A pastor we knew in Florida planted and tended a small garden of flowers and vegetables each Spring as part of his normal schedule of parish ministry. He explained that he did this simply because Christian ministry doesn’t usually produce results very quickly. Flowers and vegetable packets, however, come with the projected bloom or harvest dates. The reliable timetable for his garden was a joyful prospect. Rather than constantly wondering if preaching, visitation, counseling, serving, bearing witness to God’s caring presence, and the myriad other tasks pastors and parishioners alike undertake were bearing fruit, he could glance at the sprouting, budding plants. Something, at least, could be seen to happen! (Farmers also tell us that on warm summer nights you can even hear cornstalks growing. It’s a shame that Kudzu isn’t considered an appropriate crop; it would be rewarding in the extreme.)
This Sunday’s gospel [John 12:20-33] is one of many Bible passages which employ gardening or farming images to explain the work and mission of God: 24Very truly, I (Jesus) tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit… Jesus ministered among people who worked close to the land for generations beyond imagining. Planting crops, tending livestock, and closely watching the weather was the rhythm of their lives. Jesus on occasion chose planting and tending crops [reread his parables of the sower and soil types!] to guide his followers’ understanding. The planted seed became a symbol of the sacrificial life and the death of human obsession with self. The topic made his hearers nervous. His message of selfless offering and gracious service for the sake of those in need would take time for his followers to fathom. It also demanded patience in their waiting for results and a good deal of scutwork in the interim to cultivate and weed the life of faith upon which they had embarked.
An old proverb teaches: “If you want to learn patience and humility, weed a thyme bed.” I have a small thyme bed. It grows low to the ground. To rid it of the clover and weeds which weave themselves in the twisting strands of the herb is knees-on-the-ground, weary work. The plants do need my help to keep their foothold secure, but their tenacity, tiny blooms, fragrance, with tasty leaves for several recipes we love are reward enough. Although their prostrate life begs the question whether I “raise” the plants or not, the verb “to raise” is part of every gardener’s vocabulary.
To “raise” is also a part of God’s vocabulary and is connected to Jesus’ words in Sunday’s gospel: 32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The immediate context for Jesus’ statement is last Sunday’s Old Testament and Gospel readings [Numbers 21:4-9/John 3:14-21] but Jesus references it elsewhere: all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day [John 6:40]. A serpent is “lifted up” on a staff to heal a wayward people who gaze at Moses’ staff; Jesus’ is “lifted up” on the cross to redeem “the cosmos” which gazes at his healing wounds. His sacrificial death is the compelling, life-giving force of dying to rise on the third day. Jesus’ promise is that it draws all of us dying, broken folk to his cross and tomb. The tomb is the soil prepared for the seed of Jesus’ parable, yet at the tomb we soon are told, “He is not here. He is risen.”
Jesus’ discussion of his Passion, death, and resurrection come full circle. It is the gardener’s story of burying seed so that they are raised to new life, echoed throughout scripture. Paul expands the discussion to embrace the growing church: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his [Romans 6:3-6].
An old Flemish carol, King Jesus Hath a Garden (1577, 1609, 1633), is an allegory of Jesus as seed, loveliest flower, and gardener. Jesus has planted “diverse flowers” that we may pluck to learn from them all the blessings, virtues, and gifts of God: chastity, humility, patience, obedience, charity, and grace. However, the loveliest flower of them all is Christ Jesus himself. The singer concludes with the prayer that Jesus may tend our own hearts as part of his garden so that we too might bloom and bear fruit. So, as the “Paradise bird” sings, King Jesus continues to till his ever-growing garden of life.