We’re used to a world of clear cause and effect. “A” causes “B.” It’s a basic understanding of the universe that guides us in pretty much all the work we do. We think: If we can crack the code—if we can learn enough about “A”—then we can develop the right strategies, tools, and tricks, and we can accomplish “B”—what we want.
It’s how we usually think about politics and public life, as we look at the division and dysfunction around us. We think: if we can just figure out the right policies, if we can just strike the right balance of stability and change, then we can build the society we want. Our divisions will be healed, and our nation will prosper.
It’s how we often start to think about the work of the Church, as we face the anxiety-ridden shifts in the world— declining attendance, financial insecurity, uncertain relevance. We think: if we can just figure out the right strategy—if we can just plan the right kind of programs, groups, and events, then we can grow the Church that we want. our parishes will grow, and our community will flourish.
It’s even how we think about things as basic and utterly natural as growing plants,whether we’re gardening for pleasure or farming for sustenance. We think: if we can just figure out the perfect conditions, if we can just manage the sunlight and water and soil pH, then we can cultivate the abundant harvest we want, and we’ll be buried in produce by the end of the summer.
And there’s a lot of truth in this way of thinking.
It gets at something very real: Our actions do have real effects. And we do have serious work to do as Christians in the world. We are the laborers, tasked by God with tending the vineyard and gathering in the plentiful harvest. We are the branches, grafted onto the vine to bear fruit and enrich the world through our witness of mutual love. We are the seeds, spread by God into the soil of the world to plant the “word of the kingdom”—the word of the Gospel—so that new life will sprout up wherever we go. And the way we do this work does matter. As Saint Teresa of Avila is said to have remarked, Christ has no body now on earth but ours. God works in and through us to bring about the renewal of all of Creation
But it is easy to think only in terms of that cause and effect. As we’re mindful of our responsibility to share in this work, it’s easy to start acting like it’s our effort alone that causes the seeds of the Gospel to sprout; that accomplishes the growth of the Church; that brings about the harvest of a transformed world. And this mindset that stops at cause and effect—that sees our responsibility but doesn’t look farther— can be exciting. It’s exhilarating to feel a sense of purpose: to plan, to organize, to labor, and to see the results of our hard work.
But it can also set us up for disappointment—by luring us into thinking we are the architects of our fate and future; by shifting us into acting like we cause and consummate growth and change; by convincing us that our ways are the ways of Creation. When we set our minds only on cause and effect—on what we accomplish with our savvy, strategy, and skill, then setbacks and difficulties start to look like reasons to despair. If we only see A causing B—if we only see our work producing growth—then when we DON’T grow—when we don’t accomplish what we purpose or yield the rich harvest we want—we have nowhere but ourselves to look for hope.
I think this is the source of so much of the anxiety and discouragement that we feel when we look ahead to the future. We see the very real role we play in bringing about the New Creation, but that’s all we see. And so we carry on our shoulders the weight of all the stalled growth and every barren harvest.
Our readings from Scripture today nudge us towards a broader view.
They challenge us to place our work within a more complete picture of the drama of Creation. Because they highlight that all of our efforts—the seeds and the soil—are part of the unfolding of God’s eternal purpose and plan for Creation. And our ways of thinking about cause and effect—must always be viewed against the backdrop of the ways of the Creator who sustains our entire existence.
Just before our Old Testament reading picks up, God reminds Israel through the voice of Isaiah:
“My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways…
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
We see in terms of cause and effect—effort and result. We see our efforts to cultivate progress and flourishing in the Church, in the world, in every aspect of our lives. We see the green shoots of new life that spring up when the world receives that Gospel that God proclaims through our lives.
But we also see hopes for good change and dreams of vibrant community get choked out by weeds and snatched up by birds that seek to crowd out and sabotage the growth of the kingdom. We even see the precious seed of resurrection and the word of Good News fall on the path and get totally trampled underfoot. And in seasons when there are more trampling feet, thieving birds, and spreading weeds than there are meadows covered with flocks and herds and valleys cloaked with grain, we might wonder whether our efforts will have any effect at all—whether what we purpose and work for will ever be accomplished.
But today, Isaiah and Paul and Jesus are gently redirecting our gaze by rooting the story and images of this harvest in a reminder that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. They’re reminding us that our plans and efforts—our soil and seeds—are not the only (or even really the most important) piece of the picture.
They’re reminding us that God plants the seed—that God sent the Word to be incarnate; to proclaim the good news of joy to the sorrowful, freedom to the prisoner, and salvation to the poor. God drenches the furrows and waters the seed of the New Creation with the Word that eternally pours forth from God’s mouth and with the Spirit of Christ that dwells in our hearts. God empowers and sustains us so that we can “walk by this Spirit,” holding in existence every effort we make and every effect we see. God plants us as seeds where we are meant to be—sometimes bringing about obvious fruits from our witness and work, but sometimes placing us in seemingly barren parts of the garden, where no obvious change or growth or harvest comes from the work we do in the world.
God does all this—not just because we want to see growth and new life in the Kingdom—but because this has been God’s purpose and intention from the foundation of the world. And the Creator of the Universe will not be thwarted in his purpose. God promises:
“My Word…that goes forth from my mouth…
will not return to me empty.
It shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
From our finite vantage point of cause and effect, we may not see how the Word can accomplish God’s purpose—how the seed will bear fruit in apparently barren soil. But it’s not our job to be the architects of our future or the masters of the fate of the Church or the world. Our job is to be the seeds of God’s Word and to be that well living and working as a witness in the soil where we’re planted.
And today we hear a promise from our Creator to ground us in that mission. As we work in the world and witness to God’s action, we can trust that God’s Word—God’s Word sent forth and made flesh among us; crucified and raised for us; present in and through us by the power of the Spirit—God’s Word will not return empty. It will accomplish that which God has purposed and prosper in that for which God sent it.
And in the end—someway, somehow that surpasses apparent successes and failures—we will see growth and healing and a bountiful harvest, brought about by a transcendent God whose ways are not our ways, but who still chooses to work in us and through us and who promises to accomplish what he has set out to do: lifting up and gathering in all things in heaven and on earth and making them new by the Word—a Word that God promises will not return empty.