The pick was heavy and with each swing I could feel it slipping with sweat and rubbing against my skin, I knew that tomorrow I was going to have blisters but in that moment I didn't care - I was on a mission. I was on a mission to build myself a vegetable garden. My husband and I marked out the corner of our small city lot that we would deem our garden. Russ moved several 2x4 in preparation for creating our space. We were so excited to be bringing from seed food that we would eat. We had no idea what was to come and what this small garden would bring to our community. People started coming from all over the neighborhood to see our garden and to taste the fresh and often forgotten fruits of its harvest. We feed everyone who walked past our rusty fence in order to view what we were growing. It was amazing. We learned a lot after our first year - that corn doesn't do so well in our soil and that we have rocky soil. We spent a good portion of both the first two years pulling and digging up rocks. We also spent a good amount of time those two years trying to keep the animals from eating the seeds before they grew into whatever it was that they were suppose to be.
And today, as I look out on what is left of the garden that has been abandoned and left for 2 years, I can't help but think of the parable of the Sower. Jesus gives this parable in Matt 13: “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. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
This is us - God has planted the Spirit in all of us! Are we going to let the Spirit thrive in us growing and influencing others? Or are we going to let the seeds get wasted - being eaten, scorched or choked?
For Christians, it is really easy for us to declare ourselves Christians or to think that we are because we live descent lives that don't stir boats. We can say that being a Christian is in general about being nice - but is it really??
It takes a lot of work to create a beautiful garden - I had blisters and a few buckets full of rocks to prove it! It also, takes a discerning heart to know when to pick what you are growing - pick too soon and they won't ripen up and pick to late and they will be spoiled. In our lives, we need to strive to be the seeds that not only produce good fruit but with strong roots and on good soil; sometimes this means that we need to change our direction or try something new. Sometimes this means we have to move on - we cannot continue to plant seeds where their are rocks or weeds: we have to either remove them or move on. And isn't that something we should be thinking about in our churches today...
Why do we as a denomination continue to spread our seeds sparsely (cause we are losing them fast!) upon soil an churches in which we know rocks, weeds and critters are lying in wait to suck our efforts away? It is time for us to stand up and call out that we will only be planting our seeds on the rich soil - that we will HELP weed or pull rocks but until we stand as Christians willing to put a stop to the evil that comes from the critters (the birds) stealing away at our seeds we are not going to be doing anything to strengthen the Kingdom of God.
