Incoming!

I love dictionaries. As a person who takes pride in the breadth of my vocabulary, I find dictionaries keep me humble. Yes, they hone my understanding of the meaning of a word and see to it I spell it correctly. But they also can show me that a word may not mean what I think it means or they surprise me with an alternate meaning or synonym I was unaware of. When I started writing this Advent series, I dutifully went online to merriam-webster.com to see what it had to say about the word "Advent":

Definition of Advent

1: the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas and observed by some Christians as a season of prayer and fasting

2a: the coming of Christ at the Incarnation

As I expected, no surprises here. But the list of synonyms following the definition contained the words:

appearance, arrival, coming, incoming

"Incoming"...

I shouldn't have been surprised that "incoming", similar in meaning and spelling to the word "coming" would be a synonym for Advent, but the appearance of that word triggered a surprising and un-Christmasy childhood memory.

I was a child of the post-World War II era. My brother and I watched the television shows Gallant Men and Combat. We, as well as every kid on the block, had toy machine guns, army helmets and various other battle paraphernalia. My mother worked for the U.S Army, so we also had an assortment of genuine U.S. Army patches. We could be authentic staff sergeants or corporals. My brother even had a real hand grenade (minus the detonator and explosive, of course). We and our friends would spend hours on maneuvers, dodging bullets and playing "Bombs Away", which usually meant someone yelling "Incoming!" and the rest of us diving to the ground or into nearby bushes.

"Incoming!"

Somehow that word, the image it conveys of something surprising, even unexpected, appearing and, like a bomb, forcefully entering into the realm of our existence, seems like a good synonym for Advent. At this point, I wanted to write "minus the destructive part, of course," but in reality, Christ's coming into this world did do quite a bit of destroying. The Baby who came into the world in Bethlehem would grow up to die on a cross and destroy the power of death. He would destroy the power of sin in our lives. At the moment of Christ's death, the veil in the temple representing the barrier between man and God's presence was ripped in two, destroying the seemingly unbridgeable distance that had existed between a holy God and sinful man. Advent anticipates the incoming of a Child, born to an obscure couple, in an obscure village. This Child would live a life and die a death that would be as explosive as any bomb, as any hand grenade with its detonator intact. As with the shepherds on the night of His birth, we too may be taken off guard at His incoming and, like them, be "sore afraid", as Linus and the KJV express it. We may fall to the ground, dive into nearby bushes or drop to our knees. But whatever our reaction, He is here. He has arrived. And our world has been changed forever because He has invaded it.

"Incoming!..."

Something to Ponder:

Read Luke 2:8-20.

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Put your shepherd hat on and look at verse 9. What would it have been like to have the glory of the Lord shine around you and to be filled with great fear in the midst of that? Look at verse 15. What would it take for you to step out of your comfort zone and explore an unknown spiritual frontier?

Something to Pray:

Look at verse 9 again. Ask God to show you any ways that you are wrongfully afraid of Him, or the things of Him. If there are any ways you fear His glory/presence/power, confess that to God and ask Him to give you the relationship He wants you to have with Him. Ask for the grace to accept that as His gift to you this Christmas.

 

Light Advent Musings

Week 3

Waiting for Something to Begin

This Christmas we will be celebrating our fourth annual "Last Christmas in This House"...

When my husband and I retired four years ago, it seemed like a good idea to downsize and move from our corner of northern Illinois to some place outside Minneapolis to be closer to our kids. I painted the hallways and started getting rid of things. Then some disappointing medical tests followed by surgery postponed our move. Recovery well in hand, I started boxing books and painting over 20-year-old stenciling...until more disappointing medical tests, unrelated to the earlier issues, followed by more surgery, more recovery. Our move postponed again, we had high hopes for this year. We painted bedrooms and boxed more books and met with a realtor...two weeks before the Covid-19 stay-at-home order was issued for Illinois. Once again, the beginning of our new life in the wilds of Minnesota is on hold.

Waiting for something to begin has a forward looking tension to it, different than the tension of waiting for something to end. Unlike waiting for something to end, we are not necessarily getting away from something but actively anticipating going toward something. We see a hope, a goal, a promise we know we want or we need or we are pretty sure will happen. We just haven't arrived at the place where that something has yet been fulfilled, been made real. And so we wait.

Advent, this season of the year, has that forward looking tension. Most years, we would be waiting to celebrate Christmas, waiting to gather with loved ones to eat, to exchange gifts. We would be waiting for the eve or the morning of Christmas to go to church and sing carols with those who also look forward to the celebration of Christ's birth. Despite the strangeness of this particular time, this particular Advent, we still wait for however we will uniquely celebrate Christmas this year to begin - family gatherings masked, social-distanced, or zoomed, Christmas services masked, social-distanced in-person or streamed. We still wait for something we know will begin, no matter how different it may look this year.

Advent, the big one, the centuries-long one, had that same forward-looking tension. A Messiah had been promised to God's people. He would come and change everything. Something new would begin. When and how, well, that was open to some speculation, but He, the Messiah, would come and God's people would hope for Him, look for Him, wait for Him to begin the fulfillment of the promise made in the Garden.

As often happens with those things we wait for, we get in our minds how we think things are going to work out, how the beginning will look, but God, in His funny little, and big, ways, manages to surprise us. His people were imagining the sudden appearance of a mighty political or military leader as savior. God instead began the fulfillment of the salvation story with the birth of a baby to an obscure couple in a small town. This beginning could easily have been missed by many, and for the most part, it was. But those who were looking for something to begin saw it. Mary and Joseph saw it. Mary's cousin Elizabeth saw it. Poor local shepherds saw it and wealthy royal foreigners traveled a great distance to see it. Not a bad beginning...

Something to Ponder:

Read Luke 1:5-7, 24-25. Elizabeth and Zechariah waited a long time for parenthood to begin. Read Luke 1:39-45, paying special attention to verse 45. (If you have the time, read Luke 1:5-80 for the whole story.) Think about all the waiting that was happening in these verses.

Something to Pray:

Think about the waiting of both Elizabeth and Mary. With Luke 1:45 in mind, bring before the Lord anything in your life you are waiting to see fulfilled, that you are waiting to begin. Ask God for the faith, the believing He wants you to have, to see you through the waiting time. Ask God for the grace to accept what His vision for your future is, that your expectations would align with His.

 

Light Advent Musings

Week 2

Waiting for Something to End

I've been told I walk with my toes "up", a physiological quirk which makes me hard on socks and shoes alike. Both pairs of my athletic shoes have holes in the toes. In normal times, I would have started my multi-store search for new shoes when Pair #2 showed early fraying of the toe stitches. But these are not normal times, so I think I'll wait for the pandemic to end...

My short bob of a haircut has now grown into some semblance of my 1970s college-era tresses. I've had to trim my bangs four times since my early pandemic haircut to avoid a shaggy dog look. I really, really want a professional haircut, but maybe I'll wait for the pandemic to end...

Last year I met a group of friends at a coffee shop for a few hours on Monday mornings. We brought our knitting, crocheting and other crafting projects with us, an excuse to drink coffee and talk, talk, talk. We now text pics of our projects to one another. It's something, but definitely not the same. I can't wait for the pandemic to end...

Okay, maybe I'm a bit excessive with my pandemic cautiousness, but wanting and waiting for the pandemic to end is a real desire in all of us. Waiting can have a somewhat backward-looking element to it. It can be as much about waiting for something to end, to finally be behind us, as it is about waiting for something to happen in front of us. The Israelites, as slaves in Egypt, waited for 400 plus years for their bondage to end. The same Israelites waited 70 years for their captivity in Babylon to end. Our date for the celebration of Christmas was chosen to occur near the time of the pagan celebration of the winter solstice. The festivities around the winter solstice were both backward- and forward-looking. In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice marks the beginning of winter, with the deepest cold months of winter ahead, not much to celebrate. But the winter solstice also marks the longest night of the year, so really celebrates the end of increasing darkness.

We think of Advent as a time of looking toward Christmas, but the big Advent, the centuries of waiting for the promise of a Savior, was also as much about waiting for something to end as it was about waiting for something to happen. Waiting for salvation allowed mankind to come face to face with all the reasons of why a Savior was needed - waiting for bondage of all kind to come to an end, for sickness of all kind to be healed, for sin of all flavors to be atoned for, for the brokeness between God and man that occurred in the Garden to finally come to an end. Waiting for something to end increases our eagerness for what comes next.

The toes of my shoes look tattered, but the soles still have some miles in them. My curling iron and a hair clips allow my hair to look presentable. I continue to knit and crochet, drinking coffee alone in my house, sharing photos of finished projects, waiting for the time when the pandemic days are finally over. All these things, however, make me appreciate what I took for granted pre-pandemic – the interminable search for shoes that won't come through at the toe, leisurely sitting in a hair salon, knitting and coffee with friends in an enclosed public space. When I finally experience them again, they will be the sweeter for the time spent waiting for their absence to end.

Something to Ponder:

In your life now, what are you waiting for to end? The pandemic? A bad job situation? An unhealthy relationship? The lingering effects of some physical or emotional trauma? Take a look at the things that have been formed in you during this time of waiting for something to end. What have you learned about yourself? About God? What have you come to appreciate more? Dislike more?

Something to Pray:

Take a look at Revelation 21:3-5:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Spend some time praying about the above passage, then focus on the underlined part. Ask God to give you a deeper understanding of this promise of an ending to mourning, crying, ultimately, even death. Pray through your reflections from your ponderings above, allowing God to minister to you in the places where you are waiting for something to end.

 

Light Advent Musings

Week 1

Waiting for Something to Happen

The early 1980s Masterpiece Theatre classic The Jewel in the Crown is one of my favorite series and one I recommend to those I know also enjoy good British television.  Having recommended it to several people considerably younger than myself, I've gotten the same reaction from them – "It was hard to get into at first because the story moved so slowly.  But I stuck with it and it was really great!"  I was somewhat mystified at their critique, not having noticed the slowness of the plot.  Then I realized these younger viewers were of the Downton Abbey generation, used to their episodic dramas is short, quick scenes.  Take a stop watch to any contemporary Masterpiece (I've done it to both DA and Poldark.) and one will find the average scene length to be under 20 seconds, the "long" dramatic scenes clocking in at just under two minutes.  Taking a stop watch to The Jewel in the Crown, the short scenes average just under a minute, the long dramatic ones can clock in at close to five minutes.  Clearly, the pace of British drama has significantly changed in forty years.

Advent, that time of waiting for Christmas, also has a different time element to it, depending upon our age and experience.  As children, the weeks before Christmas slow to a snail's pace as we wait for Christmas morning.  As an adult, those same weeks fly by with not enough days to get everything done in a timely matter before the big day. Children eagerly anticipate the action of Christmas while adults are fine with a slower rhythm leading up to December 25th.  One can only imagine the time flow of the true Advent, the centuries of waiting from the biblical fall of man to the coming of a God-promised Savior.  

That Savior-promise comes on the heels of Adam and Eve's sin and, interestingly, the promise is addressed to the serpent, Adam and Eve being eavesdroppers as God voices His plan of salvation. 

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.*

Hmmm...a battle between the serpent's offspring and the offspring of a couple yet to have children.  The waiting game had begun.  And the Offspring of the couple will step on the serpent's head, a decided position of power, and yet one without complete invulnerability.  There will be a bruising of His heel.  We can only wonder at what Adam and Eve thought of this promise, of the nature of its fulfillment, of the timing of its completion.  Did they suspect it would happen soon, or did they hunker down for the long haul?  Did they hope for the non-stop action pace of Downton Abbey or resign themselves for the slow unfolding pace of The Jewel in the Crown? 

Depending upon how much science and archaeology one factors into the biblical account of Adam and Eve's leaving the Garden of Eden, the waiting time for the coming Savior is somewhere between 4,000 and 200,000 years.  That's a long, long time, especially compared to the Church calendar's traditional four weeks of Advent.  It makes us wonder about the God who promised the Savior.  We know He is a God of infinite patience, with perfect timing, attributes we, His creation, have only in part, lacking in both infiniteness and perfection. We may struggle with the pacing of The Jewel in the Crown. He would not.  But, like The Jewel in the Crown, if we stick with God's timing and pacing of His salvation story, we come away knowing we have seen something really great...

Something to Ponder:

Take a look at 2 Peter 3:8,9:

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Try to wrap your head around God's concept of time and how it is so different from ours.  Examine your own concept of time.  Do you like things to progress slowly, unfolding at a leisurely pace, or are you addicted to action, things always moving along?

Something to Pray: 

Pray through your reflections from above.  Ask God to align your sense of timing with His, to slow you down when you are going ahead of Him, to light a fire under you when you are lagging behind.  Ask Him to show you ways in which His timing has been perfect in past interactions in your life.  Ask Him to increase your trust in His timing and pacing for your present or future life.

 

*Genesis 3:15

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 7B

Back to the Garden: Reprise

Mary Magdalene has something in common with Joni Mitchell.

I started out these Lenten reflections* looking at Mitchell's iconic song Woodstock. She writes:

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

I said Joni got it right, her song reflecting the longing in each of us to get back to the Garden and the Garden Life we were originally created for, that intimate walk with God. I pointed out Joni also got it wrong. We can never get ourselves back to the Garden - way above our paygrade, way outside our purview.

Easter celebrates the day, the event, that ultimately got us back to the Garden. It is fitting that what started in the great Garden back in the beginning is completed in another, smaller, sparser garden. Though the setting may be less than an Eden, the event rivals, if not surpasses, that other Garden experience.

After Jesus' death on the cross, a disciple of Jesus claimed his body and put it in a new tomb in a nearby garden. Two days later, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb before sunrise and finds the stone covering the entrance to the tomb has been rolled away. She leaves and returns with two of the disciples. They see an empty tomb, Jesus burial cloths, but no Jesus. Puzzled, they return home, leaving Mary Magdalene weeping in the garden outside the tomb. She then sees two angels who ask her why she is weeping. She is telling them of her missing Lord when another figure also asks her why she is weeping. She mistakes the newcomer for the the gardener, who is, of course, Jesus. He then speaks her name and she joyfully recognizes the risen Lord she only moments before assumed was dead and stolen.**

Mary Magdalene had just had her Joni Mitchell moment. She had gotten it wrong. She thought the newcomer to the sad, mystifying scene was the gardener, the tender of plants, perhaps someone who could solve the mystery of the missing dead man. But Mary Magdalene had also gotten it wonderfully, gloriously right. The person wasn't the gardener, but The Gardener, the Son of the triune God, the same God who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, whose death, and now, resurrection restored to Mary, and to all of us, the walk lost when our first parents' disobedience exiled them from the Garden. It is why the tragic day of Jesus' death is Good Friday with a capital G. It's why we rejoice on Easter Sunday and call to one another "He is risen!" "He is risen indeed!", knowing our walk with God has risen, indeed, as well. True, we still have the fallen world to contend with, but The Gardener relationship is back in as much glory as this fallen world allows. He invites us to walk with Him in this present garden and all we have to do is say yes and move our spiritual feet.

Something to ponder: Grab a bible or biblegateway.com and read John 20:1-18. Ponder!

Something to pray: If the weather allows, find some time to take a walk with God. Celebrate the restored relationship this day represents. Ask God to give you a time of worship with Him, unique to your relationship with Him.

*Week 1, https://marynapier.blogspot.com/2020/02/thereturn-of-light-lenten-reflections.html

** Read the full account in John 20:1-18.

Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven... ― N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 7A

Want to Obey

(Want   →  Obey

I want what I want. It's part of my human makeup, my fallen nature, my American rugged individualism or whatever I might want to call it.

Some of us are very good at voicing what we want. Look at any three year old – "I want..., I want..., I want...!" As we get older we may lose our demanding tone, even our audible voice, but the inner us still has no trouble articulating what we want. I have a pretty good idea about what I think is fair, what I think I deserve, what I don't think I deserve, how I think life should look going forward for me.

In this time of pandemic craziness, when most of what we are familiar with is turned upside down, we still want what we want, though many of our wants have changed surprisingly. Who would have thought as recently as two months ago I would be wanting shelves not empty of toilet paper and disinfecting wipes when I go grocery shopping? Wanting to sit face to face with someone and not just talk to them on a screen? Wanting to go to the post office or pharmacy and not have to think of where my hands are every minute?

We are often faced with this tension of wanting what we want and realizing we might not get it. Jesus faced it in a big way the night before he died. He knew what was most likely going to happen to him the next day. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke's accounts in the gospels, Jesus, as was his habit, went off to pray in a place he had gone to before, a place called Gethsemane. John's account calls it a garden. It was a good place to pray, usually, and Jesus asks his disciples to stay awake and be praying, too. He then goes off a short distance from them and prays a very human yet perfect prayer:

Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. - Mark 14:36

He know what he wants – let's skip this crucifixion thing – but he acknowledges he also wants what God, his Abba/Father wants – let's redeem mankind and put right everything that went wrong in that other Garden so long ago.

Of all Jesus' prayers, I find this one the most encouraging. Jesus, the perfect Son of God, is free before his Father to express what it is he wants. He is not afraid to tell his Father he is afraid and would be fine if this crucifixion thing could go away. But Jesus, the obedient Son of God, is also willing to say he accepts his Father's will over his own. And he's comfortable enough in his Father's presence to pray this not once, not twice, but three times. If the perfect Son of God can repeatedly acknowledge his wants and feelings, even anxiety and perhaps doubts before his Father, how can I not feel free to do the same? Jesus' ultimate obedience is also an encouragement to me as I pray, knowing full well that God's ways are not my ways and that which I really want and boldly pray for may not be what my Father wants for me. He has something better. It may not feel that way at the time, but Jesus's prayer at Gethsemane models an attitude of trust in the Father and His purposes. I may only see the cross from where I stand now, but I'm assured there is resurrection and new life ahead.

Something to Ponder:

How strong are your wants? How willing is your desire to obey God? What are some of the things you feel you really want and need at this moment in your life?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or biblegateway.com. Read Matthew 26:36-46. Note Jesus' prayer and persistence. Ask God to allow you to experience the freedom Jesus had to put his wants before the Father. Ask for Jesus' obedience as well. Pray through any of the wants you listed above and model your prayer after Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane.

As Adam lost the heritage of union with God in a garden, so now Our Blessed Lord ushered in its restoration in a garden. Eden and Gethsemane were the two gardens around which revolved the fate of humanity. In Eden, Adam sinned; in Gethsemane, Christ took humanity's sin upon Himself. In Eden, Adam hid himself from God; in Gethsemane, Christ interceded with His Father; in Eden, God sought out Adam in his sin of rebellion; in Gethsemane, the New Adam sought out the Father and His submission and resignation. In Eden, a sword was drawn to prevent entrance into the garden and thus immortalizing of evil; in Gethsemane, the sword would be sheathed.

― Fulton J. Sheen, Life of Christ

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 6

Abiding

There is a gardener in West Sussex, England, who has spent over 25 years growing a "family tree". He has grafted 250 different varieties of apples onto one single trunk and root system. The tree stands over 20 feet high and needs the support of vertical planks to keep the branches and fruit from drooping toward the ground, but the gardener is rewarded yearly with an amazing variety of apples.

The Book of John gives us another picture of a sturdy, fruitful plant, a vine, with a single trunk and root system. Jesus claims to be that Vine and we, he says, get to be the branches. And, of course, there is a gardener, a Vinedresser, whom Jesus identifies as his Father:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. - John 15:1-11

Abide, abide, abides...some form of the word appears ten times in the above passage, so I thought I'd take a dive into my favorite "but what does it really mean" book a.k.a Strong's Exhaustive Bible Concordance. According to Strong's, abide means to:

continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry (for).

Tarry seemed like such a quaint word, so I went to the dictionary for its exact meaning and found:

stay longer than intended; delay leaving a place.

Jesus says we get to be the branches - fruitful, healthy, abundant life-type of branches – to his vine-trunk-root system if we abide in him. If we continue, dwell and endure. If we are present, remain and stand. And if we tarry – stay longer than we intended, delay leaving.

If we were created to walk with God in a garden, what does being a part of this Vine-branch-Vinedresser story mean to our walk with God? Our walk is a call to abide, to be with God. Like the English apple tree, we are many varieties of branches on the one true Trunk and Root System, all potentially fruitful for the Vinedresser when we abide. We each have a potential for at least a bumper crop of God's love. Just by abiding. Whatever we call prayer, our talking to God, it is a multi-faceted abiding relationship with our Creator and His Son. It is a continuing and a dwelling with Him. Sometimes it feels like an endurance, as when the Vinedresser lovingly prunes us to increase our fruitfulness. It is our remaining present and standing firm in His presence. And, lastly, it is our tarrying, staying longer than intended, delaying in leaving God's presence. So nice to know we can never outstay our welcome.

Something to Ponder:

Take a look at your abiding "skills". How easy or hard is it for you to do those things – continuing, dwelling, enduring, being present, remaining and standing? And how are you at tarrying? When was the last time your prayer time ended up being longer than you had planned? Do you ever delay leaving God's presence?

Something to Pray:

Ask God to increase your abiding "skills", especially your understanding of what it means to tarry. (See above.) Ask Him to show you what fruit He wants you to bear for Him and what things in your life still need pruning. Ask for the abiding endurance you may need for that process.

There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. ― Oswald Chambers

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 5

The Quirky Gardener

Gardeners tend to have their quirks, their own funny little ways. There are no real rules for gardening, but there is an informal "best practices" most gardeners choose to follow. Need to improve your soil? Add compost, any organic matter with the exception of meat and dairy products. My grandmother, an avid vegetable gardener and agricultural rebel, would put a winter's worth of sawdust and wood shavings from my grandfather's basement work shop over her sandy soil. Next, she would take a winter's worth of cooking fat and meat drippings she had saved in old coffee cans, warming them enough to liquify the fat, and then sprinkling the liquid over the sawdust in the garden. This produced a productive garden with an amazing crop of tomatoes every year. Want to grow spring lettuce? Buy some seedlings at the local garden center, or start some seeds indoors four weeks before the last frost, carefully hardening the plants off before putting them into the ground. Unless, of course, you are a lazy gardener like me who fails to pull out the last of my crop of lettuce the previous year, always letting a few plants go to seed. These way-past-their-prime lettuce plants will grow to monstrosities three or more feet tall with heads scattering seed all over the fall garden. Come early spring, the soil is dotted with bright green and red lettuce seedlings. I've only to dig them out with the tip of a trowel and plant them within the rabbit-proof fencing for a rapidly growing crop of already hardened off lettuce. Untraditional lettuce gardening, but very efficient.

The Gospel of Matthew* has Jesus telling a story about a quirky gardener, a grower of grapes who owned a vineyard large enough to require laborers to help with the gardening. The gardener-owner of the vineyard went out early in the morning and hired some workers for an agreed upon wage. It was a fair salary, maybe even generous for the long day and the amount of work they would be required to do. These workers were the "early bird gets the worm" type, most likely laying out their vineyard working clothes the night before, getting up early and eating a good breakfast, the type who get to the hiring point ten minutes before the gardener arrives. They'll be good workers, worth the generous wage.

But the gardener could use more workers, and at the third, sixth and ninth hour, he finds unhired workers standing around, doing nothing, at the local hangout in town. He sends them into his vineyard, telling them he will pay them what is fair. Unlike the early birds, these workers were delayed by something, maybe overslept, maybe had some errands to run before showing up for work, maybe had to deal with some family or household emergency. Now that they've been hired, they'll pull their weight in the vineyard and expect some payment for their part-time work.

At the eleventh hour, the gardener comes out to find some unhired workers hanging around. When the gardener questions why they are idle, they say no one has hired them. Despite there being a likely good reason for this, the gardener sends them into his vineyard. These latecomers are most likely the dregs of the workforce. Perhaps they showed up to work at the eleventh hour because they stayed out too late the night before, too hung over to show up any earlier. Maybe they wasted their day doing whatever the first century equivalent of too much screen time was. Maybe some of them fancied themselves as too good for garden work, only to find they failed at the alternative occupations they tried earlier in the day. It is unknown what their work habits were when they entered the vineyard. Perhaps they got caught up in the momentum of the other workers, holding their own with the weeding, tending to the vines. Or perhaps they saw the first hired starting to fade after a long day of hard labor, and their community spirit kicked in, seeing a chance to take up the early birds' jobs with fresh energy. Whatever transpired in the vineyard, when it came time to get paid, the gardener paid first those who were hired last, giving them the same fair, generous wage promised the early birds. When their time came to collect their wages, the early birds grumbled when they didn't get more than the latecomers, spending their time on the pay line thinking about the extra money they would be getting. The gardener, hearing their complaints responds to one of the early birds:

Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? (vs. 13-15)

Did I mention Jesus starts his story with "For the Kingdom of God is like..."? As is probably apparent by now the quirky gardener is The Quirky Gardener a.k.a. God. This Gardener had a quirky choice of workers as well as a quirky pay scale. And the quirky payment makes sense in that the agreed upon wage is eternal life which doesn't lend itself easily to a sliding pay scale. There are no partial portions of eternal life. Once we say yes to the Gardener and enter into His vineyard and commit to be part of His life for the "day", we get to fully participate in His life forever. The Gardener goes out into the town, searches our hangouts, calls to us all – the over achieving early birds, the delayed, distracted later comers, the clueless, unwanted, desparate eleventh hour late, latecomers. In His eyes, no one is too late to the game to be a part of His Kingdom. He wants us all to come into His Vineyard. He even calls us "friend" when we grumble and fail to understand His generous funny little ways. Thank God He's the Quirky Gardener.

Something to Ponder:

Which worker group do you identify with in your relationship with God? Early bird, delayed and distracted late arrival, or the really late to the game eleventh hour hire? What good do you see in the group you identify with? What pitfalls do you see in the same group?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or biblegateway.com. Read Matthew 20:1-16. Note in verse 13 where the gardener/owner calls one of the grumblers "friend". Ask God to show you His friendship for you, even when you are a grumbler, distracted or just plan unwanted anywhere else. Spend some time thanking Him for His generous mercy to you and that He is a quirky gardener with funny little ways that continuouly surprise and bless you.

*Chapter 20

When we don't get what we deserve

That's a real good thing

When we get what we don't deserve

That's a real good thing

– from The Newsboys, Real Good Thing