getting the garden ready...

There's something about working your hands in the soil. This is the time of the year when the primal urge wells up inside of me to “turn the earth”. It's entirely predictable... this feeling comes without fail every year...and I suppose it always will. Over the years of my life I have had many gardens...some quite large and some the more small backyard variety. The one thing I know is that to have a healthy productive garden it takes work...sometimes lots of work. I am reminded of this quote by Wendell Berry where he says,

"Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating”.

When you work your hands in the soil there is a connection that stretches across the generations. Our parents...our grandparents...and perhaps their parents that tilled the lands and raised food have been intimately involved in the timeless struggle to improve their piece of the world. What drives this struggle that continues despite sometimes overwhelming odds? Again Wendell Berry sums it up nicely when he says,

“ the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster it's renewal is our only hope”.

I think it is that hope which rises up in us when we place the tiniest seed into the ground and anticipate the growth and harvest is life affirming. Even in that tiny seed there is potential waiting to burst forth. Gardening and garden references were widely sprinkled throughout the entirety of the bible. In fact the beginning of the history of mankind on the earth began in a perfect garden called Eden created by God. Throughout the bible there are many references to fruit and vineyards and vines and fruit bearing. Jesus used these agricultural illustrations to demonstrate a particular teaching to the people and His disciples. Over the years I have learned that certain basic principles apply as much to gardening as they do to my daily walk and relationship with Jesus. I think the three distinct elements of sower, soil and seed are critical metaphors in understanding the necessity of getting our hands dirty in the soil and sharing the gospel with the world. In the bigger picture of this analogy God is the sower...his word is the seed and I am the soil...which seems both paradoxical and appropriate to me. Any gardener worth their salt knows the importance of not only good quality soil but good preparation of that soil. In another weird analogy...I see rocks as representative of sin. Just as it is difficult to have a productive garden with rocky soil so is it to have a life of purpose and service if filled with sin. Jesus spoke of this when He said,

“Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.”

Jesus was clear as He taught that rocks...or sin... ruins your soil and keeps it from being productive and what you plant there will be in vain as it will not take root. This is what happens to us so many times...we try to do church or play religion and desperately plant in the poor rocky soil of our sin filled lives to no avail and we get frustrated and blame God and the church and give up. The good news is that God never moves and still is ready to sow His seed into us despite our shortcomings as gardeners and perennial lack of green thumbs. It's far too often that people all of us in all Christian faith tend to view the idea of Christian maturity or discipleship as intellectual Christian growth. Sadly, the focus for most of us is more on head knowledge than on life change. It is good to know scripture. It is good to study the Bible. But all that knowledge is worthless if we don't turn it into a life change. God is more concerned about the way we live then how much information we pack into our heads. A telling sign of that life change is how well we tend our gardens...our piece of the world...our lives. Are we working to improve the soil...remove the rocks...pruning the non bearing branches and dead wood? This is an active ever changing task that requires both patience and diligence. It is not enough just to plant the seed and ignore it and hope for the best. We know what happens then...our gardens turn into weed patches overrun with pest. Is this what God desires from us? I really doubt it. He wants to pull the weeds...kill the bugs...remove the rocks...and do everything we are able to have this totally amazingly productive and beautiful garden. Oh yeah...He wants us to get our hands really dirty too....