We are at the peak of gardening season. The rains have been plentiful (maybe a little more than plentiful lately) and the flowers are thriving. The Hamburg Garden Walk has come and gone – timed to give the local green thumbs a chance to wow us with the fruits of their labors. Every day it seems a new flower is opening, and a new plant is showing off. Fresh veggies and fixings for salads are right in our backyards.
I am a passive observer and a grateful recipient of the bounty of Sandy’s garden. The little bouquets that pop up all over the house and get freshened with new blooms every day are her doing. The beans and beets, the radishes and tomatoes and all the rest are likewise her doing. From my perspective, the gardens just burst forth with beauty and bounty. Sandy’s perspective is, no doubt, a little different.
She loves the work of gardening, but she suffers from no delusions. She knows it’s work. Nature’s abundance, untended, generally produces weeds, not flowers and veggies. It takes a lot of work to prepare and tend a garden so that the miracle of nature’s abundance can work in favor of flowers and produce instead of weeds and thorns.
Every gardener recognizes the truth of the biblical proverb that ‘as you sow, so shall you reap.’ (Galatians 6:7) Input and output are in a pretty direct relationship. Consequences flow from our actions, both good and bad.
“As you sow, so shall you reap” is the law of nature and the law of our morally consequent universe. As I was reading the Psalms today, I was struck by the way one of my favorite passages contradicts this law:
Those who sowed with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed,
will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves. (Psalm 126:5-6)
The contradiction is grace that undermines the strict justice that gives back only what we deserve, what we have worked for. Grace brings joy out of sorrow and holiness in the hearts of sinners. Grace fills our empty hands and overflows our empty vessels. Grace is feasting on a bumper crop you didn’t plant.
Prayer: This harvest is so much more, so much better than anything I planted. Who am I to receive such gifts? Someone must really love me. How could I have forgotten? Thanks for the reminders you send today. Amen.