Planning A Garden

There is a strip of ground, 12' X 50', on the South side of our home in which I am planning to plant a garden. I've been thinking about doing this for quite a while, even 'planted a few seeds' of rationalization with my wife last Fall, pointing out how much better fresh vegetables are for our diet and how susceptible the world food supply was to sabotage. Okay, maybe that last one was a little over the top, but let me ask you, 'What would you eat if pre-packaged foods were suddenly pulled from the shelves?'

My Mom and Dad always gardened and canned. Their parents before them gardened and canned. Nancy and I gardened, canned and froze a variety of vegetables and fruits throughout our years together, but in recent times it has just become so much easier to go to the store and buy what we need than to grow what we want, which includes having to weed, tend, harvest, clean, process and store what is grown. So, we have been going to the store . . . and paying someone else to do for us what we chose not to do for ourselves. I can justify our decisions in a thousand ways, but none of them has the taste of that first tomato off the vine, or that first batch of green beans picked from the bushes, or the first lettuce cut from the patch. Ummmmm. Fresh vegetables grown in your own garden are hard to beat for taste, but they are also require an investment of your time and talent which, I think, is partially responsible for why they taste so good.

Kind of like the Church. Oh, you can shop around and get what you want when you want it. You can show up for a Baptism, drop back in for Confirmation, swing through on your Wedding Day, and roll in and out when you are buried: no muss, no fuss. All services provided, no sweat off your brow, no skin off your teeth. Everything is packaged, with some kindly Pastor offering you a prayer or two and reminding you how nice it was to see you, and you slipping him or her a 'little something to show your appreciation' for services you wanted, but didn't ever have the time or energy to support. You might even drop in occasionally to sort of test the waters and measure the competence of the Pastor, ensuring that when you do need something from God the Church will be prepared to meet your every expectation, and other folks in the pews will be somewhat acquainted with your face, hopefully able to say something nice about your consumer mentality and shrewd way of getting through life without ever having to bear the cost and joy of discipleship like all of those other chumps who waste a couple of hours a week of their lives, ' . . . doing for others what they should be doing for themselves.' You get what you need, store it in the freezer or cupboard and your time is yours to do with as you want. Church need not get in the way of personal needs and priorities in a rapidly changing culture.

But . . . Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me." Live the faith, don't just consume it. Plant some seeds along the way, tend to the growth with a gardeners eye, weed when necessary, harvest when ready, share with neighbors who don't have enough, and, when the growing season is complete, be sure that you and others have enough to tide yourselves through until the next growing season is upon you. Should you not live to see the next growing season, your life's example should have already set in motion those who come after you that they not be lost in the milieu of the culture and know what to do and when to do it. Kind of like Jesus' disciples . . . and the members of the Church today who believe that their walk with Jesus in the Church is their way of giving back to God in appreciation for God's abundant grace in their lives, not just a place from which to pick what they want when they want it.

So, I'm planting a garden this year. Lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, corn, green beans, peppers, spinach, and maybe even a few other disciples. I'll put in the time and the work and trust to God the growth and production. Hand in hand we'll work together and heart in heart I trust we'll come to the abundant harvest God envisions for all. Sounds like work, so I had better get started while the sun is shining and the ground is ready. You too?

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don