John The Baptist: Farmer?
As I prayed with the Gospel, I learned that John the Baptist was a farmer. I never considered him in those terms, but my prayer clarified this.
I grew up in the north, like many of you. And no doubt some of you also had experience working and living on a farm. In northern New York, the winters were harsh, and the land in the spring was rock solid. We used a wheel harrow pulled behind a tractor to prepare the land for planting, break up the soil, and prepare it to receive seeds. The process was arduous but necessary. Seed thrown on the land hardened by winter would not grow. To have crops, the land had to be appropriately prepared.
John the Baptist prepares the hardened surface of the people’s hearts for Jesus. He went out into the wilderness, and then he began his work. His task was to prepare the surface of the people’s hearts to receive the word of God. He called them to be opened. He tilled the soil of their hearts and souls to prepare them to receive the seed of Jesus’ teaching. Their hearts were hardened by years of captivity and what seemed a vain hope that a Messiah would come. They were hardened by the Pharisees, who constantly proclaimed them unworthy and called them to live by laws that separated them from God rather than drawing them to Him.
The people were like the hardened soil, and John came to ready them to receive the new seed, the good seed, Jesus. He prepared them to be willing to hear Jesus’ message.
Taking this analogy one step further, John also planted the seed of hope in their newly tilled hearts, making it possible for them to receive Jesus. Scripture indicates that John was killed before the people experienced the fullness of Jesus’ ministry. He did not see the result of his tilling and planting. John planted seeds without knowing whether they would bear fruit in people’s lives. John did what he believed God called him to do because he trusted God, not because he would see the fruits of his labor.
We see that trust has echoed throughout history. Mary said yes to God, not knowing where that yes would lead. Jesus lived His life, never knowing if He could show people the face of God. He did not know if His ministry would take root and grow. The apostles went forward after the Spirit came to them and proclaimed the Gospel in a hostile world, not knowing if their lives and inevitable violent deaths would matter at all. They all followed the call of God simply because it was the call of God. That was enough.
Too often, in our lives and our world, we look for results and decide whether to act based on whether we will see a positive outcome. This happens in the simplest ways. For example, I have a neighbor who is a nasty person. I ignore her instead of being pleasant and planting seeds of goodness in her life. I subconsciously decide she is not worth it, and I do no tilling or planting of the Gospel in her heart. I have decided I won’t reap a positive result, so I don’t plant. That’s just a simple example. We all know what they are in our lives. We know when we write someone or something off as not worth the effort. John the Baptist shows us today that it is always worth the effort to till the ground of faith and plant the seed of God.
Thank God, John the Baptist thought the Israelites were worth the effort. Mary allowed the seed of Jesus to be planted in her womb even though she did not know what it would mean. Jesus tilled and planted, not knowing whether His words and lives would matter. Throughout history, people have planted seeds of faith, wondering if they will grow and flourish. We stand in a long line of soil tillers and seed planters. We must do the same. Faith demands that we till the hardened ground, wherever we find it, and plant the seeds of the Gospel.
Blessed are those who plant the seed of faith and never see its fruition. They are the living hope of God for our world.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
