Loving The Uncertain

LOVING THE UNCERTAIN

LUKE 7:17-23

INTRODUCTION… “We Understand So Little” Book of Virtues pages 774-775

Once there were two young brothers who had spent all their lives in the city, and had never even seen a field or pasture. So one day they decided to take a trip into the countryside. As they were walking along, they spied a farmer plowing, and were puzzled about what he was doing.

“What kind of behavior is this?” they asked themselves. “This fellow marches back and forth all day, scarring the earth with long ditches. Why should anyone destroy such a pretty meadow like that?” Later in the afternoon they passed the same place again, and this time they saw the farmer sowing grains of wheat in the furrows.

“Now what’s he doing?” they asked themselves. “He must be a madman. He’s taking perfectly good wheat and tossing it into these ditches!” “The country is no place for me,” said one of the brothers. “The people here act as if they had no sense. I’m going home.” And he went back to the city.

But the second brother stayed in the country, and a few weeks later saw a wonderful change. Fresh green shoots began to cover the field with a lushness he had never imagined. He quickly wrote to his brother and told him to hurry back to see the miraculous growth. So his brother returned from the city, and he too was amazed at the change. As the days passed they saw the green earth turn into a golden field of tall wheat. And now they understood the reason for the farmer’s work.

Then the wheat grew ripe, and the farmer came with his scythe and began to cut it down. The brother who had returned from the city couldn’t believe it. “What is this imbecile doing now?” he exclaimed. “All summer long he worked so hard to grow this beautiful wheat and now he’s destroying it with his own hands! He is a madman after all! I’ve had enough. I’m going back to the city.” But his brother bad more patience. He stayed in the country and watched the farmer collect the wheat and take it to his granary. He saw how cleverly he separated the chaff, and how carefully stored the rest. And he was filled with awe when he realized that by sowing a bag of seed, the farmer had harvested a whole field of grain. Only then did he truly understand that the farmer had a reason for everything he did.

Both brothers were suffering from uncertainty. In the story, they were constantly asking themselves and each other… “what is this farmer doing?” They had no experience which informed what the farmer was doing. They had no one in authority to provide answers. In fact, one of the brothers saw no good solution for anything he was seeing and so he gave up and went back home. In this particular story, uncertainty even caused a small rift between the brothers. In the story, the city-slicker brothers were uncertain about country life, what exactly the farmer was doing, why he was doing what he was doing, or how what he was doing would lead to anything good. It led one of them to declare that the farmer was a “madman.”

I hope that you know that the Church exists to bring people into an authentic growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus says in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” Jesus says elsewhere in Matthew 9:12, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Some of those people who are lost out in the world are seeking for meaning or inner peace or some kind of divine enlightenment. They are uncertain about God. Some of the people who are sick with sin, guilt, and consequences are uncertain about how to change their lives for the better. This morning we are talking all about loving those in our lives who are uncertain. We all have people in our lives who when it comes to God are just uncertain.

Uncertain about God, Jesus, the Bible, and all things with the label Christian.

Uncertain about Church.

Uncertain about the meaning of life.

SOURCES OF UNCERTAINTY ABOUT GOD (adapted from myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-results/reasons-for-uncertainty.asp)

Where does uncertainty come from?

Where does uncertainty about God, Jesus, the Bible, Church, or the meaning of life come from?

Uncertainty comes from incomplete understanding. Sometimes people hear about God, Jesus, Church, or the Bible and they do not have a full picture about what Christianity is about. Perhaps they only remember snippets from having been at church on Christmas and Easter or have a warped view based on television or movies. Maybe they have an experience with God they do not quite understand. Incomplete understanding about God breeds uncertainty.