The morning frost on the grass this time of year reminds me of those mornings before school when the frozen grass and mud crunched beneath my feet as I walked through the barnlot to feed cattle. I can hear the sound of the barndoor sliding open on its metal tracks. I can smell the unique mixture of corn, alfalfa hay, and manure inside the barn. I can feel the weight of my insulated rubber boots.
I recall the sense of plenty–of abundance–that I felt within the barn. When the frost arrived, the lofts on either side of the barn were completely full, usually with bales of alfalfa from the field on top of the hill at the farm’s edge or from the smaller field just behind our house. The rear half of the barn’s large center section was stacked with bales of fescue from the floor to the height of the hay lofts. There was plenty of hay to feed the cattle and whatever sheep might have been on the farm that winter. There was enough.
But it wasn’t by chance. There was enough because during the summer months, when the temperature in the hay loft reached triple digits up next to the metal roof, we spent hours filling the barn with hay. My grandfather and uncle mowed, raked, and baled. My dad and I, and others hired to help, walked alongside the hay wagon through the hayfields, tossing one bale after another onto the wagon until it was stacked full. At the barn, we handled each bale again, stacking them all in the lofts or on the growing stack in the barn’s center. Then we returned to the fields to repeat the process until all the hay was in the barn. That was our ritual at least two or three times per field each summer. When all was said and done, there were literally hundreds of bales in the barn.
I guess that’s perhaps the greatest lesson I learned on the farm–that there’s a rhythm to life that requires us to look ahead. There’s hay in the barn in the winter only if we put it there during the summer. As I so often said, “The problem with farming is that cattle don’t stay fed.” They have to eat every day, and if they’re to eat in the winter when they cannot graze in the pastures, someone has to make the necessary preparations ahead of time.
I know this sounds a lot like the fable of the grasshopper and ant, and it may seem that the moral of this post is that we should be like the industrious ant, saving for the winter and for the rainy day, so that we’ll have enough when we need it. Frankly, that’s not a bad moral, especially in an era of high unemployment rates and higher consumer debt.
But through the lens of faith, I see a different lesson among the hay bales. In his sermon on the mount, Jesus said, “‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).
I believe Jesus is asking and helping us to distinguish between the temporary and the eternal. Treasures on earth can be consumed and stolen, but treasures in heaven are eternal. To me, that’s the lesson of the barn. We had to work hard each summer to fill that barn with hay. We had to work hard each winter to keep those cattle filled with hay. In each case, however, our work was for a temporary outcome. Cattle don’t stay fed. Barns don’t stay filled.
It’s important to realize that Jesus didn’t tell us simply that we should NOT store up earthly treasure. His purpose was not simply to dissuade us from materialism. To the contrary, he says that we should replace that kind of treasure storage with heavenly treasure storage. Jesus doesn’t oppose storing treasure; rather, he asks us to be judicious about the treasure we seek and store.
I doubt very much that I spent as much time living and growing in my faith those summers and winters as I did helping to fill and empty the barn. As an adult–and particularly as a pastor–I’m trying to live in such a way that I put as much time and effort into working on my faith in Jesus Christ as I put into earning a paycheck. I’m trying to be conscientious about working as hard on preparing my heavenly home as I work on caring for my earthly home. I’m trying to distinguish between the temporary and eternal.
As I stood in the driveway this morning awaiting the school bus with my children, I walked through the frosty grass and felt and heard the familiar crunch. I invited my kids to feel it too, and as they walked in that frosty grass, they looked up at me and smiled at the new sensation.
I smiled as I recalled the old one.
Still on the Way . . . 