The Impatient Gardener
Have you heard the one about the impatient gardener?
He watched as the Planter scattered seeds, and some landed in good soil, which became a gracious gift; he was given a garden to tend and care for.
Tending the garden was the his most joyous job,
a vocation that felt like a vacation,
a hobby even if it could have been called a chore.
Watering the good ground, watching, waiting,
waiting for those tender shoots to push up out of the dark & nourishing soil.
And then, as he watched, he saw the shoots… there was something strange
—yes, some of them were fruitful,
but others had false flowers
—they were weeds!
So, he rushed to the Planter, and asked, “Did you do it wrong? Did you plan poison, instead of plenty?”
“No,” replied the Planter, “An enemy has done this!”
“I will tear it all out! I’ll weed so well not a single tare will remain!”
“No,” the Planter again replied, “Such a thing will destroy all the good I have done. Instead, let both grow, and by the end we will have a bundle of kindling and a barn full of wheat. What was intended for evil, we can redeem. Wait for redemption.”
And so he did. And it was hard, perhaps the hardest thing he’d ever done.
It was the longest growing season he’d ever lived through.
So hard for this poor gardener, this poor impatient gardener, unable to do what was needed…
a painful season of waiting.
Impatience built up,
filling him like a balloon,
until he nearly hit the ceiling and popped.
And this Impatient Gardener is not alone.
Prayer
He is not alone, there are so many impatient gardeners among us.
Creation itself is one. Creation cranes its neck out to see the first signs of the new creation,
the revelation of God’s resurrection people
—for the universe itself is bound to entropy: that is, things fall apart unless energy is expended to keep it together
—but the universe also intuits that the bonds of entropy will be broken and all that is, seen and unseen, with find freedom in the resurrection—a world held together not by work but by love.
Creation waits impatiently for a glimpse of new creation.
We, who are to be a sign of God’s re-creation of the universe,
we wait for the Spirit’s signature on our adoption papers
—wait as we cry out “Abba! Father!”
our elongated shout sharing the truth of our connection to Jesus, and through him our Heavenly Father.
That ongoing shout, doesn’t it leave you breathless?!?
Groaning as well
—every time we are confronted afresh with the world as it is,
and we know in the depths of our souls that it does not measure up to the world as it should be
—that profound disconnect, it is the sound of that new world being born!
The tension and trauma of this in-between time…
yes, adoption and birth
—both processes that take time and are rich soil for impatience.
Both processes that describe our ongoing journey with Jesus until the end.
Impatient…
Impatient, I know, for worship to be in-person, no longer mediated by screens, and able to receive the Lord’s Supper.
Impatient too, all of us
—desperate for things to just get back to normal,
no more Pandemic, no more fear, no more constriction and constraint on account of Covid.
Impatient for a time when we don’t have to think and re-think even basic stuff to make sure it is safe:
like going to the grocery store or into the office…
or even plan something as overwhelming as a return to school
—God help the teachers.
Impatient as well—that things don’t get back to normal,
because normal wasn’t really cutting it…
For so many, the Pandemic exposed the tenuous lives they were already living.
-37 million, 11 million of them children, were going to bed hungry every night here in America, even before their ranks were swollen by Coronavirus job losses.
For so many, the recent shift in public opinion that has brought Black Lives Matter into the mainstream, missed too many black lives that also mattered, but the time wasn’t right.
-Yes Floyd, Arbary, and Taylor… but what about Philando Castile, Tamar Rice, and Atatiana Jefferson.
The Impatient Gardener has so many companions.
So many seeking the revelation of the Children of the Kingdom
—the promised redemption,
and are stuck with Children of all sorts, good and evil, roots entangled.
Forced to let them alone, for wheat and weeds are inextricably linked and often mistaken for one another.
Wheat and Weed will only be fully understood, fully known, at the end, in this mixed-up garden of a world we are planted in.
Yet, within it all, may there still be hope.
As the recently departed Civil Rights Leader John Lewis,
no stranger to the brutalizing fruits of evil and the glorious fruits of goodness,
As he wrote not too long ago:
"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."
Yes, the tension between wheat and weed pulls at all of creation,
it pulls at our very core threatening to spin us out of ourselves with its dual centrifugal forces,
an impatience for the harvest.
Yes, the long and slow process of seed geminating and growing into something new
it is a struggle
—the transformation, the purification, like fire even, is uncomfortable
—becoming fruitful hurts!
But it is a necessary trouble.
All of this,
the fire that purifies and reveals…
reveals the Son’s righteousness,
A righteousness that shines like the sun in the Kingdom of our Father.
The redemption of our God.
Have you heard the one about the impatient gardener? If so, let anyone who has ears, listen. Amen.
