Fyodor Dostoevsky...
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Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov, has Father Zossima preach a sermon on our scripture passage saying among other things: "God took seeds from other worlds and sowed them on this earth and made his garden grow, and everything that could come up came up, but whatever grows is alive and lives only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds: if that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you then what has grown up in you will also die. Then you will become indifferent to life and even grow to hate it."
Our task as followers of Jesus is to plant seeds, let them die, and then wait for the resurrection. How much Dostoevsky was influenced by Jesus and his gospel is attested to by the epigraph he attached to The Brothers Karamazov: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24 KJV).
Our task as followers of Jesus is to plant seeds, let them die, and then wait for the resurrection. How much Dostoevsky was influenced by Jesus and his gospel is attested to by the epigraph he attached to The Brothers Karamazov: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24 KJV).
