Unrevealed

My mother will attest to the fact that when I was a child, I hated that we often had a large vegetable garden. Not just the weeding, and the picking, but the thinning of carrots… and then we couldn’t just throw the thinned carrots away, we had to wash and eat them! Imagine, how many thinned carrots for a family of 7!

I remember one day, I got home from school, and my mother is packing up a lunch and says to me, “We’re going on a picnic, just you, me and Dad!” I’m more than a little suspicious… in a family with five children, I don’t remember outings without all of us. The ‘picnic’ turned out to be heading to the farm where they had an even larger vegetable plot to pick potatoes and beans. See, not content with the garden they had at home, they made arrangements with a farmer to have space in his. It’s no wonder I never gardened again until 5 years ago.

How many of you are vegetable gardeners? Or have been in the past? Does your garden produce exactly what you planned each year? 😉 Or do some years produce an abundance of one thing and despite your best efforts, something fails to grow, or in my case, the deer ate most of the carrots and ALL of the tomatoes last year!

Gardeners knows that there is something almost magical that happens in growing

Today’s gospel reading is just 3 short verses. It’s another one of Jesus’ parables. Let’s listen to the story and imagine what he wanted his first followers to learn from it and what he might want us to learn from it now. It’s written in Luke 13: 6-9

6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

In my research I found out many things about fig trees that I didn’t know… one of the many things that I love about ministry is that it not just gives me permission to be curious, but it’s part of my role to be curious! For one thing, fig trees were often planted in vineyards to test the soil… if a fig tree could grow in it, then valuable vines could be planted. Also a fig tree encouraged the birds to stay away from the grapes on the vines… it could also provide shade for workers. And fig trees don’t bear fruit every year! Just like some of our plants here in North America.

One of the things I often ask myself in the parables is who is the God figure? Who do you think is God in this story? (Wait for answers) I think God is the one who is working in the garden… tending, weeding… and also letting things lie fallow, letting things rest.

Fallow” as a description of farmland means “left unsown”, typically to let the land recover, or to prepare to rotate crops. Feeling “fallow” in life and work could mean a creative hiatus, or a pause, between things. Feeling fallow hurts – we think of all the things we could be doing. But fallow and rest does not mean that nothing is going on beneath the surface. Beneath the surface of the soil there are connections being made between fungi, bugs and larvae are turning over the soil, enriching it, there is so much life in a handful of dirt! Just like there is so much life below the surface of our busyness.

Most of you know me as high energy… I often say I have two speeds: High and off… and you usually see high. Also, Interim Ministry is by its nature time sensitive and there is an urgency to it that is not usually the case in called ministry. That’s part of the reason I like it, but it’s also what makes it challenging. For me and for a congregation. In fact, one of the Transition Team members said at our last meeting that she breathed a sigh of relief once I went on vacation. 😉 So do I… so do I.

Rest and growth…Growth and rest… When we rest, there is still so much going in beneath the surface… ideas rising… making connections… bodies healing… cells regenerating… Rest and growth… Growth and rest…

I rewrote the parable early in the week… ever since I rewrote it, I’ve been struggling about whether to use it or not… wondering how mad you might be… 😉 But here goes…

There was a congregation that had been planted in a community, the leadership was worried about many things and looked for signs of fruit and didn’t find many. They sought help from the region and said, “Look, for years we have been waiting for this congregation to thrive again, but nothing has changed. Maybe it’s time to cut some things off. Why should we keep pouring our efforts into something that isn’t growing?” The region sent an Intentional Interim Minister to serve among them. The leadership said to the minister, we are weary, we’ve done so many things, we can’t go on this way.

But the minister replied, “Let’s give it at least one more season. Let’s tend to the roots, stir the soil of faith, nourish each other with challenge and care. And maybe a little manure… and perhaps they are just resting… rest is as important to grow as the other things. If you find new life, if you bear the fruit of love, justice, and hope, then all will be well. But if, after this time, you remain unchanged, then you may decide to let it go.”

Here’s a photo of a stump of tree that I took in Point Pleasant Park; it’s a tree that was taken down by hurricane Juan, but look at that regrowth out of that stump! It didn’t happen in one year, or three… that growth is 20+years later… 20 years of lying fallow!

It gathered up energy from deep down inside of its roots… roots that went deep… roots that were nourished by what went before it… roots that were shocked and shaken, and then reached out for light.

Because nobody watered or fertilized or pruned or did anything to that stump, it just did what trees do… it reached for light and grew. The new growth is not like the huge tree it once was… but it is not separate from it either. It is different from its past and yet thriving in a different way. It will provide shelter and food differently from in the past, but no less importantly and no less a part of God’s creative web of life. My friends, let’s rest and grow, grow and rest, trusting that we are in God’s hands… the one who is the gardener.

Thanks be to God for the challenge and the opportunity, amen.

Luke 13:6-9
March 23, 2025 – SJ
Everything In Between
© Catherine MacDonald 2025