Why did God create mosquitoes?
Last Sunday, Fr. Peter pointed out that we had begun the now-largely-neglected season of Pre-Lent. While Lent is perhaps surprisingly the favourite season of the Church year for some people, others are not so gleeful at its approach, and might wonder why we seemingly prolong the attendant misery with three more Sundays in purple, called “Pre-Lent.”
To a large extent, Fr. Peter addressed that last
week in mentioning that the season of Pre-Lent is a time itself of preparation
for the great fast of Lent. It is meant
to call us back from our Christmas feasting and joy in order to prepare
ourselves for fasting and humiliation (in the true sense of that word) in the
approaching time of Lent. This is why
purple vestments traditionally have been used during this season.
The Epistles appointed for these three Sundays from St. Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth encourage us to reflect upon the virtues that are necessary for holiness of life. Each of us should make a genuine attempt at such reflection, not only contemplating holy virtues, but equally, engaging in honest self-examination to admit to ourselves and to God where we have fallen short. If a renewal of holiness is the object of our Lenten fast, then surely we should prepare properly before we embark upon that 40 day journey with our Lord. In just 10 days, Lent begins; may each of us be so properly prepared (and as mentioned in the announcements, Confessions may be heard on the day before, Shrove Tuesday, or by appointment).
While the Gospel passages chosen for these Sundays only refer to virtues indirectly, they most certainly encourage us to contemplate the nature of our spiritual life and relationship to God as we prepare for our Lenten exercises.
Last week, from the Gospel parable of the workers in the vineyard, Fr. Peter encouraged us to acknowledge that without our being prepared wholeheartedly to rid ourselves, with God’s help, of pride, and to pray for humility to be increased in its place, we shall fall very short of the mark; “for many be called, but few chosen” being the words with which that passage concluded. Weighty words indeed for us to contemplate as we look ahead to the beginning of Lent in a week and a half.
In a sense those very sobering words are echoed in today’s Gospel reading of the much loved parable of the sower and the seed. Have we ever paused to consider that there are four types of ground into which the seed might fall - and three of those types of ground, representing us, are, well, bad. “Many are called, but few chosen.” The seed falls into all types of ground, but only one of the different types will produce fruit unto redemption.
Now we must acknowledge here that the intention of anyone sowing seed is to put it only into ground that has been prepared for that purpose. Jesus covers that by stating that some seed, not intended by the sower, fell, as opposed to was sowed into the various types of ground. Anyone planting, say, carrot seeds by hand will attest to the difficulty of having them end up only where we would wish. Still, His intention in the parable was explained to His disciples in a way that makes it clear that we are all represented as the various types of ground.
There is an often missed link to the Old Testament
in this parable of the sower and the seed as regards the first Lesson at
Mattins on this Sunday. We heard read
from Genesis, Chapter 3 this morning, after Adam and Eve had messed up royally,
God telling them, “…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat
of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall if bring forth
unto thee…” (Gen. 3.17b-18a).
Aha, the link is the thorns! Well, perhaps in part; but the true link is
the ground. And to understand this link
more fully, we must look back to the first Lesson last Sunday morning when we
began reading at the very beginning of the Bible. At the end of the creation account, after the
earth had been created from the void, the waters and the dry land, birds of the
air and fishes of the sea, we read that, “God saw every thing that He had made,
and, behold, it was very good.” Of
course, included in that “every thing that He made” was the ground.
Do we have a contradiction, God not being true to
Himself when He then tells Adam and Eve “cursed is the ground” one of the good
things that He had made? No, we must
acknowledge the entire phrase, “cursed is the ground for thy sake,”
which is to say that the ground was still as good as when God created it, but
on account of Adam’s transgression, and by the subsequently just withholding of
God’s favour, it would now require constant toil and labour on Adam’s part and
of the entire human race forever, for it to bring forth in any kind of
abundance that would resemble the truly good nature of it.
Fallen man.
And there in part at least is an answer to why God created
mosquitoes. As Fr. David Curry points
out in a sermon on this particular Sunday, mosquitoes or black flies were
created to remind us that this is not heaven.
But if mosquitoes, or whatever pest that has no apparent benefit to the
goodness of God’s creation, are an annoying indicator, many will still muse
about the immutable sentence placed on Adam and Eve so long ago, thinking to
themselves, “I had nothing to do with what they did in the garden; I certainly
wouldn’t have eaten from the tree the way they did in disobeying God, so why am
I condemned to suffer colds, and flu, and aches, and pains, and earthquakes,
and windstorms?”
It doesn’t seem fair, does it? It never will until each of us learns that
Adam and Eve are you and me, and we are they.
Their fall was both real and symbolic.
Real in that we share their ground of self-will, the fallenness of
humanity - we do as they did. Symbolic
in that it isn’t just eating from a tree whose fruit was forbidden by God; the
tree symbolizes all of the other things that we do in disobedience to God. We do as they did in so many other ways.
The ground, whether we are thinking of creation and
the fall, or of Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed, is still God’s
good ground. The ground, whether we are
thinking of the literal dust from which we have been created and in which we
toil to bring forth our daily bread, or, the ground of our hearts as Jesus
subsequently explained that the ground was in His parable, is still God’s good
ground.
I know certainly that far too often when I hear this
parable of the sower and the seed, I might tend to give myself a pat on the
back, commending myself for being such a good, faithful churchgoer and supporter
of the poor and needy. Surely I am one
of those who is bringing forth and bearing fruit.
Alas, it may be said fairly that none of us is
sufficiently holy that others would observe that we are 100% the good ground to
which Jesus makes reference in His teaching, that any of us is the first
perfect human since Adam’s fall. Each of
us has various amounts of all of the types of the ground: the wayside, rocks,
thorns, and, yes, happily good ground too.
There will always be rocks and thorns and thistles in
farmers’ fields; there will always be the equivalent “distractions” in our
hearts. But under the rocks and thorns
and thistles and distractions, there is the good ground, placed there by God
before we were aware, waiting for us to turn our wills to His, which is the
only way that we will bring forth abundantly.
Why did God create mosquitoes? Well, perhaps we might blame poor Adam; but
perhaps we might rather just as obliquely say that it is to encourage us to a
properly humble state of mind and heart as we prepare to embark on our Lenten
exercises and disciplines.
In 10 days we shall hear other words that God said
to Adam in the very same episode, “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return.” Yes, I am made up of oxygen,
carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen molecules, just as dust is. Lord, I am not worthy, dust as I am, that
thou shouldest show any favour to me, a fallen and appropriately mosquito
bitten creature of ground.
But speak the word only, help me to stand upright
when I turn and put my trust in Thee, cultivate the ground of my heart and I
shall be healed so that I might bring forth fruit.
Very topically, on Thursday evening past, following an open house for St. Timothy’s classical academy for elementary school aged children, as I was driving Clement home, he asked me how he should go about preparing to keep a good or meaningful Lent. I didn’t really want to spoil today’s sermon for him, so in mentioning that, during Lent we should visualize ourselves walking with Jesus - during His forty day fast in the wilderness; during His last journey to Jerusalem where He knew what awaited Him in Pilate’s court, and thus to visualize ourselves doing anything with Jesus should surely cause us to stop and assess the quality of our discipleship and faithfulness - and that, as much as anything, is the proper attitude in approaching Lent. I further mentioned to Clement that the idea of “giving up something for Lent” is alright insofar as it has attendant spiritual benefits; but, perhaps a more fruitful approach is to “take up something.” Helping out at the Shepherds of Good Hope, or the Mission or Capital City or Jericho Ministries for a few hours every week; or visiting sick or shut-in people for a few hours per week. And if what we may have given up is say, watching sports or sitcoms on TV, then the time required for those other activities suddenly becomes available. The attendant spiritual benefits are well worth any preconceived inconvenience on our part. Clement’s timing was impeccable; the correct question at the correct time. Which is to say, we should all be going through the same exercise, now, before Lent begins so that when it does, we have spent sufficient time in advance pondering our chosen spiritual exercises and disciplines.
A sower went out to sow, with Clement of Ottawa
helping him. Perhaps while they are at
it, they can do something about those darn mosquitoes in North Gower.
THE ANNUNCIATION
OTTAWA 2007 +CR