Jesus' Gardening Ain't Easy Gardening

Being a newlywed has been such a great experience. There’s the family traditions, my new nieces, new connections with people in the family’s neighborhoods, and probably the best part is all – the stories. Over the last year (Amanda and I were married on April 5, 2008), I have been learning so much about all of these new people that are a part of my life now. And one of the most interesting people that is a part of this family is Amanda’s grandmother – a Godly woman who we affectionately call, Granny.

Now Granny was born and raised a Methodist, but – according to her, f or the sake of convenience - she attends the Baptist church down the street…for the last two or three decades. She’s an active Sunday School teacher, babysitter of two very energetic great-granddaughters – Mackenzie and Brooklyn, who are 5 and almost-4 respectively – she’s a great neighbor who has her door open any time that she’s at home so people can come and go as they please, she’s a cancer patient, she’s a widow, she’s a mother of three, grandmother of five (six if you count me) – there are so many things that Granny is, but one of my most favorite things that Granny is – Granny’s a gardener.

Granny’s backyard contains one of the largest and diverse backyard, neighborhood gardens that I’ve ever seen. She grows anything from tomatoes and sweet corn to a huge variety of butter beans and peas, to broccoli and cucumbers. The woman knows how to grow things – and grow them good.

And she grows things because she loves it – she loves the reward of a good, hard work. For Granny, gardening is the most therapeutic work that she can do. When things in the neighborhood just aren’t right – she gardens. When things in the world aren’t just right – she gardens. When she gets troubling news – she gardens.

I’ve heard stories of Amanda’s family where the rest of them might try and lend a hand onceinawhile, but the work overcomes them – and for the most part, they try to avoid it because it’s such hard work. Some of you know what I’m talking about – that hard work that comes with tending a garden and cultivating the food that comes from that garden: all of the tilling of the soil, the planting of fresh seeds every season, the different methods and times to water the plants, the waiting and waiting and waiting to see how things are growing, the constant bending over and picking, the spraying – all of it is so hard. And for someone who’s not used to the work, gardening will eat them up and spit them out.

Verse 35 of Matthew’s ninth chapter does a great job of summarizing all of the things that Jesus had been doing up until this point in the gospel. We read that Jesus has been going from town to town, teaching and preaching and healing all who would come to him – expressing God’s power and love for the people that Jesus comes into relationship with. And the disciples obviously recognize this as Jesus tells them that there is a full harvest that can be gathered, but there aren’t very many people who are willing to bring themselves out to the garden and do the work. He follows this up in 10:16 reminding the disciples how hard the work will be as they begin doing the work of harvesting “like sheep among wolves.” This gardening that Jesus speaks of sure doesn’t sound anywhere near as easy as it might be to be out in Granny’s backyard.

But we know that Jesus isn’t really talking about gardening. Jesus is using imagery that his disciples understand – Jesus doesn’t really mean that there aren’t enough workers for the garden. But through Jesus’ short side conversation with his disciples, we can get a glimpse of something that is true for all of Jesus followers – being a disciple is hard work.

Jesus is preparing his disciples as they are approaching the time where they will be doing the preaching and teaching and healing for Jesus. Up to this point, Jesus has been the central focus of the work of God being done on earth. However, shortly after this little conversation that Jesus has with his disciples – in 10:1 – we find that the focus shifts - from Jesus to the disciples – as Jesus gathers them up, empowers them to do ministry by giving them the tools that they will need, and gives them the authority to go out in his name to show the world God’s grace-filled love.

As we read Matthew’s gospel, we find that the disciples do go out as Jesus instructed them to do, and their numbers increased. And besides reading what Matthew says, we know that the disciples were successful because we are all here tonight. The message of God’s love, realized through the life and teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus, through the power of God’s Spirit has been passed down from century to century, from disciple to disciple.

And so, now, in this day and age it is our responsibility to share that message of God’s love for the entire world – as we are disciples of the risen Christ – not only through the words that we speak or the people that we know, but through the lives that we live and the way we interact with the rest of God’s creation.

And, we would be good to remember Jesus’ words to his disciples – you will be like sheep amongst wolves – this is not going to be an easy task. We live in such a “can’t wait” and “next big thing” world that we find it easy to tell God, “I can work in the garden later.” And it frustrates me because while we can tell God that God will have to wait, we don’t tell our bosses or our teachers or our co-workers or our friends or even our family that they will have to wait.

Think about that garden. What happens if the food – the corn, the beans, the tomatoes, the peas – what happens if they have to wait to be picked? They spoil. They rot. They die.

I typically have CNN on in the background while I’m preparing for my Sunday mornings. And a few weeks ago, CNN reported that the Christian population in the United States was declining – not to the gain of other religious traditions; but rather, Christianity is losing out to those who chose the “no preference” column of society. It hurt my heart to hear that report. But, if I was to be honest, I couldn’t act surprised.

Being a follower of Jesus is a hard thing to do – it requires an entire lifestyle change. It requires people who are willing to work – hard.

While we could easily be overwhelmed with the task – the hard work – of following Jesus, we can find a comfortable relevance with this little window into the life of Jesus and his disciples. Where we are jarred into a realization that there is much work to be done, we find that Jesus guided his disciples to center themselves in a life of prayer.

“…therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

God’s qualifications for workers are pretty few – there’s no requirement other than you love God. This morning on Facebook, Leonard Sweet – author, preacher, ordained United Methodist elder, and the E. Stanley Jones professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School in Madison, New Jersey – wrote as his status: “Jesus asks Peter, "Do you love me?" Not, "Will you be a successful leader?" or "Ready to lead my church?" The Jesus Test has only 1 question”

God sees the potential in each and every one of us to be followers of Jesus and do the hard work of loving God’s creation.

There’s a story that I’ve heard used before in a sermon that I think has a great handle on all of this gardening stuff. There was a farmer who planted a garden, and because of the mass amounts of produce that came from this garden the farmer became famous in his little town. As the years went by, the folks around town realized that there were more and more plant labels placed along the rows of seeds. One afternoon, as on he was on his way home from work, a neighbor stopped by the field that the farmer was watching. The man said jokingly to the farmer, “What’s this? Are you getting so old now that you can’t remember what you’ve planted where? You’ve got labels all over the place!” And the farmer said, while continuing to look out onto his field, “No, that’s not it. I put pictures of the fully grown plants out so that the little seeds can see what they might become some day.”

God sees what you could become, knowing full well that there are other things – other people – other causes – that will also pull at you and demand your full attention. And this isn’t a new thing – there have always been things that have pulled at the people who follow God – that there have always been people who act like workers in the garden but step off to the side and sit in the shade.

Jesus’ call to work in the garden is not one that should instill a sense of fear or despair; rather, Jesus’ call to work in the garden should be met with faithful anticipation of God’s presence with those who answer Jesus’ call.

We are each being called to do the hard work of being a follower – a disciple – of Jesus. God sees the potential that each of has as a creation – a child – of God to love the world in such a way that it might be transformed into a true reflection of God’s image. As Christians we are to answer that call and do the gathering – not in the near future, risking the death and the spoiling of the crops – but in the here and now, that the harvest might live the life that the Gardener intended.