Weekly Devotion: A Terrible Gardener
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Over the last ten years or more, I’ve planted a garden. For several years the summer would come and I would head to Home Depot, Lowes and Menards to get flowers. I would dig up the garden and usually make sure the plant has good soil to aids its growth and even get proper watering.
And then there was the weeding which. just. never. ends.
It was frustrating at first. No matter how much I took care of those plants after giving them a new home in my garden, the plants wouldn’t bloom. In fact, I planted a few delphinum plants that seemed to all die. The plants turned brown and shrivelled up and died.
The daylillies I’ve planted over the years spent many years growing slowly and hardly blooming.
Then, after a years of what seemed like no growth, the garden started to bloom. Daylillies bloomed in various shades of yellow. The coneflowers came through painting the garden in lavender. I have no idea what has happened to get this result, but it seems like all the work I did in years past were bearing fruit. Maybe the issue wasn’t that I was a bad gardener; maybe the issue is that sometimes it takes a while to for a plant to grow.
What’s interesting about the parable of the sower is that we almost never talk about the sower. Yeah, we all know the Sower is God, but we don’t really focus on God, it’s all focused on us, on how to be a better Christian.
It makes sense to focus on the sower for one important reason: If the sower is God, then God is a terrible gardener.
I mean, who in their right minds takes seeds (which aren’t cheap) and just scatters them everywhere, not caring if the seed takes root or not? We never hear of the sower watering the seeds all this person does is throw seeds. It’s only by sheer luck that the seeds hit good soil and is able to take root.
What does this mean? Well, none of us should ever take lessons on gardening from God. But the parable of the Sower is a tale about the reckless grace of God. God’s love for us is rather wasteful, even somewhat odd. The sower isn’t careful, saving every seed and making sure that the seeds have proper soil and water. God is taking a risk here. God is wasting God’s love on people who may or may not receive God’s love.
The soil does matter, the fact that some falls on gravel and some falls on weeds means that those seeds won’t grow. But God keeps planting and planting. Some seeds will take root and grow. Some will never sprout, and some won’t grow...at least not right now.
God calls us to go into the world, making disciples. This church is called to go into the world and plant seeds. Just like Jesus, we plant seeds on pavement, on gravel roads, in bars, with the homeless person down the street, with the atheist and so on. I think we get that. But we have a hard time with just planting seeds. We feel responsible. We want the seeds we planted to grow. We want to plant seeds, we just don’t want to take a risk.
God wants us to spread grace and love not expecting that it will be successful, but that we will be faithful. God wants us to have good soil, to be ready to always receive God’s word. We come together for weekly worship, prayer and education to tend our garden to keep our soil ready to receive God’s love.
I don’t know what I did to make my garden look so nice. Maybe it was sheer luck. Maybe the plants were waiting for the right time to bloom. What I do know is that all of my tending wasn’t for naught. It is the same with the kingdom of God. Sometimes the seeds will sprout quickly, other times it take it’s own time and sometimes it never will. But God isn’t calling us to be successful; God is calling us to be faithful.
-Dennis Sanders, Pastor