Plant Big Potatoes

Isn’t fall wonderful? Other than not being able to breathe, I love this time of year! I enjoy the cool breeze blowing in the windows…

…and the rich colors of the orange, purple, burgundy, and brown which accent the earth

… the smells of fresh firewood being brought into the house

… the open-air markets, where you can purchase the last of the season’s produce

… the color of the prairie grass

… the cooler temperatures…

I realize that this is a season to harvest, and that planting was done long ago; but I want to speak about the correlation between planting and harvesting.

There is a story that goes like this: Many years ago, some people thought they could eat all their biggest and best potatoes and keep only the small, odd shaped ones for seed. At planting time, they had not saved back the biggest and best potatoes; instead, all that were left to plant were the ones no one wanted to eat all year long. The first year, there was only a small difference in their crop – so small that no one seemed to notice that the harvest was smaller than previous years. But after a few years of planting the scrawniest, mis-shapen potatoes, everyone noticed that the entire crop was full of marble-sized potatoes.

They learned from bitter experience that they just could not keep the best ones for themselves and use the leftovers for seed. The law of life is simple: the harvest will reflect the planting. One of our texts for today tells us this ancient truth:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”                    Matt. 6:19-21

Planting small potatoes remains a strong temptation in many areas of life. There seems to be something about us that just wants to keep the biggest and best for ourselves and plant the leftovers. If you listen carefully, you will hear these philosophies in all arenas of life – in social service, in business, in politics, and even in families. It is tempting to want to get mine before you get yours; to take care of myself before worrying about anyone else; to give away scraps and then complain about those who got them. By some crazy twist of nature, we expect our selfishness to result in gracious self-giving; and somehow, we expect our small investment to produce big dividends. But life does not work that way.

If we want big potatoes, we must plant big potatoes. If we want big faith, we must plant big faith. If we want to grow up in Christ and be mature Disciples, we must make big investments in the growing process. If we want a healthy, vibrant church, we must put in the time and energy to create and maintain one. The apostle Paul knew what he was talking about when he wrote to the church at Corinth and told them that we reap what we sow.

The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.              II Cor. 9:6

When I was in 4^th or 5^th grade, my mom taught me to sew. She often quipped, “That which you sew, you will also rip!” as she handed a blue seam ripper to me to cut out my mistakes! Of course, it was a play on words of this scripture… and it helped me to learn that it was better to stop the mistake early and rip that mistake out than to try to go forward with a mistake and then must rip out more.

To use the metaphor from II Corinthians, “sowing bountifully”… or “planting big potatoes” is a way of life. Let me illustrate with a story. One day there was a knock on the door of a hut occupied by a missionary in Africa.  Upon answering the door, the missionary found one of the native boys holding a large fish in his hands. The boys said, “You taught us what tithing is, so here, I’ve brought you my tithe.” As the missionary took the fish, he questioned the boy, “If this is your tithe, where are the other fish?”  “Oh,” said the boy, “they are still back in the river. I am going back to catch them now.”

What does this tell us about our lives as stewards? Do we come home at the end of the day too tired to give our families the best of our time or our energy to the ones we love the most? Are we too cranky or out of sorts to spend time with them? Are we offering the appropriate time and talent as well as money to our community, including our faith community?

Even when we wonder about our abilities and gifts, have we reached out to check if there is a project or an opportunity at the church that we could fulfill? Let me tell you that an older member of a church I once pastored told me she felt like she had nothing left to contribute because she had few resources and her health was poor. I suggested that she might make some phone calls to our homebound members. From that point on, she became the contact person for every homebound member – their first call and their closest friend! She listened to their prayer concerns and their deepest concerns. She wrote them cards every single week. She loved them like no one else. It became her personal ministry!

Stewardship is about how we live our lives. Do we plant our biggest and best potatoes with the ones we love and the places we live and care about the most?

Another thing about stewardship is that it has the power to change how we understand our lives. Good stewards recognize God as the origin of life – the giver of freedom, and the source of all that we are and possess. A commitment to stewardship is practical but it is also very profound; it is a response to a counter-cultural challenge of the Gospel to follow Jesus regardless of the cost. The best way of translating the word “stewardship is probably as “care” or “responsibility”. God has given us all of creation for which to care. It is our responsibility to care for all living things and the space we share with those living things. Stewardship is anything that shows such responsibility and care.

I recently read a Gallup study which showed that those who volunteered their time to a project were the very ones who invested in that project – almost three times the amount of money as those who did not volunteer. The implication for us as stewards is clear! As Jesus said, “Where your heart is, there is your treasure also”.  Those who care enough to give their most important gift (the gift of time), care enough to also give their money.

This also points out an important truth for our committees – we need to quit using the same people! Rotate leadership around; ask new people to serve. Recruit volunteers who have not experienced that role before.  Step away from a job you’ve done for a long time!

The third aspect of stewardship that I want to talk about is that it is a response – a natural and beautiful response to God’s grace. You have heard the expression “the joy of giving”… this joy comes out of a sense of gratitude for all that we are and have because of our faith in God!

I would like to close with a prayer by an unknown author which expresses all these ideas:

It helps now and then to step back and take the long view. The Kin-dom is not only beyond our efforts – it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kin-dom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith.  No confession brings perfection; no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals or objectives includes everything. This is what we are about: We plant the seeds that one day will grow; we water seeds that are already planted knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development.  We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything. There is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning – step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.  Amen.