Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
One of the traditions of the church is to offer blessing to homes, farms, gardens, and spaces of new life during the Easter season. At a time when people plant tomatoes and annuals, till and seed the fields, we offer a blessing to the soil.
Jesus uses a lot of plant imagery in his teachings because it is one of the best examples we have of something we do with a promise that tomorrow, we hope to see the fruit of the work today.
The seeds go in the ground and it takes time for the plants to break through the soil and sprout. And no matter how much confidence and certainty we might have about the biological process, we still have to wait. We plant and wait and trust.
Doesn’t this sound like life, though? Even as so much of life gives the illusion of instant gratification, direct consequence, and a certainty of realized effect. That, if we follow this five-step process, we’ll see instant gains, like a bad infomercial promising a flatter stomach or younger skin.
Infomercials and quick-fix solutions rely on hope for the magical thinking. But they also prey on our impatience, our fear of failure, and a willingness to seek shortcuts to ensure we get there (wherever there is) faster.
This week, on the Sunday before Ascension Day, we celebrate Rogation Sunday, when we celebrate and bless creation with prayer and fasting. I encourage us to focus on what we do and what we hope will come. That our lives might be the seeds that, through the love of the gardner, may one day produce.
With love,
Drew+
