plumbline

A plumbline is the picture that comes to mind when I think of Sunday morning church. That’s often the time I see where my life is out-of-plumbness with God’s word. Of course the impression is doubled when pastor’s message reinforces my personal devotions.

In them I’ve been ambling through Mark and getting the sense of what Jesus was (and was discipling his twelve to become) all about.
- To Simon and Andrew, for example, He said “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” - Mark 1:12.
- To His disciples, on a morning after an amazing day of ministry, when He was finally found in a secret place praying, and told that the crowds were clamoring for more: “Let us go into the next towns that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth” - 1:38.
- To his mother and brothers seeking to put a filial claim on His time, said as He motioned to His disciples sitting around Him: “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and mother” - 3:35.

There is an urgency about His life that was not to be waylaid, a sense of focus that was not to be diffused. He was not sidetracked by apparent success, a potential career path, popularity, or superficial family constraints.

Pastor’s sermon yesterday – a continuation of the 'why' of missions – extended the above. After addressing several other points, he directed us to Luke 8 and the parable of the sower. This is really what our lives are to be all about, he encouraged us – sowing the ‘seeds of the kingdom’* everywhere, indiscriminately, lavishly, not worrying about whether or when or how they will bear fruit, just sowing.

I have so not done this in my life. Instead, I’ve been a very strategic sower, carefully thinking through what are the chances of the seed, should I sow it here, to succeed. And if I thought they weren’t good? Well, I would probably hold that seed back – partly I must admit not even so much concerned about the welfare of the seed, certainly not about the eternal welfare of the person from whom I withheld, but more about how sowing that seed would make me look!

And so I have stacks of “seed” I’ve never sown – a whole box full of tracts and gospels and Four Spiritual Law books just sitting in my closet, not bearing fruit.

That is going to change. As a start, I’ve put a few of these in the pocket of the jacket I wear when we go walking – determined to leave each one somewhere or with someone (and become a little subversive Canadian Seed-sower).

And if, this morning, I had any doubts about whether this really is God’s message to me today – guess where I’m at this morning in my reading of Mark. Chapter 4! It’s obvious that pastor’s Sunday sermons aren’t the only plumbline in life.

*He defined ‘seeds’ as things like witnessing, preaching, inviting people to church or cell group, offering to pray for them when they’re in distress, leaving tracts, etc.