Grass: A Sermon

Grass seems to be ubiquitous these days, along with rain, mud and worms. About a month ago, our family took a week-long trip to Goshen, Indiana to visit family. When we returned to Harrisnburg, our lawn had gone to seed. It was only after I stubbornly pushed my not-so-sharp, fifteen inch reel mower twenty feet through eight inches of thick green grass that I went to Dayton Equipment center and bought a gas mulching mower. So I’ve been in mourning: the clip-clip-clip of the reel mower has become arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . . arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh of an internal combustion engine.

The ubiquitous grass is quite lovely and very personable: it follows me everywhere, especially into the house. It hitches rides between my toes or on the soles of my shoes. It turns my toes green, encouraging me tojoin the chlorophyll gang. The grass is so personable that it in fact hitches rides on Aaron’s legs and on Lily’s butt. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that my grass needs some therapy: it has clinging-dependency issues to work through.

The ubiquitous grass is playing me as the fool, greening herself up in velvet cocktail dresses, pouring me green chlorophyll juleps, but I know better. Come August, the lawn will be brown, the chlorophyll evaporated into the shimmering, glinting sky above. I’ll be wishing for rain then. The ubiquitous grass fades in the fall twilight, turns brown in November, is gone by January. The grass is not so ubiquitous then; in fact, we probably wish for it, dream of it on our feet, in our hair, strewn across the kitchen floor: ”If only I could sweep a little green up from the vinyl. . .”

Isaiah says that we are like grass, that we are beautiful, that we are flower children. And Isaiah, along with the Psalmist, says that we fade, and that when the wind blows, we disappear.

But the ubiquitous grass! Surely not my lawn!

Perhaps this is something positive, something to not fear but anticipate. In our physical world, things die. And likewise, in our physical world, things are born anew. The two coexist, and may be dependent on each other. Jesus, the original flower child, said, “Don’t worry about your life. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Don’t worry about your food. Don’t worry about your clothes. Look at the flowers in the field: they’re beautiful! If God clothes grass like that, how much more will God take care of you?”

So the doomed, ubiquitous grass is a parable in giving up: we fade but are born anew. Early Christians saw this in Jesus. The Christian hymn found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians says that Christ, although he was in essence God, emptied (kenosis) himself, took on the form of a human, and died a criminal’s death. He was the ultimate blade of grass. Paul says we should be as Christ: we should empty ourselves to the point when our very essence, our very nature, becomes Christ and we become walking incarnations of God. There is some truth to that old saying, “Let go and let God.” (Quippy, to be sure, but essentially truthful.)

A Seed Blessing for when you plant some grass: