TO SERVE GOD

 

I have very fond memories of my childhood in Croatia. I spent every school holiday with my relatives in the village from which we came. Because of it I am very familiar with the agrarian way of life. I know what shepherds are. I have witnessed harvests, attended yearly village festivals, journeyed in open wagons. It makes the New and Old Testament very relatable. My patriarchal blessing says I have a rich heritage. Indeed.

When I read the Saviour saying to his disciples, “…..look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest”, I recall running my hand through the heavy ripe heads of wheat shining like gold in the sun (John 4:35). I love that the Saviour compared those who are ready to receive the truth to ripe wheat. And I love the imagery of the harvest.  It appeals to my understanding.

The harvest began well and truly in our dispensation with Joseph and the restoration of the Church. The results of the missionary labours in 1800s were astounding. People truly were like ripe golden wheat:

“In the early days of the Restoration, thousands were prepared to receive the gospel. So many came into the Church that the enemies of the work were frightened. It was not one of a city or two of a family who joined; whole congregations united themselves with the work. Wilford Woodruff alone baptized over two thousand converts in less than a year’s ministry in Great Britain.” (Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual commentary for D&C 4:4, p 12)

In Section 4 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Saviour used the imagery of the sickle for harvesting. This too evokes memories. I remember my grandfather cutting down the wheat with a sickle. Sometimes he would use a small sickle with a short handle and a curved blade. He would cut with one hand and hold the stalks with the other.

At other times he would use a large sickle with a long handle and cut through the field while my grandmother would walk behind him and gather the stalks that fell. It was arduous work. The trick in how fast this could be done lay in the sharpness of the sickle. If the blade was sharp it would cut through the wheat like butter and the work was quicker.

Elder Kevin R. Duncan of the Seventy spoke of the importance of a sharp sickle and how it relates to our preparedness to be profitable servants of God. He pointed out that our spiritual sickles need to be kept sharpened in order to produce a worthy harvest. The qualities needed to qualify for the work are in D&C 4:5,6  (Abandoned Seeds in Rocky Places, New Era, July 2014, 18).

Regarding chapter 4 of Doctrine and Covenants, President Joseph Fielding Smith remarked:  “Perhaps there is no other revelation in all our scriptures that embodies greater instruction pertaining to the manner of qualification of members of the Church for the service of God, and in such condensed form than this revelation. It is as broad, as high and as deep as eternity” (Church History and Modern Revelation [1953], 1:35)

I consider Joseph’s take on service superior to all the rest. While a prisoner in Liberty jail, he wrote to the Church members. Despite the iron yoke of hell, he told the saints that they still owed ‘an imperative duty to all the rising generation and to all the pure in heart….for there are many yet on the earth who are kept from the truth because they know not where to find it….’  Joseph admonished that ‘we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness’ and give the world the truth.

This is being like Christ. This is following in the footsteps of Him who indeed wore himself out in bringing truth to the world, forgiveness to the sinful, love for the righteous and joy un-surpassing for those who endure to the end. Didn’t He descend to the bottomless pit of human suffering for me and you, for the ungrateful, for the unaccepting and indeed for all creation???

He will come and He will make up His jewels from among the righteous and spare them, ‘as a man spareth his own son that serveth him’  (Malachi 3:17)

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Reaping the Harvest by Nathan Greene)

THE GENTLE SOWER

When gospel truth is gently sown

in my unlearned heart,

I hope it finds no hardened crust

on wayside paths apart.

Nor even drops on softer spot

with hardness just below,

Where faithless, poorly rooted sprouts

are doomed to never grow.

I pray it shall not fall in dirt

where thorns have made their bed.

Where choking plants, 'mid worldly cares',

grow fruitless, nearly dead.

But let that seed find fertile soil

in deep and clean abode,

And drawing life, yield true and full

to Him who gently sowed.

-  Anonymous

"Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold." (Matt 13:3-8)

Matthew tells us that Jesus spoke many things to His hearers in parables (Matt 13:3). When His disciples asked Him why, among the reasons He had given them, was one that shows the compassionate nature of the Gentle Sower. The reason for delivering His message of gospel hope and peace was not so that only the spiritually literate would understand but also to show mercy to those who were not so: 'Had He always taught in explicit declaration, such as required no interpretation, many among His hearers would have come under condemnation, inasmuch as they were too weak in faith and unprepared in heart....to accept and obey the saving word' (James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p 295-298). Thus the Lord gave to His hearers that portion of His word and His teachings which they were prepared spiritually to receive without condemnation for the rest. 

With those of us who are hearers of the word and who have received the seed rests the responsibility to nourish the soil of our hearts and nurture that seed lest it be choked and overcome by the influence of the weeds and thistles that chance to also take root there for it is not enough to just receive Christ's teachings but we must also be valiant in the testimony of Jesus. It behooves us not to allow the cares of the world to choke the word within us lest we be overcome by tares which will at the last day be discarded. The tares which are spoken of in Jesus' parable of the wheat and the tares is the weed called 'bearded darnel' which is very similar in appearance to wheat with the roots of the two often intertwined. The darnel 'is easily distinguishable from the wheat and barley when headed out but when both are less developed, the closest scrutiny will often fail to detect it' (James E Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 301). For this reason even the farmers do not attempt to separate the one from the other whilst it is developing.

"Now we learn by this parable (the wheat and the tares) not only the setting up of the Kingdom in the days of the Saviour, which is represented by the good seed, which produced fruit, but also the corruptions of the Church, which are represented by the tares, which were sown by the enemy, which His disciples would fain have plucked up, or cleansed the Church of, if their views had been favoured by the Saviour. But He, knowing all things, says, Not So. As much as to say, your views are not correct, the Church is in its infancy, and if you take this rash step, you will destory the wheat, or the Church, with the tares; therefore it is better to let them grow together until the harvest, or the end of the world, which means the destruction of the wicked...." (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp 97-98)

"....blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear" (Matt 13:16)

When the Saviour visited the Nephites following His resurrection, the wicked and the ungodly among them had been destroyed leaving only those who were willing to hear and receive the word of truth. To the unbelieving Jews, Jesus taught in excess of 40 parables and to the receptive Nephites he taught none, teaching them instead in simplicity and plainness (McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, pp 553-54). Receiving the seed into the soil of our hearts is only the beginning for those willing to believe. Through the parables lies an open invitation to come unto Christ, to learn more of Him and His doctrine, to ponder the truths which will lead to salvation and eternal life. "They teach arithmetic to those who have the capacity to learn calculus in due course. They are the mild milk of the word that prepares our spiritual digestive processes to feast upon the doctrinal meat of the kingdom....for no parable, no teaching, no mystery, no hidden thing, is to be kept from the knowledge of the faithful; eventually all things shall be revealed, and the righteous shall know them" (McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, p. 245-246).

Jesus came to preach the gospel to those who would accept Him and to bear the sins of all those who would believe His words and live His laws. He came to bring good tidings of salvation, to disperse the darkness of unbelief and to bring light to the world. He came to give every man as much of the truth as each man's soul would permit him to receive but most of all He came to gather His own. He was the ultimate sower who sowed the seeds of truth in the souls of His sheep (Matt 13:37). To become golden grain of God we must act on the word which has taken root in our soil. We must be doers of the word and not hearers only. To be golden grain when the harvest comes, our works must reflect the teachings of the Lord of the Harvest for 'no man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light' (Luke 8:16).

True hearers are a light to the world bringing forth good fruit from the seed which was sowed. True hearers of the word are the labourers in His vineyard who bring light and compassion to the inhabitants of the world, who sow seeds of love and exemplify the Gentle Sower in their doings and who are valiant in their testimony of Jesus in all things and in all places.  The following story related by President James E. Faust is useful in helping us understand the difference between studying the parables of Jesus and applying them in our lives: "A group of religion instructors were taking a summer course of the life of the Saviour and focusing particularly on the parables.When the final exam came the students arrived at the classroom to find a note that the exam would be given in another building across campus. Moreover, the note said, it must be finished within the two-hour time period that was starting almost at that moment. The students hurried across campus. On the way, they passed a little girl crying over a flat tire on her new bike. And old man hobbled painfully toward the library with a cane in one hand, spilling books from a stack he was trying to manage with the other. On a bench by the union building sat a shabbily dressed, bearded man [in obvious distress]. Rushing into the other classroom, the students were met by the professor, who announced that they had all flunked the final exam. The only test of whether they understood the Savior’s life and teaching, he said, was how they treated people in need. Their weeks of study at the feet of a capable professor had taught them a great deal of what Christ had said and done. In their haste to finish the technicalities of the course, however, they failed to recognize the application represented by the three scenes that had been deliberately staged. They had learned the letter but not the spirit. (Cited by President James E. Faust, Ensign, May 1998, p.18, from Church News, 1 October 1988, p. 16)  As with all the teachings of the Savior, the really worthwhile results come not from hearing but from doing (Ted L. Gibbons, NT Lesson 11, He Spake Many Things Unto Them In Parables)"

"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, 

I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock ..."

Matthew 7:24