God's Immediacy - August 16
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 106:1-18; PM Psalm 106:19-48; 2 Samuel 17:24-18:8; Acts 22:30-23:11; Mark 11:12-26
I have a confession to make. I love gardening, and yet I do not have a garden. I mean, I have thought about it a lot over the last three years. I used to have a garden and a compost pile, and some plants that would do better some years than others, but I have yet to add that to my life in Alabama.
You might be thinking, that doesn’t make sense. “We do all these groovy creation care things around Saint Stephen’s. John should at least have a basil plant or grow some tomatoes.” I probably should, and I feel a little guilty for not having a garden. My parents have always grown things. My father’s parents had a large enough garden to can vegetables for the winter months and they were largely dependent on what they could provide for themselves. My mom’s brother had a tractor that I would sometimes act like I was driving as a kid. A rural Vermonter, Harold and his wife, Beth, also produced much of their own source of food from their own land.
Maybe it is just the times. We have better and more secure access to food at this time in our history. But I also wonder if there is some correlation between my need for immediate results that play into this phenomenon. We live in an age where can find the answer to nearly any question from a tool that most of us keep with us 24/7. We can buy oranges when they are out of season. Amazon will deliver just about anything in two days or less. We aren’t accustomed to the long game any more.
Most of us would call this progress. I like my life and the relative ease to which most things come by. I can get a fig any time of the year. And as much as I think I should garden, I wonder if I am being subconsciously resistant because of the amount of timing and planning that takes place, and what I could spend four months planning for, I could find at the store down the street right now.
Maybe that’s why I’m sympathetic to this bizarre interaction in Mark’s Gospel when Jesus sees a fig tree, Mark acknowledges that figs are not in season, for which Jesus doesn’t seem to care about. Since the tree has nothing but leaves, Jesus curses the tree saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And sure enough, the next day the tree is dead, and the disciples are amazed. Advice from this lesson: Don’t get between a hungry Son of God and his food. Just kidding.
As I read the news this morning, my heart breaks for the people of Haiti and Afghanistan. I wish more than anything those places could instantly be made whole. I wish the immediacy of God’s agency in this story was a lived reality of the people who suffer most in this world. And yet Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea’, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
For me, today’s Gospel provides a helpful reminder. Life has seasons and takes time. No one doubts that a fig tree should only produce figs at certain times of the year. But that shouldn’t stop us from praying for God’s action now. Problems will still exist in Afghanistan and Haiti tomorrow. The Delta variant will still be affecting our daily lives, but we are reminded it is necessary to pour our hearts into prayer regardless because God does indeed listen. Where that leads us, is to a people more committed to prayer, and maybe that is what the world really needs.
So today I pray, with the fervency that God could change things this moment, knowing that the result is not what matters, but instead what the heart wills. And trusting that is good enough.
John+
Questions for Self-Reflection: Where do you fall on the spectrum of immediacy? Are you a planner? What happens when you have to wait for something?
Daily Challenge: Make a plan to grow something today. Here are some ideas for a little garden.