Epiphany 1

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who go through life spreading viruses and those who go through life spreading seeds.

We hear a lot about communicable diseases these days. Just as humanity was beginning to feel smugly safe with its ability to track down and wipe out “germs,” along came Covid-19 to make us all feel vulnerable and at risk.

But there are communicable graces as well as communicable diseases. Transmitting the Good News of the gift of Jesus Christ through God’s grace is the witness of the Holy Spirit. Paul was anxious to make sure all who confessed Christ experienced the Spirit so that the gospel could spread quickly through the world.

This is the great division in the world today. It is not between rich and poor, black and white, Jew and Gentile, male and female, Democrat and Republican. It is the division between Jude 18, 19 and Acts 2:1, 4.

Jude 18, 19: “In the last time there will be scoffers indulging their own ungodly lusts … devoid of the Spirit.”

Acts 2:1, 4 “They were all together in one place …. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.”

There you have it. This the great division in the world today. Those who are devoid of the Spirit and those who are filled with the Spirit. Those who are dead weights, and those who are all energy, cadence, and movement. Those who are matter, and those who are spiritmatter.

The final truths of life are Spiritual: love, joy, peace, grace. These are not material solid things, but they are spiritual solid things. This is the reason for the intensity of opposition to graven images – making something that is material into a spiritual solid thing.

The “scoffers” who are “devoid of the Spirit” are those who live by the graven image, fully invested in the material, and not at all in the spiritual. These are the worst “viruses” threatening our world. Their attitude is “gimme,” their mantra is “more,’ and their voracious appetite leaves virtually nothing in its path.

Immunologists studying the behavior of disease-causing pathogens are suggesting that the virulence or deadliness of a virus may be directly linked to its mode of transmission. Viruses that rely on direct transmission – from one infected body to a new yet-to-be-infected body – are typically the least virulent pathogens. A good example is rhinovirus, the common cold. It is to the viruses’ benefit to keep their host well enough to be up and moving, albeit miserable, in order to continue contacting as many potential new hosts as possible. The longer you wander around sneezing and coughing on everyone else, the more your own little viruses thank you.

On the other hand, viruses that rely on vectors – that is, some neutral third party – to infect new hosts, are often far more deadly. Malaria, yellow fever, typhus, sleeping sickness, all of which use mosquitoes as their personal limo-service to travel from one host to the next, are far more virulent diseases that often claim the lives of their hosts.

Human “viruses” work the same way. Those “devoid of the Spirit” who operate on their own are often annoying, unpleasant and irksome, but are rarely deadly. The gossip who buttonholes everyone on the street to pass along hateful, hurtful “dirt” on someone else is dependent on that one-to-one contact to spread their dis-ease around.

But a greed-driven corporation doesn’t need to ever look anyone in the eye in order to promote policies that sacrifice parklands for parking buildings, keep homeless people out of empty urban housing, or invest in high tech weapons instead of high tech educations. Contracts,

holding companies, investment strategies, all become the insidious vectors for these virulent viruses infecting and weakening our compassion and our community.

Contrast these viruses with Henry David Thoreau’s words about seeds: “Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

Seed sowers are Spirit-filled. Seed sowers confidently expect a harvest. Paul had no doubt that once he baptized those confused Ephesians in Jesus’ name, they would receive the Holy Spirit. And from what looked like the sorriest of ground, the resulting outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s gifts was phenomenal.

In the early 1900s, a woman went to her doctor with a catalogue of complaints about her health. The physician examined her thoroughly and became convinced that there was nothing physically wrong with her. He suspected it was her negative outlook on life, her bitterness and resentment that was the key to her feeling the way she did.

The physician took her into a back room in his office where he kept some of his medicines. He showed her a shelf filled with empty bottles. He said to her: “See those bottles. Notice that they’re all empty. They’re shaped differently from one another, but basically they’re all alike. Most importantly, they have nothing in them. Now, I can take one of these bottles and fill it with poison – enough poison to kill a human being. Or, I can fill it with enough medicine to bring down a fever, or ease a throbbing headache or fight bacteria in one part of the body. The important thing is that I make that choice. I can fill it with whatever I choose.”

The doctor looked her in the eye and said, “Each day that God gives us is basically like one of those empty bottles. We can choose to fill it with love and life-affirming thoughts and attitudes, or we can fill it with destructive, poisonous thoughts. The choice is ours.”

We can get bitter. Or we can get better.

What will you choose? To be one who communicates grace or one who communicates disease? It’s your choice. To be filled with the Spirit or devoid of the Spirit? The key to being a seed-planter, a sower of grace, is to be intentional. Disease is often caused by thoughtlessness, carelessness or even just plain ignorance. Cholera still threatens people all over the world who still rely on unsafe and unsanitary water sources. No one is intentionally bent on starting a cholera epidemic, but where water quality issues are neglected, it comes.

Though many of us have good intentions, we all know how hard it is to keep them from becoming mere brickwork on the road to hell. Intentionally communicating grace takes more than desire, it takes a plan and a strategy. It is far too nondirective to declare to yourself each morning, “Today I will be Spirit-filled.”

So how, then, do we become infectious, “catching”? Consider what might happen if we could memorize this saying of 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: “Life is too short to be little.” At the dawn of each new day, we should rise up and say to ourselves, “Life is too short to be …” (you fill in the blank).

One day it might be, “Life is too short to be angry.” Another day it might be, “Life is too short to be petty.” But every day, “Life is too short to be … (something).”

On the day we declare, “Life is too short to … hate anyone,” we can plant seeds of love.

On the day we declare, “Life is too short to be … bitter,” we can plant seeds of acceptance.

On the day we declare, “Life is too short to be … afraid,” we can plant seeds of risk.

On the day we declare, “Life is too short to be … jealous,” we can plant seeds of joy.

So let’s get out there – and be seedy.