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A Sower...

 A sower went out to sow and they tossed out love out in the world, but it just bounced off others thick skin. 

A sower went out to sow and they tossed out compassion which momentarily bloomed, but apathy won the day. 

A sower went out to sow and they tossed out gospel but the world was too busy with their own cares to notice. 

A sower went out to sow and they planted justice, kindness, and humbleness and it produced fruits of thirty, sixty, and hundred times the efforts to grow into it. 

Sowers went out to sow racial equality and a true community where all are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.  They were denied, beaten, jailed, and killed. They continued to sow and won small and large victories, but still the system and the story is stuck in the past. The weeds of injustice, racism, sexism, antisemitism, and islamophobia are still present and strong in our country and around the world. 

The seeds and the weeds are not people, they are ideas, paradigms, systems, beliefs, theologies, theories. People are the soil, and though some may be beaten or rocky or shallow, they all have the DNA, created in God's image and are loved, enough, and worthy. 

The church can be the sower of the seeds of love, compassion, gospel, justice, kindness, and humbleness. And, at times, it should be strategic and smart with its resources. But with love, if we really are planting the love of God, we should not be stingy, but extravagently and wildly reckless. How many trees and shrubs and plants have we seen growing on the side of a cliff in our area? We don't know where love will root and grow, it will live in the most unlikely of places. 

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was quoted as saying, "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." I ask that you put your hand on your heart and picture one person, one group, or a leader in our nation that believes the color of our skin matters more than the content of our character. Let light, warm and life-giving, shine around them.  Share with them in repeating after me, "God loves you".... "You are enough".... "You are worthy"....

Amen.



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