Loading...Have you ever had to wait for something you were really, really looking forward to? Earlier this week, Annie, our administrative assistant, said she made BLT’s for dinner. I said I love BLT’s. She said they were “good” but she really, really is looking forward to those fresh off the vine tomatoes that we won’t begin to see for a few more months. You know, the ones that have a taste of the warmth of the sun, picked at their peak, right from your garden.
I have to agree with her. There’s nothing like a home-grown tomato, fresh off the vine.
It is about time for folks to begin putting seeds in pots so they will sprout and have a good start for when the weather is warm enough for them to flourish. I’ve been told that we have to wait until after the Derby. And for some plants and seeds, after Mother’s Day.
I’m getting excited to put seeds into pots. I love to watch the hint of green pop through the dirt. I’m also mentally preparing to start digging around in our little raised garden so that those plants have a place to go.
When we lived in Indianapolis, we built a significant garden on a part of our yard that got a lot of sun but burned the grass. It was a perfect place for us to play with growing vegetables, and we had quite a bit of success. Even the deer and rabbits were satisfied.
We learned early on that we needed manure to make our garden successful. A man from the church had a source where we could bring buckets and a shovel and harvest horse manure for free. Right in the middle of Indy! It was a big part of our successful harvest.
We haven’t connected with a source for manure for our little garden here, yet. The garden wasn’t as successful without it, so we know we need to find a place to pick up a few buckets full to work into our soil this year.
Creating a fertile foundation for growth makes all the difference.
It also helps to know how and when to plant seeds, plants, or even fig trees. Understanding germination timelines and the amount of time it may take before anything can be harvested will help with the anticipation we may have when we really, really want a homegrown tomato, or fig, for that matter.
Preparing the foundation and then maintaining it matters, too. Weeds will grow out of seeds found in manure, or seeds dropped from the plants from the previous year’s garden, or from the waste of birds flying over. If left alone, the weeds can crowd out the plants we want because they take the nutrients from the soil that are necessary for the plants to thrive.
Just putting seeds or plants or trees in the prepared ground isn’t enough though. We need to water, pull weeds, prune unnecessary branches, and protect plants from pests. We can’t just leave it alone and hope. It takes work and attention.
Once the plants begin to flower, the anticipation intensifies. Weather can help or stunt the process, but in every little blossom there is hope. Hope for what we long for.
When the flowers transform into fruit or vegetable, anticipation grows. We watch for the perfect time to harvest so we can enjoy the freshness, freeze, or process it. It is amazing to be engaged in the evolution from seed or seedling to plant - to fruit - to harvest.
It’s often just so hard to wait, yet when we are involved in making it happen, in tending the garden from beginning to end, impatience and anticipation help us appreciate the result.
The owner of the vineyard in today’s Gospel was impatient. He really, really wanted to taste a fig from his own garden (who wouldn’t?), but he wasn’t a part of the process, so he didn’t know much about what it takes to grow a fig tree. He entrusted another to know, and then second-guessed the gardener’s experience and demanded the tree to be cut down and turned into firewood so that something of value could come, after the earth around the tree was, in his opinion, wasted on the dream of a fresh fig.
What the owner did not know is that it takes years before a fig tree will produce fruit. Anywhere from 3-8 years. He would not get what he wanted as quickly as he wanted.
Now, the gardener could have simply cut down the tree, following the owner’s instructions, but he chose, instead, to offer a compromise. To give it another year, with maybe a little more attention, fertilizer, water, and weeding, in hopes that this little tree would produce the longed-for fruit. And while the gardener said he’d give it another year, we don’t know if one year turned into two or five more years of tending.
It's easy to be impatient. To not trust a process. To anticipate. I think Jesus was trying to express to his listeners that day to be patient. To trust the process. To wait. But to not stand still. Because just planting a seed isn’t enough. For a seed to flourish, the soil needs tending, the plants need water, the weeds need plucking, and parts of the plants need pruning.
Just like you and me. We need one another to help us grow.
We need a foundation, soil, fertilizer, sun, and water to simply sprout. But like seedlings, we need care and protection to grow. In other words, we need a place to feel planted. A place that will enrich us with education, formation, and worship. We need to be taught what it means to help one another through the joys and sorrows in life.
But it isn’t always easy, and sometimes, we need redirection to grow well with others and with ourselves. As a part of living as a part of a garden, or in human terms, a community, there are times we painfully learn that we don’t always behave in ways that are good for the community, or for ourselves.
As I recently heard, some days are better than others. None of us is perfect. We will need to make changes in ourselves, to in Jesus’s words, repent, before we can grow further.
If we think about a tomato plant, this is like removing lower branches, so that the rest of the plant can better receive nourishment and produce more tomatoes. Or thinking about a fruit tree, we might need to remove branches by pruning them for the tree to remain healthy. The removal of the unwanted branches can be painful, but necessary for the tree to bear fruit. Of the plant, of the person, of the community.
In Jewish practice, there is a high holy day called Yom Kippur, where people look at their lives and their relationships and recognize where they have harmed or injured another. On this day in October, they acknowledge what they have done directly to the people they have impacted by apologizing. This act of repentance is key to their faith.
But it is important to note that words are not enough. If the actions do not match the words, if no change in behavior occurs, then it isn’t repentance. Repentance must include some form of restoration of the relationship. In this case, repentance is like cutting off, or pruning the tree branches, to display true change to promote true growth.
We anticipate good things coming from the garden, and from the garden of life. From others, and from ourselves. It takes effort, it takes good soil. But if the soil isn’t quite right, as it seems it wasn’t for the fig tree in today’s Gospel, we can do things like add fertilizers of love, compassion, and kindness to amend the soil to help someone can flourish and blossom.
It takes effort, it takes pruning, it takes repenting, to strip ourselves of those things that keep us from a deeper relationship with God. Distractions that may be considered idols or behaviors that harm may need to be severed from our lives to make room for the blossoms and fruit to come.
It takes effort. It takes time, patience, and hope, to lead to restoration, to strengthen faith, to walk a walk that reflects the love of God.
I brought this package of fig cookies here to share during fellowship today. I invite you, to consider that the figs in the cookie grew on trees that needed 3-8 years to grow before they produced fruit. Time, attention, and care was needed for the tree to produce the tasty fruit. Just like time, attention, and care are needed for each one of us to grow, to blossom, to flourish, into the beloved people God has patiently anticipated each of us to become.
Amen.
