For the last couple of seasons, I have attempted to grow tomatoes. I’ve been bought three plants from the Spring Church plant sale – carefully chosen by people who know what to look for in a healthy plant. We’ve bought the correct peat-free grow bag, selected an appropriately sunny location, cut the pack and planted the seedlings. Then I’ve diligently watered and fed, plucked out excess trusses and staked. Only to maybe harvest just twelve little red and edible fruit. Delicious and satisfying none the less.
This year, the plants at the Church sale were rather weak and puny to start with. They died before I had a chance to buy the grow bag. So, I resigned myself to having no tomatoes. We usually grow our tomatoes at the front of the house under the kitchen, positioning the grow bag on the slate pieces there. No soil as such, but grey slate pieces on top of black plastic.
However occasionally a weed surfaces and I pluck it out. To my surprise, after the tomato plants shrivelled up and were removed, I noticed a plant growing through the slate pieces. It looked a bit familiar (you will realise by now, I’m not a great gardener!) so I left it. It grew taller and then began to flower. By this time, I was pretty sure it was a tomato plant. However, since the ones I had bought hadn’t made it, I had no intention of making life easy for this imposter. I didn’t water it or feed it. I wasn’t going to take time plucking out trusses or staking it up. I neglected it.
Well, I have never had so many tomatoes before ever! I am harvesting 5-8 fruit a day, larger and redder than I have ever known.
Maybe sometimes there’s a case for throwing away the rule book. The Pharisees lived by loads of rules – many. I’m sure, were very sensible. But restrictions can be just that – restricting. God is creator, He supplies for His creation. He knows what’s best. Many traditions in our churches have been done for years, maybe centuries and have produced fruit, but it’s worthwhile taking stock regularly and looking at what we do and why we do it. Our society has changed, we have different cultures represented in our congregations, new generations have different expectations and needs. Of course, our fundamental beliefs are the same; God is unchanging. But seasons change; there is a circle of life; growth brings change and transformation.
May this harvest time be a time when we consider whether we need to do things differently in order to activate a bumper harvest for God.
I couldn’t find a hymn about tomatoes, but this harvest hymn by Knowles Shaw illustrates the harvest at the end of time:
Bringing in the Sheaves:
Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;
Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
Refrain:
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves,
Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
Sowing in the sunshine, Sowing in the shadows,
Fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze;
By and by the harvest, and the labour ended,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,
Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves’
When our weeping’s over. He will bid us welcome,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.