WIth These Seeds

Saturday is Earth Day and at Sunday’s service we’re doing part of a Rogation Service, a blessing of seeds ritual from the Anglican tradition. It’s not the actual day it’s supposed to be held on, but I don’t think anyone will mind.

I received an e-mail about Earth Day and how it has been going on since 1970. It stated that according to EarthDay.org, today “Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes.”

This gave me pause. Just last Sunday on my way into church someone was decrying climate change. They felt that God could make anything happen for the world and it’s not up to us (not a direct quote, but pretty close). I responded saying that we have definitely messed with what God gave us and bear responsibility to make things better. I know there are many Christians who wouldn’t agree with me.

It’s ironic that the secular world has embraced our need to honour the planet and God’s Creation through Earth Day, while many in the church continue to deny the crisis or hope that Creation’s demise ushers in the end of the world faster or want to assign blame to others. I’ve led an Earth Day service each year for the last several and I know that it’s not the most popular. We are tired of hearing about it, perhaps feeling helpless and hopeless, and just wanting it to go away.

We will bless the seeds on Sunday. I will talk about the gifts of God in creation, and how we are all a part of the world together and not meant merely to have dominion over it but to live together within it, creatures and plants and all that God has made. Even as we read Mark 4:26-32 and talk about seeds and the hope and miracle found in each, and how God alone knows what will happen to that seed, I will be hoping and praying that the seeds of care for creation take root in people’s hearts.

I’m planning to bring some gardening tools and soil, seeds and small clay pots, so our kids can plant some sunflowers and we can watch them grow over the next few weeks before they’re taken home to transplant. This idea of planting and growing from seeds is nothing new. I’ve seen it lived out in Sunday schools many times. But there is still power in it to reflect on how our sharing of Jesus is like planting seeds, how our love and service and reaching out is like planting seeds, and how our own lives are like planted seeds.

Hopefully all of the seeds we plant are planted with care and nurtured. Like in the parable of the sower, some may not reach good soil. They may not be given what they need to grow or last. We need to be aware of when we’re planting a seed and if it is the right time and place and person or situation. We need to be aware especially of when we are nurturing ourselves and our own growth, when we’re stagnating or drying out, and when we’re jeopardizing the well-being of the fruit we’re called to bring about.

There are many post-resurrection appearances recorded in scripture, and apparently these are just a sampling of Jesus showing up after the cross and the tomb. Jesus was not just missing His friends, but I think He was actively planting seeds among the disciples. He knew that just one seed of seeing Him again wouldn’t be enough. He kept coming back in another way, in a different situation, so that some seeds of belief could finally take root in soil and grow.

I hope that many more will celebrate Earth Day than ever before, and particularly many more in our churches. I pray that we take seriously the task of planting seeds and tending them with care. May our own lives be a witness of what Jesus can do to grow us as loving disciples.