Out Our Way: The Gospel according to Goliath - We put Las Vegas to shame

And Jesus taught in parables. Once he taught, "This is what the Kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day come and go and whether he is awake or asleep the seed sprouts and grows without his help. All by itself the seed grows and is nurtured by the rain and the soil and it produces grain - first the stalk, then the head and then the full kernel. He waits until the grain is ripe and then he harvests, for the time has come."

- Mark 4:20-29

Out our way, we put Las Vegas to shame when it comes to the number of casinos per square foot. We have lottery tickets in the grocery stores and gas stations; many restaurants also have casinos as do most bars and saloons - plus, of course, the numerous free-standing casinos all along the highway and on the Rez.

But when you consider that agriculture is a primary industry here on the Hi-Line, the gambling fever seems to be less of an addiction than simply a way of life. We have all heard of the farmer who won the big lottery, and when asked what he was going to do just smiled and said, Guess I'll keep farming until its all gone." Every farmer and rancher out our way knows that he or she is a gambler: gambling that there will be enough water for the crops, for the pasture; that the hail will not hit before the harvest; that the beef prices will not suddenly collapse at market time. You don't work the land without knowing every year is a gamble.

But, at the same time, there are things we can do to level the odds. I have known farmers who didn't use the down months to service their equipment and when the time to start the seeding process came, weren't ready, and lost days or even weeks of growing time. Ranchers who haven't been ready to start the first cuttings lose out as well. There is no guarantee that the hail won't come, that the frost won't stay longer, that some calves won't freeze at birth because of an unwelcome Alberta Clipper suddenly coming down from Canada, or a needed chinook wind fails to show and the watering holes stay iced up. There are a hundred things that can go wrong every year on the farm or ranch, say the ag profs at the college, and the old-timers will tell you of a thousand more. Face it, if you work the land for a living, you are a gambler.

And yet, every spring we see the wheat and the barley and the peas and such sprouting. How can such beauty and vitality come out of that little seed? Yet you hold it in your hand and you know that inside that shell is a whole plant, eager and ready to grow.

Every spring we see lambs and calves jumping and playing across the prairie, and remember what tiny critters they were last February when it was 40 below, snowing, and we wondered how anything could survive the cold. Oh, it is a gamble - no mistake - many things can go wrong. But the miracle is that so many times nothing does. Despite hail and frost, drought and flood, somehow the land keeps producing, the seed keeps growing. That wobbly calf of last year is now a solid yearling who will soon be producing calves of her own. That tiny lamb is on his way to becoming a ram that will keep the flock growing and expanding year after year.

These are miracles we folks on the Hi-Line tend to take for granted. Yes, we are gamblers. We know that sometimes bad things happen. But we are out on our tractors and ATVs and horses because, although it is always a gamble; we believe in agriculture and believe that the odds will always favor the hard-working farmer and rancher in the long run.

Pastors and disciples are gamblers, too. We know there will be times we mess up, fall flat on our faces, mess up big time. We know there will be times we try to live the Gospel and fail miserably. But we also believe in miracles. We believe that despite the ups and downs of the Kingdom, the growth will happen. Like the farmer who cannot really comprehend how a tiny seed can contain the entire plant within itself, we just know that it can and does. And so we plant knowing that in the long run, the crop will grow to harvest. We ride herd knowing that these silly calves and lambs will grow to become steers and heifers, sheep and ewes. The herd or flock will flourish because that is the way of God's creation. We are the caretakers, not the creators - and yes, disasters will befall us from time to time. Yet in the main, the odds are on our side because God knows what He is doing.

More than a few farmers haves at in the cab of their tractors or combines. more than few ranchers have sat in the saddle and looked over the herd, and realized there is a God at work here - and some of the most important seed is planted not in the earth, but in the heart. It, too, is growing and moving toward a harvest.

The parable of the mustard seed reminds us that God is NOT a gambler, and as one of my profs at seminary put it, "God not only has the means to win, but He means to win." The miracle of life, in the seed and in the critter, is a safe bet. For God is not only at work in the seed, but in the sower.

(John Bruington, Th.D., is pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Havre and copies of this message, Bruin Town Tales for Kids, and weekly sermons are available at http://www.havrepres.org.)