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Scripture: Mark 4:26-28, 2 Cor. 4:16- 5:10

Prayer of Preparation: We give thanks, O God of sacred stories, for the witness of your word today. Through Scripture you challenge our assumptions, increase our awareness, nurture our imaginations, and touch our feelings. Bless the hearing of the word today. Speak to us and grant that by the power of your Spirit we may be hearers and doers of your word. Amen.

I’m going to describe two kinds of people, and I want you to think about whether you fit into one category, or both. One kind of person I will call the gardener. The gardener is a pretty easy going person. Every spring this person comes home with a brown paper bag full of packets of seeds. Soon the gardener is found puttering around the yard, emptying the packages into shallow furrows, heaping the dirt into little mounds and perhaps curling pieces of fence around them to keep the dogs out. Some weeks later, plants appear in the strangest places. There are green peppers between the azalea bushes and broccoli by the mailbox, and a cherry tomato plant pushing up by the apple tree and sweet pea vines winding through the branches of the cherry tree. In a few weeks, string beans overtake the back deck of the house, covering everything like a grapevine.

The second kind of person I’m going to describe is the worrier. The gardener drives the worrier crazy because the worrier knows how gardens are suppose to be and this is not it. You are suppose to begin by buying a book or going on-line, or talking to an expert like Arden Sheets, or taking a Master’s Gardening class, to learn how to arrange plants according to size, height, and drainage requirements. Everything is suppose to be in straight rows. However, first you need to test the soil; then you fertilize it with the correct fertilizer, and you mulch and weed and water. But most of all, above everything else—the worrier must worry, otherwise, how in the world, will the garden grow?

Then one day in the summer, every summer, the day comes, to the worrier’s dismay, when the gardener proclaims that the vegetables are ready. The gardener goes out to collect them, from all over the yard, and a little while later the worrier sits down to a table heaped with manna from heaven—miraculous food. And against the worrier’s will and better judgment, the worrier has to admit that all this came about in spite of the gardener’s refusal to worry. Sometimes, there are even plants that appear where no seed was sown!

According to the Gospel of Mark, this is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground and goes about his business, trusting the seed to sprout without his further interference, because the ground produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain. “The earth produces of itself,” Mark says. And the Greek here is wonderful. Because it says that the ground is, literally, automatic. It produces of itself, it has within itself the power to make a seed become a plant, and so the kingdom of God is likened to automatic earth, earth that can be trusted to yield its fruit without any cheerleading, chemicals, and worry from us. The seed sprouts and grows, we know not how. I think we could call it agricultural grace. I grew up with agricultural grace, I know what that is. We are surrounded by agricultural grace in Washington County. Agricultural grace is green and growing and blossoming and balanced and abundant and strong, yet fragile.

So, you know what, worrying doesn’t make your garden grow any better. Between agricultural grace and the automatic earth, we can trust that the string beans and zucchini squash will flourish. But what about you and me? What about us and our life? Surely, if I do not attend to my life, manage it and, yes, worry about it, I will most certainly fail at what I am to do, be found wanting at the end, and die unsatisfied and unnoticed. Oh my gosh, Saint Paul is so right: in this earthly tent I groan from aches and pains, I sigh with anxiety.

Let me read from Paul’s letter again, “5For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we'll never have to relocate our "tents" again.” Okay, my idea of heaven is definitely never having to move again! But I wouldn’t want to be presumptuous or over-confidant about that! After all, we don’t really know for sure what the future will bring, let alone when we lose our earthly tent. “Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what's coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we're tired of it!” Paul is telling us about life after we die. It’s going to be better, a lot better, he says. Yet, here we are now. We groan, we vent, we complain, we whine! And Paul says, in another translation, “We sigh with anxiety.” Paul knows us pretty well. “So we are always of good courage.” Right!!!! “…and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Sounds like Paul is telling us we would rather be dead—I’m not so sure about that, Paul, all things considered, I think I’d rather hang around in my body for awhile longer. “For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” Oh groan, here comes the anxiety again—judgment, yikes!

I think Paul is saying talking the anxiety we have about death and judgment. There’s a lot of anxiety in the world… much that could lead us to an early death: the economy, cancer, losing our job, trying to find a job, making the house payment, getting our kids through college, the environment, the price of gas, terrorism. What makes your heart chatter in your chest? What feeds your ulcer? What makes your shoulders knot up and keeps you awake at night? Where are you the busiest at protecting yourself and the ones you love? Where does it seem as if there is very little hope? What part of life do you not trust God to be God? Someone says to me, “You just gotta have more faith!” And I would rather answer back, “Faith is not enough!”

We live in anxious times. Using the agricultural metaphor, we live between the time of planting and the time of harvest—a time of great uncertainty! We want to trust the automatic earth. We want to believe in agricultural grace. We hope that God knows what God is doing. But, just in case, we hedge our bets, doing everything we can think of to keep the anxiety at bay. Anything to batten down the hatches and make our future look a little more secure. We keep busy trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Or we find ways to escape the anxiety.

Signs of anxiety: Do you have a need to do everything exactly right? Are you compulsive about turning your “want-to’s” into “have-to’s” raising your demands on yourself and others to a fever pitch. Do you insist that you have earned the right to be protected from all harm because you have worked so hard all your life? Are you restless? The swinging foot, tapping finger, the vague uneasiness about the other shoe dropping. We cannot sleep, cannot sit still, got to keep moving, stay busy. Signs of anxiety. Or the dread of being alone with ourselves—spending hours with the television going. Signs of anxiety.

In German, the word for anxiety is anst: a straight or narrow passage that restricts breathing; uneasiness or trouble of mind about some uncertain event, such as life, death, God. Anxiety is so much a part of our lives today that it seems automatic. It is an occupational hazard of being a finite creature in a universe of infinite possibilities. Anxiety is more than being human though—it separates us from god, from other people, and from our own souls. Sounds like the definition of sin. And if anxiety is a sin, we need to repent of that sin because what is absent when anxiety is present is faith—faith that God will be God, that the automatic earth will yield its fruit, that life can be trusted.

So, am I telling you to that we need to all go lie down under the nearest oak tree and watch the clouds go by? No, although for some, that might be just the thing you need to do. But I need to say, that repenting of our anxiety, turning from our anxiety, does not mean giving up responsibility, or concern, or the desire to live a productive and meaningful life. But it does mean giving up our incessant, sterile worrying about what will become of us. It means giving up the illusion we have that if we stop worrying our lives will collapse. This is sin, and the remedy for it is twofold: first confession and then amendment. Do you want to be saved from the sin of anxiety? Then get on your knees and confess it—tell the truth about it to God. Confess everything you have tried to control, all the ways you have tried to manufacture your own security, all the times you have turned away from God in order to seek your own solutions. Confess what it has cost you; how it has not brought you peace. Make a different choice, a choice against anxiety, and live out of your choice for change, for transformation.

Be of good cheer, be courageous, be willing to live in the midst of this scary, uncertain life that we have been given. Choose to face life, face death, face God, face the dangerous unknown. Choose courage, even knowing as you do that you cannot choose it once and for all. If you want courage, you have to choose it over and over again, every day that you live. Choose courage so you can really live. That is what it takes—confession, choice, forgiveness, courage, over and over again, a new way of life.

So be the gardener in life. Scatter seeds. Anxiety keeps them in the brown paper bag. Courage allows you to open your hand and let them fly. They land where they land, and a few feed the birds, but many more fall into the ground. There in the dark, where you cannot see and do not know how, the automatic earth turns their death into life, pushing up through the layers of dirt, through asphalt, through concrete, through whatever is in their way, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain. Then it is your turn, you who have watched and waited faithfully, knowing you cannot MAKE the seed grow, but knowing who can. It is your turn to harvest the crop, and let your table be heaped with good things, your turn to be generous, to sit at the table, and to enjoy.