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

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 4

Cared For, Covered and Comforted

Several decades ago I found myself in a anxious place, in need of comfort. I had had a seriously scary diagnosis, long daily commutes for treatment, and three small children at home. I had people watching my kids, making meals and a supportive husband. Still, I would reach the end of the day exhausted and full of fear about what the future might bring. Nothing I could do on my own seemed to allay the anxiety. Lying in bed, unable to sleep, with all sorts of imagined terrors racing around in my head, I prayed for sleep. As it often happens to me in a desperate place of prayer, wise words from what I can only describe as "not me" popped into my head – "Relax. Let Me tuck you in at night." I closed my eyes, and saw myself in a luxurious bed of white silk sheets, a silk comforter trimmed with exquisite lace. (I'm a dark colored cotton/polyester type myself...) I felt a peace come over me and I was soon asleep. I spent the next few months asking God to "tuck me in" every night, always finding peace and comfort where I had previously found fear and anxiety. Sometimes the sheets changed. One night, when I was physically in pain, I saw dark blue plaid flannel sheets and a comforter, still luxuriously trimmed with lace and ribbon, and though not actually on my bed, I can still remember how soft and warm they felt and how God's peace and comfort was entwined in them. Today, I can still recall how cared for, covered and comforted I felt at night during that scary time.

Some months later, I came across this amazing description of the Holy Spirit as Comforter. (Emphasis mine.):

"Comforter" means one who soothes in a time of pain or grief -- one who eases pain and sorrow, brings relief, consoles and encourages. But I like this definition from the Greek: "One who lays you down on a warm bed of safety." During the cold, dark night of your soul, He lays you down on the soft bed of His comfort, soothing you with His tender hand.*

Wow...

When Adam and Eve's easy walk with God in the garden disintegrated due to their disobedience, they had their own set of fears and anxiety to deal with. They discovered they were naked – exposed, vulnerable, covered with uncertainty and facing the unknown. Their solution? Sew some fig leaves together and try to cover up their exposure, an inadequate solution to a monumental problem. They soon saw they'd lost the intimate walk with their Creator and could no longer stay in the garden. What terrors were racing around in their heads we can only imagine.

But God did not leave them in their nakedness and all the baggage that came with their sin. He explains to them the consquences of their disobedience, and then, we are told:

...the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.**

Imagine being clothed in garments made by the hand of the Lord God. Perhaps they were warm and comforting mink coats, or perhaps PETA's dream of vegan simulated-leather clothing. Imagine being in a place of shame, anxiety and uncertainty, and having the God who walked with you in the garden, whom you had disobeyed, covering you with amazing garments made by His own hand, lovingly suited for the life outside the garden. He cares for you and knows what you need. He sees the futility of the flimsy fig leaf loincloths. He provides garments for the difficult walk ahead, the walk outside the garden, into a scary unfamiliar world.

When I started this lenten series four weeks ago, I had no intention of addressing the effects of the coronavirus, but things have rapidly changed and here I am writing about it. We all now find ourselves in a place similar to Adam and Eve, facing a scary unfamiliar new world outside our familar garden. Yes, there are things we can do – wash our hands for as long as it takes to recite the Lord's Prayer, stay in as much as possible and when we can't, social distance ourselves, and as of this afternoon, here in Illinois, shelter in place. But these things are only fig leaves, flimsy protection at best. As we face this present crisis, we might be inclined to say at least we don't have the baggage of nakedness and the shame of the disobedience of our first parents. However, in truth, we are seeing the effects of their sin and the resulting fallen world, a world where diseases such as COVID-19 can make us feel we have been turned out of our familiar garden. But God does not leave us uncared for, uncovered or uncomforted in the midst of it. He is the same God He was before we ever heard of the coronavirus. His Spirit still longs to lay us down in a warm, soft bed of safety and comfort, soothing us with His tender hand. When we, in our present anxiety, turn to Him for comfort, He makes for us, by His own hand, the spiritual, emotional and physical covering we need to walk with Him in this strange new place. And it's so much better than fig leaves...

Something to ponder: What is your anxiety level in these days of the coronavirus? Fear for yourself? Fear for your loved ones? General uncertainty about your financial future? Worried about running out of life's necessities? Starting to lose it with your kids? Struggling with the disconnectedness imposed on your life? Write a list of things that you are most concerned with right now.

Something to pray: Grab your list and a Bible or biblegateway.com. Pray through your list as God leads. Spend some time doing one or all of the following:

Read all of Psalm 91. Ask God to give you a tangible understanding of what it means to abide in the shadow of the Almighty (vs. 1), what it feels like to be covered by His pinions and to find refuge under His wings (vs. 4).

Read Psalm 36:5-9. Ask God to impress upon you what His steadfast love is like, what it means to drink from the river of His delights, to see light in His light.

Read Psalm 57:1-3. If you feel the need to "cry out", ask God to help you do it. Use your list from above to put all your fears and concerns before God and ask for His comfort and peace in all your unpeaceful places.

Read all of Psalm 63. Ask God to show you how to praise Him through all of what is going on in your life right now, how to sing for joy in the shadow of His wings. Ask Him to show you how it feels to have your soul cling to Him, to have His right hand uphold you.

*From David Wilkerson's newletter, You Have a Comforter, January 20, 1992

**Genesis 3:21

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 3

Restored!

Sometime in the middle of the last century a local farmer dammed a circuitous creek running through his property. He wanted to create a sizable fishing lake near his house on his farm land. The result was a holding place for big largemouth bass and carp. The carp, as they are apt to do, negatively impacted the quality of the lake water, but it was the dam itself that caused the most damage, interfering with the natural cleaning process of the creek, holding back sediment and pollutants. When the local forest preserve district acquired the lake and land in the early part of this century, the elongated Z-shaped lake was ranked second to last in water quality of the 162 lakes monitored by the Lake County health department.

The forest preserve district had to decide what they were going to do with the 58 acre man-made lake in their newly acquired forest preserve. Though picturesque from the distance, up close it was a very large mud puddle with eroding banks and pudding-like sediment clogging up the dam. The forest preserve district came up with three choices – ignore the mud puddle and do nothing, dredge the mud puddle and hope to improve the quality of the lake, or remove the mud puddle and restore the original creek bed. Being all about restoration, the forest preserve district opted for the last choice, embarking on a 12 year project to undo what the farmer had done almost 60 years earlier.

First, they built a cofferdam to slowly drain the lake and prevent the pudding sediment from washing downstream. They then cut a temporary channel for the water to flow through while they took deep soil and gravel samples, accurately locating the original creek bed within the now visible former lake bottom. They dug a new channel where they identified the location of the old creek bed and then redirected the water from the temporary channel to the new/original stream. Lastly, they seeded and planted the land around the new creek bed with native vegetation. After twelve years of planning and work and several million dollars, the forest preserve district now has a vibrant stream flowing through its newest preserve. It's not quite back to its original state, but it should be close in a few more years.

God made lakes and He made rivers, and they both have their places in creation, but naturally occurring rivers, creeks and streams give life in a special way to the land they flow through. When God created the first garden, he made a river flowing through it. As the river left the garden, it became four rivers, watering the lands surrounding the garden. (Genesis 2:10-14) The Bible is full of spiritual references to flowing water. The man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, according to Psalm 1, “is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and is leaf does not wither”. (Vs. 2,3) Psalm 46 tells “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High”. (Vs. 4) You could “be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail” which is God's promise to those pour themselves out the the hungry and the afflicted. (Isaiah 58:10,11) And try to wrap your mind around this one from John 7 - “...Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (Vs. 37, 38) Think about it - we get to be a flowing, life-giving river of living water just by living in a believing relationship with Jesus. We get to refresh others in the same way we ourselves are refreshed when we answer Jesus' call to come to him and drink.

Something to Ponder: Do you see your heart as a source of living water, or do you feel “dammed up”, unable to flow freely? Have you built a dam, maybe with good intentions, only to find yourself now stuck with a mud puddle of impeded flow of what God wants for you? Is the thought of getting things restored and flowing overwhelming?

Something to Pray: Grab a Bible or biblegateway.com and read Isaiah 61:1-4. Note how the Lord's anointed one does a life changing work in the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, those who are bound. Do you identify with any of these? If so ask God to set you free. Reread verse 4. Do you believe God can build up ruins, raise former devastations, repair ruined cities? Ask Him for the faith to believe those things. If there are any dammed up areas in your life that prevent your heart from freely flowing with rivers of living water, ask the Lord to do the the necessary restoration.

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”― Rainer Maria Rilke

Light Lenten Reflections

Week 2

Godzilla in the Garden

(and How to Whine About It...)

Vegetable gardening in a yard on a pond has its challenges. In addition to the usual suspects that wreck havoc during the growing season – deer, rabbits, raccoons, the occasional neighborhood dog – I have to contend with marauding geese and turtles of unusual size.* I've learned what vegetables need fencing to keep out deer and what fencing needs reinforcement to prevent rabbits and raccoons from chewing through to the lettuce and chard. And so, it was with no little consternation I watched a large family of geese march out of the pond and head toward my garden where they mowed down a large section of the new grass I had seeded several weeks before on the path between my vegetable beds. Dad Goose, Mom Goose and a dozen or more grass-eating preadolescent offspring! Really??!!

Later, the same season, I planted my usual two hills of zucchini, dirt mounds of freshly dug soil each with four seeds, later to be thinned to two plants on each hill. No critter had ever bothered these unfenced squash, so I was mystified as well as annoyed when I looked out a few days later to see the zucchini hills gone, completely flattened. I went outside in time to see a gigantic snapping turtle slowly making her way back to the pond. Images from the first Godzilla movie came to mind. This behemoth had risen out of the pond like it was Tokyo Bay, had stomped on the Tokyo that was my zucchini crop, and was now returning to the water. A Godzilla-like snapping turtle had just destroyed part of my garden! SERIOUSLY???!!!

It was only a vegetable garden, and I could replant the zucchini. But what about the spiritual Godzillas who wreck our walk with God in the garden of our lives? Adam and Eve had a Godzilla in the first garden in the form of a serpent. That beast seriously wrecked the garden for them, putting questions in their minds ultimately leading them to disobey God and eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That action ruined the easy walk with God they had been taking for granted and cost them the garden. And how did they respond when God called them out on their disobedience? Adam: The woman gave me the fruit. Eve: The serpent lied to me. Blamers, both.

I confronted my own spiritual Godzilla in recent years in the form of physical adversity. First, a diagnosis, dire, but fixable. Just cut out the offending body part and spend the rest of my life taking a synthetic medication to replace the natural version the offending body part was in charge of making, and then, excellent prognosis. Really, God? Now? I've got plans, things that need doing. What are You thinking? A second diagnosis followed closely on the heels of the first. Unrelated, equally dire, but also fixable. Just pump my body full of noxious chemicals for six months, then surgically rearrange parts of it. Again, excellent prognosis, except the new normal doesn't seem very normal. Really, God? REALLY????!!!!! I've already had my quota of bodily woe. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING???

Somewhere in the midst of Godzilla stomping around on my body and on my lovely spiritual garden life, a friend of my husband's gave me a book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering by Timothy Keller. A dense book on the subject of suffering, the first two thirds of it look at the subject from every cultural and theological point of view. The last third is practical application, i.e., what to do when Godzilla strikes. Keller takes an in-depth look at Job, the biblical model of undeserved suffering who had every area of his life stomped on by adversity. He loses his children, his servants, his livestock and livelihood, eventually his bodily health. As one can imagine, Job doesn't always express his feelings in a spiritually noble way. His life is in shambles, and his friends trying to make sense of it all with him just make matters worse. But Job consistently looks to God, and unlike Adam and Eve, Job does not hide from Him, and God is very affirming of Job in the end. Keller comments on God's vindication of Job:

But why would God be so affirming of Job? Job cursed the day he was born, challenged God's wisdom, cried out and complained bitterly, expressed deep doubts. It didn't seem that Job was a paragon of steady faith throughout. Why would God vindicate him like that?' The first reason is that God is gracious and forgiving. But the crucial thing to notice is this: Through it all, Job never stopped praying. Yes, he complained, but he complained to God. He doubted, but he doubted to God. He screamed and yelled, but he did it in God's presence. No matter how much in agony he was, he continued to address God. He kept seeking him. And in the end, God said Job triumphed. How wonderful that our God sees the grief and anger and questioning, and is still willing to say “you triumphed” - not because it was all fine, not because Job's heart and motives were always right, but because Job's doggedness in seeking the face and presence of God meant that the suffering did not drive him away from God but toward him. And that made all the difference. As John Newton said, if we are not getting much out of going to God in prayer, we will certainly get nothing out of staying away.

Ever since Sr. Joan Bernadette told our second grade first communion class prayer was talking to God, I've taken it literally. Sometimes I talk nicely and sometimes I don't. Sometimes my talk is praise and gratitude. Other times it's whining and complaining. I direct my grumblings and anger toward God and count it as prayer. It was comforting to be reminded from Keller's comments on Job that God counts it as prayer also. Like Job, I can have my moments of challenging God, bitter complaining and deep doubts. I can voice my fears and frustrations to God and even question what in heaven's name is God thinking when I can't see His purposes or reasons for some inscrutable circumstance. The gracious and forgiving God who was so affirming of Job is the same God who created me to walk with Him in a garden. It's freeing to know I don't have to be on my best behavior or have on my best attitude to walk with Him. I need only to keep my eyes on Him and, like Job, do my complaining, doubting, screaming and yelling to God and in His presence. When I get stomped on, leveled by whatever circumstance, I can come to Him as is. Godzilla-ravaged or not, God calls me to walk with Him just as I am.

Something to Ponder:

Has Godzilla stomped and leveled some part of your life or the life of someone you love? How free do you feel to express the pain and frustration of that to God? Do you hide from God until you feel “good” again, or can you come to Him as is?

Something to Pray:

Grab a Bible or biblegateway.com and read Psalm 13. The psalmist goes from boldly questioning God to trusting and praising Him. Ask God to give you the freedom to do both, to honestly be able to flow from questioning and doubt to trust and praise. If there is Godzilla damage in your life, spend some time talking to Him about it. Ask for the ability to be real in your relationship with Him.

God sees us as we are, loves us as we are, and accepts us as we are. But by His grace, He does not leave us as we are. - Timothy Keller

*Yes, they exist!