June 16, 2024

Fence Posts and Flowers

Dadgie and I have always had interesting nesting habits.  Just about every time we’ve moved to a new place we’ve gone through this little ritual.  She planted gardens and I built fences.  The gardens are . . . well . . . self explanatory.  The fences were often to keep the dog out of the gardens.  I am usually quite proud of my fences.  I’ve built picket fences, wire fences, stockade fences, you name it.  But there is one problem that I haven’t yet quite figured a way around: after a few years, her gardens still looked bright and beautiful, but my fences started to rot.  It’s the doggonedest thing!  The very minute she put those flowers and vegetables in the dirt, they started to grow, and the very minute I put those posts in the ground, they started to rot.  Now I know some of you watch “This Old House” and are ready to say, “Mike, just use pressure treated lumber.”  I do use it, but my point is that even p.t. doesn’t last forever.  Apparently, there’s something built right into those flower seeds that’s a miracle – a miracle that has long since faded from possibility in those fence posts, but a miracle that makes the flowers keep becoming more than they were.

It’s automatic!  At least that’s the word Jesus chose to describe it (or, the translators of Jesus’ words, if you will).  In speaking of the kingdom, he said it was like a seed planted in the ground, growing into a stalk of wheat that is brought forth from the earth (in Greek) automaté.  That’s the same root from which comes our English word automatic.  Growth is built-in.  Organic development seems to be one of the basic ingredients in the recipe of creation.  It’s common, apparently, to single-celled animals, complex organisms, and the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus apparently considered it intrinsic to the Gospel; he spoke about it all the time.  Many of the parables are about growth: grain, yeast, mustard plants, trees, weeds.  Jesus seemed to love these kind of stories.  And in this fourth chapter of Mark, he makes it very clear that what he is doing and calling us to do is not so much like building a fence as it is like planting a garden.

Seeds of peace, planted long ago, have begun to germinate in many corners of the world.  We saw it happen in Ireland and South Africa a number of years ago.  There are even rumors lately of behind-the-scenes negotiations going on between the Israelis and Palestinians.  If that came about it would indeed be a miracle. There are still nations at war; there are still religious rivalries that erupt into deadly conflict.  There are still atrocities being committed.  There are still ancient hatreds simmering in many lands.  But, isn’t it remarkable how the conflicts on our planet seem to be scaling down, and our emerging global network of economic interdependencies seems to be making really large scale warfare like world wars less and less likely.  We may be a long way from lasting global peace, but we just may finally be starting to grow in that direction.

It’s true for our world, and it’s true for our community of faith.  When we look back at the history of our church, we are aware of times of struggle and times of triumph.  We have seen the church supporting missions around the world and reaching out to people in our own community.  As with any church, I’m sure our historical record includes conflicts and reconciliations, unity and diversity, set-backs and stunning achievements.  Yes, we have dwindled in numbers, but we have grown together in love and faith and are striving every day to embody the Love of Christ.

And the same is true in your own life.  Rarely do we take the time to notice, but it can be important to rest a moment along the way and look at the road you’ve traveled.  It may at times seem that you take two steps back for every one forward, but over the long haul, you know it’s not true; you are more today than you once were.  You are wiser, more able to listen and hear the hopes and fears of others.  I believe it was Robert Raines reflecting somewhere on the remarkable growth of the human soul over time and his awareness that real growth often only comes when one has lived a number of years.  He responded to the question of Nicodemus, “How can one be born again when he is old?”  And Raines said, “Why that’s precisely when it happens!”

All of this is good to reflect on and sheds a hopeful light on our lives and our world.  But there’s a significant caution for us in the story Jesus tells.  It is the caution to not lose sight of the mystery of growth.  In the parable, the seed grows secretly while the man sleeps.  In the light of day he sees the growth of the plant, but he’s at a loss to explain how it happens.  Because the miracle of growth is a mystery, it’s also a process that’s often hidden, almost imperceptible.  Consequently, we need all the patience we can muster.

That’s the lesson we all learned from Nelson Mandella.  He spent years in prison, with no certainty about his future, but he patiently nurtured the seeds of hope within, preparing himself for a day he could not be certain would ever come.  Upon his release, he became the voice of justice and peace, and ultimately the leader of his nation.  Those who are about the business of the realm of Love are most certainly people of infectious hope, but they must also be people of indomitable patience.  So, even in the bleakest of times, we must have the wisdom to lie down on our beds at night and know the seeds, hidden in the darkness, are hard at work performing an automatic miracle.

Another aspect of the story Jesus told is equally critical for those of us who are trying to find our way in this age of uncertainty.  Jesus goes to considerable lengths to illustrate that this mysterious growing of love and faith is a process, and a process involving human beings at critical moments.  Yes, the grain grows mysteriously, but the seed has to be planted.  The blade appears, then the head, then the full grain in the head, but the one who must harvest the crop stays vigilant throughout the growth cycle, sleeping each night, but rising each day to examine the progress.  There’s no doubt about it, you and I are co-creators, partners in the divine work of creation and re-creation, collaborators in the unfolding of a new world and a new humanity.  We are called to be earnest and diligent gardeners, tending to and watering the seedlings of all the beautiful things growing in our world, and pulling at the weeds of greed and self interest, intolerance and abuse.

I believe that the most terrible kind of death a person can suffer is the death of the spirit.  That’s what happens when you give up on growth.  Concerns for peace, social justice, human service, global ecology, civil rights, all have grown up out of the fertile soil of those in our nation, in our cities, in our churches, who have been vigilantly progressive.  By that I mean they have refused to be content with things they way they are.  They have been committed to a self-critical approach to life, that looks not only at the world around them, but first within, and asks, “How can things be better?”  Not, “How can I keep things from getting worse?”  I’m deeply concerned that we’re in danger of letting that spirit die in America.  We are all too rapidly becoming a nation of finger-pointers.  And I fear we are losing the capacity to look critically at ourselves.  Goethe said it: “everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.”  If the kingdom is going to come about (as we pray each week) “on earth, as it is in heaven,” if the seeds of peace and justice are going to grow within our own hearts and minds, if the flower of community is going to blossom in this place, then we must be vigilant, always seeking the opportunity to pitch in and be a part of the new thing that’s trying to bloom.

Finally, I’m struck by the fact that, even after all the focus on growth as a process, the kingdom becoming, growing like a stalk of wheat, the need for vigilance and care, Jesus points to the final harvest.  If we are working, waiting, and keeping watch over the growth of the kingdom, we are working and waiting for a real outcome, not pie-in-the-sky.  A new realm of love and justice and community is in the cards!  Growth is not for its own sake.  The process is not an end in itself.  We may spend our entire lives becoming, but there is something to be.  We may never see the end results of our labors, but there are results.  Full fruition of the kingdom may continue to be unrealized, but it is nonetheless real.  Don’t give up on tomorrow.  It’s just a sunrise away.

So what’s all this got to do with fenceposts and flowers?  Well, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who, like fence posts, get stuck in the muck and start to turn rotten, and those who, like flowers, spread their leaves and keep reaching for the sun.