: "I PLANTED, APOLLOS WATERED, BUT GOD GAVE THE
GROWTH."
Our faith rewards us with the
same insight as the poet: we can be grateful that
something may always go unharvested. We may be as
grateful for the unharvested as for that which we have
gathered in and call our achievements.
*******
I. Some things will be
unharvested by necessity.
This is a thought, which jars
with contemporary optimism. The late Frank Sinatra sang
"You and me, we wanted it all" and "I did it all, my
way." Great songs you gave us, Frankie, songs full of
secular confidence which maintain we can have it all and
now.
But my experience is that we
can't have it all; for the most part we cannot have
both/and but must choose either/or. And we can never
harvest all that we think we should bring in.
There are always more books to
read than I can ever read (though with a year in London I
plan to read more than four years in Hong Kong!) There
are more places to visit than I could visit (though a
reason for this sabbatical is to travel more). And even
with more leisure ahead I know there will be music I will
never hear and friendships which will never ripen. We
don't have enough time to go everywhere, read everything
and know everybody.
But then, you don't need a
preacher to tell you this. Any competent physician will
tell you that it is good for your heart, and will reduce
your chances of having a stroke, if you reconcile
yourself to life's unfinishedness. I plan to get used to
more of life's unfinishness.
Lance Armstrong, the winner of
the Tour de France bike race for the second year in a
row, was asked if he would not go for a third win next
year to equal the three wins of his fellow American, Greg
LeMonde. Martin responded: "I don't know if I have the
motivation to try to win again because I now have a
wonderful family that ultimately I want to spend a lot
more time with." Armstrong is making choices, knowing
that even after you have won it all you and done it his
way, one still can't have it all.
The golfing legend Nick Faldo
commented of another great athletic achiever, Tiger
Woods: "We have to appreciate that to do what Tiger has
done, you have to give up doughnuts at age
l5."
Giving up doughnuts reminds me
of the ambitious yuppie who finally decided to take a
vacation, booking himself on a cruise. Alas, the boat
sank and he wound up stranded on an isolated island with
no other people, no supplies…nothing. His life's
options were abruptly reduced to only bananas and
coconuts.
After about four months, he is
lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman
he has ever seen rows up to the beach. In disbelief he
asks her: "Where did you come from? How did you get
here?"
"I rowed from the other side of
the island," she says. "I landed here when my cruise ship
sank."
"Amazing!" the yuppie says.
"That's how I ended up here. But you were really lucky to
have a rowboat wash up with you."
"Oh, this?" replied the woman. "
I made the rowboat out of raw material that I found on
the island; the oars were whittled from gum tree
branches; I wove the bottom from palm branches; and the
sides and stern came from a Eucalyptus tree."
"But that's impossible,"
stammered the man. "You had no tools or hardware. How did
you manage?"
"Oh, that was no problem,"
replies the woman. "On the south side of the island,
there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed.
I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my
kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. I used that
for tools and used the tools to make the
hardware."
The guy is stunned.
"Let's row over to my place,"
she says. After a few minutes or rowing, she docks the
boat at a small wharf. As the man look onto shore, he
nearly falls out of the boat. Before him is a stone walk
leading to an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and
white. While the woman ties up the rowboat with an
expertly woven hemp rope, the man can only stare ahead,
dumbstruck.
As they walk into the house, her
beautiful body swaying with each step, she says casually,
"it's not much, but I call it home. Sit down please;
would you like to have a drink?"
"No thank you, he says, still
dazed. "Can't take any more coconut juice."
"It's not coconut juice," the
woman replies. "I have a still. How about a Pina Colada?"
Trying to hide his amazement,
the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk.
After the have exchanged their stories, the woman
announces, "I'm going to slip into something more
comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave?
There is a razor…
No longer questioning anything,
the man goes into the bathroom. There in the cabinet is a
razor made from a bone handle. Two shells honed to a
hollow ground edge are fastened onto its end, inside of a
swivel mechanism.
"This woman is amazing," he
muses. "What's next?"
When he returns, she greet him
wearing nothing but vines and a shell necklace
-strategically positioned - and smelling faintly of
gardenias. She beckons for him to sit down next to
her.
"Tell me," she begins
suggestively, moving closer to him, "we've been out here
for a very long time. You've been lonely I've been
lonely, There's something I'm sure you really feel like
doing right about now, something you've been longing for
all these months?" She stares into his eyes." He can't
believe what he's hearing. His heart begins to pound.
He's truly in luck: "you mean…", he gasps, "..I can
actually check my e-mail from here?"
Part of my gratitude that the
harvest is never completed is because I know there is
much in me and you which will never come to an end. Will
we run out of imagination, or interest, or creativity, or
smiles, or love? We can't exhaust our humor, our
feelings, our love. Not in this life and certainly not
in the next. As a kid said: "Love goes on even when we
stop breathing and we pick it up when we get to
heaven."
II. Something in our life
should remain unharvested for the sake of
generosity:
There was a merciful law in
Israel that directed the reapers of a field of corn, and
the gatherers of vineyard grapes, not to gather every
last ear or pluck every bunch of grapes. Part of the
harvest must remain unharvested so that the gleaners -
the poor, the widows, the strangers - could find
something to refresh and nourish them. To leave something
unharvested is moral mercy. We ought to rejoice in
leaving something unharvested because it shows
consideration and caring toward others.
In that regard the obsessional
pursuit of the 70 and 80 hours work week by the yuppies
and wannabe millionaires is a moral absurdity and scandal
while a billion of the earth's humblest have no work week
whatever.
Gratitude for the unharvested
is a recognition that others have their place, their
needs, and their gifts to bring to life's great harvest.
We don't need to pick all the flowers, or plan all the
future, or even convert every soul. When we leave some
goods and tasks and excitement for others, we are simply
doing what God does always for each of us.
As Paul said, God gives us the
growth, finally God gives us our achievements. So why
should we not be similarly generous with others. Let
others have their chance at accomplishments. The harvests
of life are meant to be shared, not monopolized by the
few.
God has always been generous to
us; always leaving us more than plentitude to pluck and
gather. Why should we not leave some unharvested for
others in gratitude for the generosity of God.
III. Let something go
unharvested for continuity.
In our text from l Corinthians
the apostle Paul reminds his fellow Christians that while
he had played an important part in their awakening and
growth, he hadn't done everything. Others had played
important roles, too. Paul had sowed the seeds of faith,
but Apollos had watered them and, of course, it was God
who made them grow. Our gifts while immense are
limited; our limited gifts leave room for the gifts of
others. Limited like our own, their gifts are nonetheless
different from our own and will complement what we do. By
leaving something for someone else to do we allow them
their part in the continuing work of the
Kingdom.
God's bounty is endless and
God's creative work is not complete. The Kingdom still
comes. All creation and the Church still yearn for the
return of the Christ. This incompleteness means there is
still work for others to do.
God has not closed the page
against all future music; he had not put away the brushes
or covered up the canvases; he has not planted all the
tomatoes, nor made all the fragrances, nor harvested all
the souls. God makes His world through persons who
themselves are in the process of being made. All are in
the process of formation and to leave something
unharvested gives room and place to others to express
themselves; we need to make room, and gladly, for others
to use their gifts in the great harvest of
life.
There is a continuity to God's
creative work in many may contribute and all of us are
debtors. Our success is possible only by the hard work
of others. We value the music of famous composers like
Beethoven and Mahler and Lizst but they in turn were
indebted to unknown composers who gave them the rustic
melodies and folk tunes which they enveloped into great
symphonic themes.
IV. We have said that we
must, and should, let something go unharvested by reason
of necessity, generosity and continuity. Finally,
something should go unharvested because of life's
ambiguity.
One of the greatest of Jesus'
parables is that of the wheat and the tares. In it, the
landowner's men found that even though their master had
sown only good seed, wild grasses and weeds sprung up
among the wheat. What were they do; weed out the wild
grasses, the darnel? The landlord instructed them not to
do so. He issued a warning against weeding, for in the
early stages of growth darnel and wheat are hard to
distinguish, and in the later stages hard to separate.
Premature weeding would mean that much of the harvest
would be lost. Better to allow them to grow together
until harvest when separation would be easier.
This parable suggest that there
is ambiguity in many events and we cannot be absolutely
clear about the good and the bad. We often cannot decide
about some of our experiences whether they are a curse or
a blessing, before they have run their course and come to
fulfillment. That is why judgement before the end is
always premature. Judgement has to do with deciding the
meaning of events and it is best to leave ultimate
meaning to God. The good harvest can often be valued only
in retrospect.
Certainly one of the strengths
of a community church which is progressive in its
attitude about the scriptures and our doctrine, and
optimistic about the bounty of God's gifts to all
peoples, is that we know the wisdom of leaving ultimate
judgement to God. We know we are presumptuous when we
rush to judge others. We also know that at the last
judgement about who is right and who is wrong, there
will be cries of astonishment from those who are kept
out, and gasps of incredulity from many who are invited
in by the Lord.
Kierkegaard, the Danish
theologian, once said that life must be lived forwards,
but can only be understood backwards. What happens to us
is often ambiguous and if we harvest too soon, or think
we have harvested everything, we may foreclose God
showing us the final truth of things.
We are wise never to judge a
drama, a story, nor a life before its' end. The world
premiere of Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman"
took place on February l0, l949, in Philadelphia. Miller,
who was in the audience, said "the curtain came down and
nothing happened. People sat there a good two or three
minutes, then somebody stood up with his coat. Several
men in the audience looked totally helpless. Many women
had handkerchiefs over their faces. It was silent and
sober like a funeral. I didn't know whether the show was
dead or alive. The cast was backstage wondering what
happened. Nobody pulled the curtain up for them to come
on stage. Finally, someone thought to applaud, and then
the theatre went wild."
Even when the curtain comes down
there may remain ambiguity. The late and great British
evangelist, Leslie Newbiggin, said that "all our greatest
achievements are destined to go down into the chasm of
death and become part of the rubble of history. Or if
they should remain at the time of Christ's return, they
will be subject to God's discriminating
judgement."
"Ultimately", Newbiggin said,
"our hope lies not in the quality or permanence of our
achievements but in Christ who has passed through the
chasm of death and come up on the other side in his
resurrection."
The significance of our work and
the way its ambiguity is finally clarified lie not in its
success or achievement as judged by worldly standards
but in its relationship to the risen Lord.
*******
The American Christian thinker
Reinhold Niebuhr sums my thankfulness for the unharvested
this way:
"Nothing that is worth doing
can be achieved in a lifetime, therefore we must be saved
by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes
complete sense in any immediate context of history,
therefore, we are saved by faith. Nothing we can do,
however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, therefore,
we are saved by love."
May something always go
unharvested in your lives and in the corporate life of
our dear church. And may we be saved by our Lord Christ
whose work is faith, whose gift is hope and whose nature
is love.
Note: I am indebted to Dr. R.
Maurice Boyd of The City Church New York whose fine
sermon of some years back "Unharvested for Thanksgiving"
gave me the inspiration for my message.
Pastor Gene
Preston
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