More than meets the eye...
The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. Psalm 19:1-2
He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."
Mark 4:26-29
I have been thinking about the glorious complexity of life recently--the beauty of the earth displaying the glory of God. All around us there is more than meets the eye. The intricate Lilliputian world underneath a garden canopy--or a four-inch patch of grass--reveals a hidden complexity, an uncontemplated glory. The Judeo-Christian tradition reveals a God who creates the heavens and the earth. The creation reveals a God who delights in diverse habitats, vast spaces, expansive galaxies, microscopic organisms, and intricate biological systems. All this God declares to be good. The psalmist speaks of the silent language proclaimed all around us--the wordless testimony of rocks, stars, oceans, mountains, rain falling on fields of tassling corn. We humans are a part of this web of life that reveals in complex and simple ways the glory of God.
N.T. Wright says that we honor and celebrate our complexity and our simplicity by continually doing five things. We tell stories. We act out rituals. We create beauty. We work in communities. We think out beliefs. In and through all these things run the threads of love and pain, fear and faith, worship and doubt, the quest for justice, the thirst for spirituality, and the promise and problem of human relationship. (Simply Christian, Haper Collins, 2006)
The language spoken by the garden, by the heavens, the four-inch patch of grass... is echoed in our lives. Under the thatch of our daily activities--the seemingly mundane routine of work and home, eating and sleeping--there is a hidden glory that reflects God. It is sometimes covered by weeds that take over--the addictions, compulsions, and insecurities. It is marred by sin, yet the divine fingerprints are there.
The glory of God is revealed as we stop, look, and listen. As we look inward and outward for the signs, we find seeds growing in ways that we cannot understand. Seeds of life and hope that display the glory of God. Seeds...a world of matter that speaks a message that has gone throughout the earth. This language can be heard in ordinary moments.
N.T. Wright says that it is when you come home from a day's work. You tell stories about what has happened. You listen to more stories on television or radio. You go through the simple but profound ritual of cooking a meal, laying the table, doing the thousand familiar things that say, This is who we are (or, if you're alone, This is who I am). This is where we are ourselves. You arrange a bunch of flowers or tidy a room. And from time to time you discuss the meaning of it all.
How is the glory of God displayed in the journey of a band of Christians such as Sunnyside Mennonite Church? At times it breaks through in spectacular, dramatic ways. But many times, it has a way of remaining hidden just beyond our ability to perceive it. Under the mundane rythms of prayer, life groups, gathering for worship, teaching Sunday School, tending to leadership, preparing a sermon, preparing to lead worship, gathering with others in the broader Church...
...in cleaning a house, being present with a child at VBS, leading a craft, fixing a bicycle, telling a story, listening to the story of another, heading off to work and coming home again, driving a combine through a field...under these ordinary activities the glory of God is revealed.
In this ordinary moment, in this earthy place--there is more than meets the eye. Green stalks pulsing with life grow out of pregnant earth. The glory of God is displayed in this place, in this leaf, in this four-inch patch of grass. The heavens, the squash plant, and these people...display the glory of God.
