An experienced gardener knows that if he wants to have an abundant harvest in his garden, he must sow abundant seeds. Not every seed comes to life, not every seed brings more fruit. Of the ten, maybe two will take over, maybe three, maybe four. When a gardener sows ten seeds, he may only have two or three new fruits. However, if he sows a hundred, he will have many more fruits. Today, our words in the Holy Scriptures talk about sowing and harvesting. He who is generous in sowing has a rich harvest. However, those stingy in sowing must be satisfied with a modest harvest. That is a rule that applies not only in the garden. These words can be downloaded just as well to man as to God himself. God is the sower of his word. It also reminds us of this in the parable, which he says he sows abundantly. If he had spread a little of his word worldwide, there would have been a small harvest. He expects that something will fall by the side of the road, something on a rock, something among thorns, and only a quarter will bring a harvest. He considers it and therefore sows a lot, so the quarter is as large as possible. But he not only sows his word but also his love and blessing. Again, assuming only a quarter will react, a quarter will bring a harvest. God has sown his love and blessing worldwide, in every single heart. So at least some hearts should react and bring forth a harvest. Now let’s ignore the global statistics and try to look at our hearts. After all, we also received from God the abundance of His love and blessing. After all, we were allowed to work and care for ourselves and our loved ones during the past year. We were allowed to live here, receiving help in difficult moments, and blessings in beautiful ones. We were allowed to grow spiritually and listen to His word Sunday after Sunday, we were allowed to belong to the community of religious people and live a social life.
Furthermore, we live to this day and are allowed to be gathered here again. Isn’t that enough of all this? And I’m not talking about the blessing of our work, our crops in gardens or fields, or the blessing we received at work. So the sowing of God’s love was also abundant with us. However, we want to investigate whether our heart brings harvest. How is the harvest manifested, that is, the reaction of the human heart to God’s love? Scripture tells us that the heart that brings forth the harvest feels especially gratitude and generosity. Gratitude is directed towards the originator of love and blessing, towards God. If we have received abundant gifts from God’s hand and are aware of it, our hearts should be grateful to God. Gratitude can be expressed with a word, a prayer, or a joyful song. Even the fact that we are here today and aware of God’s blessing can express our gratitude. But it is only half, just as gratitude is only half of the harvest in the living heart. The other half is generosity. And it’s also a practical way to show gratitude. So one is closely related to the other. If I said at the beginning that the words about sowing and reaping can be applied to man and God, they concerned God while we were thinking about His sowing of love and blessing towards us, and talked about his generosity. But now we want to talk about our generosity, so these words begin to touch us. Again, we come across the wisdom of gardeners, which is also expressed in the apostle Paul’s letter. He who is not very generous also reaps little. But he who is abundant in generosity his a harvest that is also plentiful. Our thanks to God are therefore manifested by our generosity and the degree of our generosity. Someone gives only a little, and someone only when they have to. Another is the mandatory minimum, some occasionally even more. And again, someone else regularly and more. Our options are very individual. However, the Scriptures admonish that we give willingly in the first place and not out of compulsion.
But now we can ask: What do “make” willingly give us as much as possible? What motivates us to do this? Of course, motivation is rightly asked, because it depends a lot on human action. So why should we give something to someone? We find the answer again in the scripture, where we read the promise that God loves a willing giver. The same God who has the power to multiply his love with us, so that we always have enough of everything if we decide to sacrifice something for the good of others. God promises us that we will be enriched ourselves. Therefore, even if we wanted to look at the human sacrifice of material means for the good of others as egoistically as possible, we still find a reason and a motive for resorting to it repeatedly. If we give something to someone, it is perfect for us. We will be enriched, and God will multiply his grace with us. And here the words of Jesus Christ are also fulfilled: It is more blessed to give than to take“.
And the others who will become the object of our generosity? Maybe they had material-financial problems. Perhaps in the silence of their hearts, they begged God to send someone in their way to help them. And maybe that someone is us. We can become instruments of God’s help for the person we gift with something. Perhaps we don’t even know how much we helped him, how much good we did. Even the apostle Paul writes that our generosity can cause further gratitude to God and further generosity. And again, we are at the heart that will respond to the sowing of this time our love and generosity by feeling gratitude and generosity. And so God’s love can spread through the world. Here we see that without our generosity, it could not have happened. If we were to remain only with that verbal thanks to the Lord God, no one would have anything from our joy and gratitude. However, someone else is also affected in this way. And we? We are enriched and blessed again by God to the extent we have measured to people. And here the cycle of God’s love closes. God gives it to us in his blessing; if we return it and pass it on, we will receive another from God’s hand.
It is similar to the water cycle in nature. If water in the form of rain falls to the ground, it must never remain there. That would already be an ecological crisis. Water must rise to the sky again in the form of steam, so that it falls on us again in the form of rain. Even if God’s love and generosity only fell from heaven into a bottomless abyss, it would be a severe imbalance and a critical state, perhaps similar to Sodom and Gomorrah. However, if it continues to spread through our gratitude, love, and generosity, it seems to return to heaven in the testimonies and gratitude of the people we show it to. They thank God for us, they bear witness to us. Testimony that rises to heaven affects the measure of our following blessing that the heavenly Father is preparing for us. If we sow abundantly, we will also harvest abundantly. Let’s remember this wisdom so that, bypassing it and ignoring it, we do not show the world and God that we know less about life than the most ordinary and simple gardeners.
Hello. And Bye.