There's Nothing Like a Fresh Tomato from the Garden

I'm not much of a gardener.  But I try, a little.  Mostly, I try tomatoes.

This may be because my mom always planted tomatoes.  She didn't plant anything else.  She grew up on a farm, and her own mother had a huge and impressive garden.  My mom wasn't in favor of the time a large garden would involve.  But she did always plant one tomato plant.

Because, you know, there's nothing like a fresh tomato from the garden.

This was a truth that my mother impressed upon me at a young age.  There is nothing like a fresh tomato from the garden.  So I try to plant a tomato plant or two.

I have tried a few other crops.  My dad and I planted a few hills of cucumbers one summer many years ago.  We were surprisingly successful.  I tried it in my large backyard in rural South Dakota on summer and all of the cucumbers were misshapen.  They were not too tasty either.  My one successful crop in South Dakota was carrots.  I planted peas and got a few good ones.  I planted three times as many the next year; rabbits ate them all.  I judged the success of my carrot crop by the fact that my niece and nephew (about four and five at the time) ate them.  Whenever they had carrots, they would ask my mom, "Are these Diane's carrots?"  If the answer was yes, they would eat them.

So, since returning to the Big City, my gardening goals are much lower.  I plant basil, not because I know too much what to do about it, but because anyone can grow basil, and it makes me feel good about myself.  And, on occasion, I try to plant a tomato plant.  Not every year.

This year I felt especially ambitious, and I planted two plants:  one cherry tomato bush, and the other a larger variety.  I did not pay much attention at the time.  And in our rainy spring and early summer, the bushes exploded.  They were bigger than any tomato plant I had ever seen in recent memory!  They took over the back yard and covered up a beautiful, new rose bush we had planted last fall.  One of the plants, I thought, was almost as tall as I was.

I had mixed feelings about this.  I wanted good fruit, but I also wanted something manageable, not so wild-looking.

Then it was August, and everyone was talking about harvesting tomatoes.  And my tomatoes, on those huge, impressive plants, my tomatoes were the deepest of deep green.  Some of my friends comforted me, saying, "Our tomatoes are still green too," and that worked for awhile, until they started saying, "um, sorry, now our tomatoes are nice and red."

But every day I would go out and take a look.  And very early every morning I would go out and water those tomatoes.  I desperately wanted them to turn red, so I could taste them.

Because, you know, there's nothing like a fresh tomato from the garden.

In the meantime,  a couple of people shared their harvest with me.  They knew how much I wanted to taste that goodness.  They knew I was waiting.

There's nothing like a fresh tomato from the garden.

In John 15, Jesus says to his disciples,  "You did not choose me, but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last."

Imagine that.  What God wants from us is to bear fruit.  The work of discipleship is the work of bearing fruit.  Go and bear fruit, Jesus says to us, while our lives are still green, but we hope they will turn red.  Go and bear fruit, he says, when the snow is late in leaving, or the heat is overwhelming, or it is too cool to grow things, or when it is dry.

God wants our lives to bear fruit.  And not only that, God promises that our lives will be fruit.  Standing out there, watering those gosh-darned tomatoes, I think about that.  Most of us are an ordinary people, and God promises that somehow our lives will bear fruit, that something will last.

So finally, and finally, the cherry tomatoes and the large tomatoes are beginning to turn red.  And what I'm realizing is that even though there are only two tomato plants, it's a pretty good bet that I will have more tomatoes than I really need.  I will have tomatoes to share.

Because, you know, there's nothing like a fresh tomato from the garden.

"You did not choose me, but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last."

Peace, justice, mercy.

The love of God in Christ.

Fresh Basil and Mint

Tonight I got home late from a meeting. Even though it was far into the evening, I had a mission before me -- I had heard it might freeze tonight, so I went out and clipped off as much of the basil and mint as I could get my hands on. It's in the refrigerator so far; I don't have long, though, before I have to figure out what to do with it, other than pesto.

For a short while, though, it was sitting on the kitchen counter, and its only job was to fill the whole kitchen with those fresh, slightly exotic smells. The smells leaked onto my hands and into the living room a little bit, too. (the basil, I guess, was an overachiever, aroma-wise.)

****

Earlier in the week, I had the opportunity to attend a preaching seminar at the local seminary. Called A Celebration of Biblical Preaching, the event featured daily worship, keynote lectures and small group workshops. The first workshop I attended was called "The Essential Sermon", by the new preaching professor at the seminary. I remember one line in particular from his presentation: He had been a parish pastor, then returned to school. He and his family were looking for a church home, but were not finding an easy time settling down. Someone asked him, "What do you want a sermon to do?" He answered, "I want the sermon.... to break my heart." He made me think: What do I want a sermon to do?

Another highlight was when someone asked Anna Carter Florence what she thought about churches that put worksheets in the bulletin, with fill-in-the-blanks for sermon answers. "Oh, no parishoner left behind!" she answered.

It was great to be on the seminary campus; I remembered how much I loved being a student. I loved getting ideas and writing papers, studying Greek, the camaraderie among the students.

****

I'm thinking about the smell of the basil and the mint, filling the kitchen tonight, and the hope of the flavors unleashed in yet-unknown recipes.

I'm thinking about preaching a sermon, hearing a sermon, and the question: What do I want a sermon to do?

I want the sermon to fill the room with a certain aroma, an aroma of something fresh from the garden, and an aroma that promises flavors unleashed in yet-unknown corners of the world.

Can a sermon have an aroma? Can a sermon have a flavor? An aroma of life? And a flavor of justice and mercy, mercy and justice?

I'm bringing the basil in from the garden, in the nighttime, when it is already dark. I'm gathering hope, before it is too late.

The Smell of Fresh Basil and other unexpected surprises..

This morning it was 31 degrees, just a light frosting, but a little chilly for dog walking. I'm not acclimated yet, so it seems cold instead of bracing. But that will change.

I was warned about the frost, and so took all the remaining basil out of the garden last night. That fresh, deep smell filled the kitchen while I worked cutting it and putting it into little bags. Tonight I believe I will do some pesto making.

I'm not much of a gardener. It's something I believe in more "in theory" than in practice. But I did manage to plant some basil this summer, and now I have some good scents, and good flavors to bring indoors. It's one of the things I like about fall: all of the smells of ripeness.

Around here, it's also the season to get things done before winter sets in. A couple of weeks ago, we had someone out to fix our chimney. A good surprise: the foreman brought his dog along in his truck. A ten month-old puppy. We decided it would be good to let Scout have an impromptu "play date." It has taken this long to get pictures up.

Scout still lights up my life. She and the puppy got along famously.

Sunday Sermon

9 Pentecost Year A
Matthew 13:1-9; (18-23)
"That crazy gardener"

I have a confession to make. I am not much of a gardener. If you were to drive by our house, you would notice this immediately, because you would not see – -as some houses have – lots of varieties and colors of flowers all around in our front yard. I love to admire other people’s gardens, and in theory I would love to have a more beautiful garden of my own, but in practice I seem to find it hard to make the time for all of the different kinds of work that a garden entails:planting and fertilizing and pulling weeds and watering the young plants. One summer I did try to plant a few flowers on the south side of the house, but I didn’t keep an eye on them as I should have, and it got hot and well: they didn’t do very well. Probably I also didn’t choose the right plant for that particular place in the yard. However, while those flowers did not survive, there are other plants in our yard that are doing quite well – and no, I’m not talking about weeds. I’m talking about saplings, young trees. Early in the spring, we see the helicopter seeds, and it seemed this year even more of them than usual – and all of a sudden, there are saplings all over our yard, saplings on the side of the house where the flowers didn’t grow, and saplings in the midst of our peony bushes. In fact, the saplings kind of snuck up on us there, and got pretty big before I saw them. So I have been spending some hard labor this summer digging out pretty hefty saplings from among our peonies, as well as other places in the yard. It’s made me consider the whole issue of roots, among other things, because these saplings have strong and deep roots – they want to stay – as much as I don’t want them to.


However, our gospel reading today, appropriate enough for the middle of summer, is not about roots, is it? It’s about seeds, really. It’s about seeds and it’s about soil, different kinds of soil. The image in the gospel is the image of a sower sowing seeds in all kinds of soil – but sowing might be a kind word to use, really, for the sower really throws the seed around in a manner unlike any gardener, or any farmer that I have ever known. When I was more of a gardener, back in the days of my rural ministry, I sowed my carrots and my peas and my beans in neat rows, or at least as neat a row as I could possibly muster. And I sowed my cucumbers in hills, just like the directions on the package. And then I carefully marked the spots where they were planted with little sticks so that I could remember to water and to check for growth and to do all the sorts of things careful gardeners do. So when I hear the gospel story and see the image of the gardener in my mind, the first thing that comes to my mind are those saplings, planted in Good Soil, all right, but right where I don’t want them, right in the middle of my peonies, right in the middle of the lawn. That crazy gardener tosses the seeds around and doesn’t seem to care where they fall down, and that’s crazy in more ways than one.


It’s crazy, first of all, because the sower does not only sow in the"right" places. There are many types of soil, and the wise among us, might designate a specific place for our gardens. But the sower throws the seed everywhere, not just in the garden. The sower throws the seed – on the path, on the rocky ground, and among thorns, as well as in good soil. This attention to the types of soil might lead us to suspect that the point of the parable is the type of soil – and of course the interpretation of the parable also might lead us in this direction as well. But I think that the main point is to notice all of the places where the sower throws the seeds, not just in the "right" places, and not just in the "official garden" with the fence around it, but all along the countryside.

This reminds me of an image from a children’s book I read some time ago, Miss Rumphius. Miss Rumphius was told by her uncle, when she was a little girl, that she should "do something to make the world more beautiful." For a long time, she wasn’t sure what that might be. But as an older lady, when she spent one winter sick in bed, she got an idea: that she would buy seeds of lupine flowers, and walk around the countryside near her home throwing them wherever she happened to walk. The people would see her walking around and they started to call her "that crazy old lady." That is what the sower in this parable is like: like the crazy old lady, throwing seeds around all over creation.


Another reason the gardener seems crazy: what he is doing seems to be a waste of good seeds. Sure, there seem to be an abundance of helicopter seeds, more than we actually want or need, but one thing I learned from farmers is that good seed is expensive – you don’t just throw it away. Not only that: The crazy gardener doesn’t plant neatly in rows, and doesn’t mark the spots with little sticks, and even plants in the hard places and in the dangerous places and where there is no chance that the seeds will sprout and grow. That’s another reason that the gardener is crazy. Because that’s not the way we’d do it, isn’t it? We’d pick the best spot to have a garden, and only plant our seeds there. And we know the best spots, don’t we? Last summer, for the first time in a long time, I decided to plant a little garden, just a few herbs, really, in one corner of my back yard. And since I am not such a good gardener, I asked a friend, someone who IS good, who ISN’T crazy, to come and help me. She helped me to plot out the spot, and to by the right fertilizer, and then she got me going with a good shovel to turn the earth. And all of a sudden she got excited and said, "You have good dirt!" The point is, a good gardener KNOWS where the good dirt is, and where it isn’t, where you should plant, and where you should just forget it. But this crazy gardener plants in spots where seeds are not likely to take root. For some odd reason....


I remember a few years ago I went to the state legislature with a number of other pastors. One of the reasons we were there was because we were concerned about education. We talked to and visited with legislators from all over the state. And I remember in particular talking to one man from rural Minnesota somewhere. When we talked about education cuts in the inner city, he said to me, "Well, these are difficult choices, and maybe some of those kids aren’t worth it." Maybe some of those kids aren’t worth it. That's what he thought. That’s the problem, isn’t it?When we look around, we see scarce resources and we see different types of soil, and we want to be careful, and to put our resources in just the right places, and give them to just the right people. But God has a different idea of where to plant – and – most important of all, only God knows where the good soil really is. Only God knows which seeds are going to take root and sprout and grow strong and bear good fruit.


A colleague of mine was talking to one of her parish members one day, someone who rarely got a chance to come to church any more, because her husband was ill and she had to take care of him around the clock. The woman had called upon a neighbor to help her one Sunday morning so that she could go to worship. In the course of the conversation, she asked her neighbor whether he attended their community church much any more. The neighbor looked at her with disdain, and said, "They’ll let anyone in that church." To which she replied, "Yes, even you are welcome!"


"Even you are welcome," God says to us this day, as God calls to us to hear God’s words of love and forgiveness, as God calls to us to open our hands and come and eat. "Even you are welcome," God says to us whose hearts are hard, whose lives are full of temptations and distractions, who hear and sometimes turn away. "Even you are welcome," God says to us – pouring out the seeds of his love on us and on – not just us – but the whole world. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Because this crazy gardener, this crazy God, loves the world, the whole world, and not just the good places, but also the hard places: maybe even especially the hard places. This crazy gardener, this crazy God, loves the world, the whole world, and for some strange reason, wants the seeds of his love to sprout in the whole world, and not just in some special garden with a wall built around it. God wants the seeds of his love to sprout and grow – even among the peonies.


"Even you are welcome," God says to us this day and then sends us out to spread this crazy love in the good places and in the hard places, even in the places we think it will never grow. Because we don’t know. Only God knows – and shares with us – the breadth and the length and the height and the depth – of the love of God in Christ Jesus, poured out on us, poured out on the world. AMEN

In the interests of full disclosure, the story which ends "even you are welcome" is from here. I was directed to this post by a blog friend.

So I didn't preach without a manuscript today, as I had planned. I did do one section of the sermon away from the pulpit, but I'm still working on a method to get me away from my paper more. Next time...

After church we had some lively discussions about saplings, gardening (one person suggested I plant prairie flowers), farming methods in different eras, and at least one person talked to me about at-risk children.

I think they are appreciative of my small efforts to get away from the pulpit, if only for a little while -- so far.

Gardening

Last night I decided to do a little gardening, something I am not good at. I love to admire other people's gardens. Part of me yearns to do it myself. But the combination of many nights working and a sort of (well) innate laziness leads to a lack of prolonged gardening efforts. Plus, I do not know much about plants, other than "I like the way that looks." (I do know the difference between an annual and a perenniel, though.)

Last night I was doing a little digging and planted a few herbs. That was all I was going to do, and it was going to be enough. I went to the nursery, bought dirt and a couple of tools, and started to get the dirt ready (with my new digging fork!). (it is rumored to be ergonomically healthy!)

But then I noticed all of the saplings that are sprouting up in our yard. Some of them are still pretty small, and others are ridiculous, and they are in where the peonies are supposed to be. I started digging up saplings in the garden. It was about 90 degrees out. And those roots were pretty stubborn and deep. They wanted to live. I didn't want them to.

I just got a few saplings out. There is a lot more hard work ahead, a lot more stubborn roots wanting to live, and helicopter seeds still swirling around, desperately trying to take root and multiply. Most of these seeds come from an ancient tree in our front yard, an ancient tree that (we think) is beginning to die. So it is creating more and more seeds, more and more saplings, trying (as one of my parishoners said) to "expand its territory." (Sort of like Jabez, I said.)

But I am the enemy of life right now, digging up deep roots, throwing out branches, going after small trees just trying to live -- all because they happen to be in the wrong place.

It's an odd assignment.

Digging in the dirt

Tonight I did something I haven't done in a long long time.

I planted a garden.

It's a small garden. Just a few herbs. Parsley, two kinds of thyme, tarragon, one tomato plant (an afterthought). I've been saying I wanted to have an herb garden for a long time. I tried planting a few herbs in a pot a few years ago, but they all died when we went on vacation. Every year I say I'm going to plant something. Every year I don't. I look at my huge yard, overgrown peonies, weeds on the south end of the yard, saplings growing by the side of the house, and I sigh. The job seems too big. So I don't do anything. 'It's all or nothing,' I say, 'and I choose nothing.'

This year, again, I told myself that I would do SOMETHING. This time I also told New Friend, who is a fantastic gardener. Really. We went to an open house for her daughter a couple of weeks ago, and she had beautiful flowers everywhere. I think gardening is a spiritual experience for her. She also has some tomatoes on the balcony.

Back in South Dakota, I did a little gardening. Not a lot, and mostly it was vegetables. I had great rhubarb, but I couldn't take credit for that. I just stopped mowing it down. I had a few peas one year, got all excited and planted twice as many the next. The rabbits ate them all. Carrots were my specialty. I loved growing carrots. Some of them looked kind of funny, but they tasted great. In fact, my neice and nephew who were pre-schoolers and didn't eat vegetables willingly, liked to eat "Diane's carrots." "Are these Diane's carrots? Ok, we'll eat them then."

I don't know if my vegetable garden was quite as much the spiritual experience as my friend's garden is. I know I loved having vegetables to eat and to share. I loved to watch them grow. But for some reason, I never did anything with a garden here. I used the excuse: I am too busy. And I am busy. But I think it still might be an excuse.

Anyway, at Eastertime, I said, after Easter I would like some help getting started in gardening. She encouraged me to start small. I said I would call her after Easter, when it wasn't so busy. But I didn't. In my defense, I didn't really seem to be any less busy after Easter.

I had pretty much convinced myself that it was too late to do anything ... just like I do every year. But I had promised to call her, and I finally did. She said, "It's not too late. There is always something you can do." Wise words. And she also said, "start small."

So she came over tonight, and we plotted out just a small area to plant a few herbs, and one tomato plant (an afterthought). I thought it was too late to plant a tomato, but she said it's never too late.

We bought a new big shovel, some peat moss, some compost, and a few plants. We plotted out what would go where. She promised to bring over some oregano on the weekend. I promised to try to find some basil tomorrow. Then she was supposed to leave: she had a bathroom plumbing problem and someone coming to the house. But she just started digging down with the shovel.

I said, "I think you have to go." I felt a little guilty. She was doing some of my hard work for me. She said, "I know. But this is more fun."

This is more fun. I have been thinking about that ever since. Getting all of the sapling roots and the weeds up (some roots were really deep), turning the soil: to me, this was hard work. To her, it was fun. She turned the shovel the first time, and she said, "You have good dirt."

I have a couple of books on gardening, one even on starting an herb garden. I have a book, or books, about a lot of things. I love books, maybe more than life itelf. But the book didn't make me start a garden. My friend, who sees possibilities in dirt, even before the roots are in the ground, made me start a garden.