Gardening Tips
| John Wilkinson |
Third Presbyterian Church |
| July 13, 2008 |
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 |
I am an inveterate watcher of WXXI on a Saturday morning. My
favorite are the cooking shows and home improvement shows. In
fact I believe I’ve watched enough of those shows to actually
have convinced myself that I would whip up a gourmet Italian
meal or re-wire the late 1800’s house that we don’t
own. It’s probably good that there is not a medical show
on on Saturday morning – I might think that I could successfully
perform brain surgery.
I must confess, though, that when the gardening shows come
on, “The Victory Garden” and the like, I seek my
entertainment elsewhere. Perhaps it hits too close to home;
the kind of gardening they do is not the kind of gardening we
do.
I’ve been paying attention, though, to another form of
this question. One can’t help but read, because of the
economic pressures we are facing and because of the environmental
questions we are asking, articles about our food: how it’s
grown, where it’s from, how it gets from field to table.
It is always helpful to remember that when Jesus spoke, he
spoke into a context. It is not our immediate context, though
we have access to it, of course, because of the universality
of the situations he addressed.
Some things translate over the centuries: work, family, economics.
Some things don’t as well. His was an agrarian context.
Ours is not, or is not in the same way. Had he been teaching
in person today, he would talk about things like car repairs,
and hip replacements, piano lessons, shopping at the malls,
and baseball, of course.
But this was 2000 years ago. And yet, whether we are master
gardeners or not, or farmers or not, or whether we pretend to
be so by watching gardening shows on TV, what he teaches us
this morning is resonant, nearly as much so, I would venture,
as when the words first came from his mouth.
Matthew tells us that the disciples asked him why he taught
in such a way. I always like to think that the disciples stand
in for us, or for some of us anyway. We pretend that we get
it, but we really don’t.
This morning, writes Charles Cousar, the choice is pointed
and it is clear: will the audience outrightly reject the gospel,
accept it for a short time, or respond enthusiastically and
for the long haul? (Texts for Preaching, Year A, pages
404-405)
In fact, Jesus seems to be speaking to two audiences, the general
crowd that is following him, growing day by day, and the disciples
themselves. There is a bit of an occupational hazard, the hazard
of the insider, to which Jesus is speaking. When you’re
around this stuff so much, you begin to take it for granted.
You see that at a General Assembly, for example. I met someone
who had been to more than 30 of them. I shook my head a bit
until I realized I may be that person some day. There was not
joy in it for him, no anticipation.
Compare that to a first time commissioner, whose viewpoints
and perspectives are opened wider than their immediate experience
could ever suggest, in worship, in mission, in connection.
Thank God it can happen to us anew each day, on the front yard
of New Life Church during Vacation Bible School, in a hospital
room, in worship.
He disciples don’t get it, and need to. The crowds hear
it, and get it by living into it. They understand the gardening,
agricultural metaphors because they are seed planters. There
is dirt under their finger nails.
They know what bad soil looks like and what good soil looks
like, and the difference in the harvest. They know, in fact,
that nothing can guarantee a good crop, just as nothing can
prevent a bad crop.
But they also know how important preparation is, and the good
effect of persistent care. We know that too. We know that there
are no guarantees that life will not throw us a curveball –
work, relationships, health. We know that faith does not inoculate
us from bad things happening.
But we know that when bad things happen, that the nature of
the faith planted within us, the nature of the tending that
has gone on all along, the nature of the soil into which we
have been planted, will make all the difference.
It will make a difference when bad things happen. It will make
a difference to others who will be fed the good fruit that we
bear. It will make a difference as we seek to shore up those
who are experiencing rocky times.
Though Jesus doesn’t use the current term, what I think
he is talking about is sustainability.
It is certainly a current environmental and agriculture imperative.
How can we sustain the world we have been given so that the
generations who follow can enjoy its gifts as well?
The parable of the sower, or the parable of the sowing, as
many contemporary commentators will attest, certainly speaks
to this current question.
But Jesus is inviting us to consider another form of sustainability
as well. What sustains our bodies when physical challenges happen?
What sustains our relationships when ripples happen? What, first
and foremost, sustains our spirits when they are battered by
the realities of life itself? What is our solid rock, our firm
foundation, our good soil? How do we nurture it, tend to it,
cultivate it? For others? With others?
Wendell Berry is a farmer and a poet and a theologian. He is
writing quite a bit these days on sustainable agriculture. Every
Sunday afternoon, Berry takes a long walk and then returns home
to write a poem. Sabbath poems, he calls them.
“If we will have the wisdom to survive, /to stand like
slow growing trees /on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it...
/then a long time after we are dead /the lives our lives prepare
will live / here, their houses strongly placed / upon the valley
sides... /The river will run / clear, as we will never know
it... / On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down / the
old forest, an old forest will stand, / its rich leaf-fall drifting
on its roots. / The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
/ Families will be singing in the fields... /
Memory, /native to this valley, will spread over it / like a
grove, and memory will grow into legend, legend into song, song
/ into sacrament. The abundance of this place, /the songs of
its people and its birds, / will be health and wisdom and indwelling
/light. This is no paradisal dream. / Its hardship is its reality.”
Let those with ears, Jesus said, hear. And may we bear fruit
in season, even one hundred-fold. Amen.
