Sowing the Seeds of Love

From Amelie with Love

Dear Friends,

I just returned from a wonderful conference sponsored the national Episcopal Church in Baltimore, inspired by our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s fundamental belief that following the way of Jesus is “All about Love.” Together, hundreds of lay and clergy leaders from throughout the country gathered to consider important initiatives in Creation Care, Evangelism, and Racial Healing.

In one of the seminars I attended, the facilitator pressed us to re-imagine the word Evangelism, a Greek word that simply means “Good News.” Being an evangelist means sharing with another person or group of people your own experience of the life giving, liberating love of God, because, as Bishop Curry would say, “it’s all about love.” Where have you sensed this love in your life, and how has it changed you? Where do you see this love in the lives of those around you? Are you willing to name it?

This way of understanding evangelism is also one that is free from attachment to outcomes. Evangelism does not mean “I’m out to convert you.” Our job is to share. It is God’s job to do the rest. This is particularly clear in the Parable of the Sower that we are given from the gospel of Matthew  today for our worship. In this story that Jesus tells his followers, a farmer goes out to sow seeds, but he throws them indiscriminately – on rocky soil, thorny soil, hard soil, and fertile soil. There is no calculated, carefully examined strategy, no cost benefit analysis, no coercion, no anxious fettering over the future of the seed that is cast generously and broadly. Like God’s love, it is shared, with no strings attached.

I don’t know about you, but that way of understanding the concept of evangelism sits a lot better with me than what I’ve seen in the conventional 20th and 21st century versions that I have avoided. The question now becomes, am I willing to practice it? Am I willing to dig down deep, identify the times in my own life when God has met me in crisis, sadness, loss, or uncertainty in ways that have transformed my capacity for love, compassion, trust, and resilience? Do I have the courage to tell someone, anyone, about this? How about you?  And why is this important? Or better, what is more important than spreading seeds of courage, healing, and hope in a world so desperately in need of God’s love?

“A Sower went out to sow,” Jesus said. “Let those who have ears to hear, hear.”

In Christ,

Amelie+