Tend the Garden by The Rt. Rev. Andrew Smith
Posted on
5 after Pentecost
Proper 10 Year A July 13, 2014
Trinity Hartford
The Rt. Rev. Andrew Smith
This year Kate and I ordered three cubic yards of topsoil for the gardens around the house. The past several years we ordered compost, rich decayed vegetable mixture, but this year I thought it was time to mix in topsoil. Three cubic yards of the stuff, which wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow we spread in the flower gardens at the mailbox, around the underground utility boxes, in the front and around the sides of the house.
We live in a neighborhood whose developer, our neighbors have told us, cut down the trees and scraped and sold off the original topsoil which had been built up over the years by dairy farming. What is left is what other people would call subsoil: hard inorganic orange stuff. Lawns are supported by chemicals and water. Even the roots of the modest starter trees that were planted are raised above the lawn surface. Hard for anything to take root and flourish.
Jesus knew about how hard it can be for things to grow.
13:3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. 13:4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 13:5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 13:6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 13:7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 13:8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 13:9 Let anyone with ears listen!”
How often have we heard this image from Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew? Pretty famous one.
We can have two reactions to Jesus’s metaphor of soil in which seeds are planted. One is, oh well, isn’t that the way of the world? Some people are open, some people are a flash in the pan, for some nothing can get through. Jacob and Esau were born to fight. That’s just how people are.
The second, and this is a huge temptation, is to apply the categories — he’s hard-headed; she has no depth, he’s weighed down with so many worries, etc. — to apply those categories to others, without thinking much about how they apply to oneself.
So here are two suggestions.
First, let’s not think of the metaphoric types of soil in Jesus’s image as static, unchangeable “givens” in human nature. Jesus knew that even poor soil can be worked, to be made productive.
For instance, remember the other plant image Jesus used, in Luke, of the fig tree that for years wasn’t bearing fruit, and how the gardener pleaded with the orchard owner, “Let me dig round it and manure it; it may be that the tree will bear fruit next year.” And how the owner said, OK.
In fact, a central hope in Christianity for all people is for change, newness of life, blossoming, productivity; isn’t that what new birth and conversion are all about? Think of Paul, whose Epistle to the Romans we have been reading, and the enormous conversion that God worked in him. A whole new life, whose sole purpose was to publish the glory, love and mercy of God in Christ Jesus.
The second suggestion is: this teaching is not about human nature, or about someone else: let this be a teaching for you. Not a family member, or a co-worker, or a neighbor, but for you!
With those two suggestions in mind, let’s take a second look at the “parable” of the seed planted in the soils. The soils can be improved, enriched. And this means you. And me.
Just as Kate and I bring in compost and topsoil, and work it into the hardpan soil around our house, and sprinkle Preen to help keep the weeds down and Mole Max to repel the pests that would eat the roots, so our garden can be richer and grow healthier plants, brighter more numerous blossoms, for their sheer God-given beauty and for a delight and blessing for others, in the same way, no matter whether you, or I, (remember, this is about you, and me) are hard-packed dirt or shallow rocky soil or a patch choked with thorns, or maybe even passably nourishing soil, we can be worked, enriched, to produce fruit, fruit and blossoms, that are better.
What then are the ingredients that we can mix into the “who” we already are to enrich us to be even more fruitful, in God?
Ingredients. Here are three. (Taking notes?)
Reading. Reading implants newness into our minds and hearts. Above all else, read Scriptures. Read and read and re-read in the Bible. Let the stories of God and the phrases and the songs, and the import — what the Scriptures really are about — be turned deep inside you. I am always amazed how stuff of the Bible can form and shape, overtly and intuitively, our lives. Far beyond proof texts, maxims, and sound bytes, but enriching with deep wisdom, insight, knowledge, understanding.
Read about the world too, newspapers, blogs, books, non-fiction and fiction. Read and read. Helps to loosen up and turn over your mind and heart and make them more fertile.
2. And this may seem strange to say: Thinking. Think about God and the world. It’s funny: like Mary of Bethany, we think and worry about so many things, and yet Martha has the better part, just sitting with Jesus. Ponder. Wonder. Ask questions. Meditate regularly. Remember the stories, Sing the hymns. Pray prayers. As Paul said to the Romans,
Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 8:6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. 8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
3. Engaging. Engage actively with others. No, you can’t be a Christian with depth and richness alone in the woods or on the golf course. We have to be vitally connected with one another, as Paul says like parts of the body. One of the geniuses of the Anglican Communion is that we are expected, nay, forced, to engage one another in matters of life and faith. Ministry. Godly conversations. Every one of us should be in Adult Forums of at least one kind, or another. Get in there with others of faith or no faith. Work together for relief and justice.
Connect with a Spiritual Director, or Spiritual Advisor — better yet, connect with a person who can in God be a what I will call a Spiritual Challenger, who will dig deep and turn the soil and add to the mix that is you, and churn it over, so that you may produce even more beauty, more fruit.
Sure we are all different kinds of soil, as Jesus said. And in God, as the gardener works soil, we can be worked, enriched, added to, re-formed. Read things holy and secular. Think on God and the world. Engage with God’s people.
All so that the soil that is you and I can be enriched, the weeds kept down, the pests kept away, that the seeds which God the sower plants in us may find very good soil in which to take root and grow, and, picture it, newness of life, as we each and together become a garden beautiful and productive, pleasing to God and a blessing to the world.
Tend the garden!