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This article first appeared in the May, 2006
issue of the Gospel Advocate.
Every year of my marriage I have planted at least a small vegetable
garden. My first motives for doing so were partially for the
emotional release that comes from a change of pace, and partially for
the fascination of putting seeds or sets in the ground and watching them
develop into full-grown,
producing plants. My college Biology professor, Russell Artist,
enhanced my appreciation for the intricacies of plants. But quite
early in my gardening experience a budding theological twist to the
activity developed as we gratefully ate delicious and beautiful red
tomatoes, tender yellow squash and other vegetables.
Some people grew “victory gardens”
during WWII to get free food. But why do we need a war or poverty to
grow a garden? Why not do it also for emotional and theological
benefit? Making a garden, however, does not carry its own theological
meaning. Indeed, the writer of Ecclesiastes planted extensive gardens
(Eccl. 2:5), but without other considerations he found the endeavor to
be “vanity and a striving after wind” (v. 11 NASB). Ancient pagans
worshiped the creation, or created order, rather than the Creator and
got themselves condemned (Rom. 1:25ff). Today some neo- pagan New Age
people hug trees and call the created order “Mother Earth”, a very
unchristian viewpoint. But the biblical perspective is that creation
should point to the Creator (Ps. 8:3-5).
Now, after nearly 50 years of small
scale, non-obsessive gardening my thinking and motives are more
theological, more Christian, than at the beginning. My motives were
never anti-Christian; they just were not deliberately and explicitly
Christian. Converted atheist, Harry Blamires, has stressed the
importance of “thinking Christianly” about everything. I take that to
involve family, wealth, power, recreation, and even gardening.
Over time the desire to acknowledge God in all my ways (Prov. 3:5-6)
became more pronounced in my thinking. This little gardening odyssey
can be portrayed best under several headings.
1. Praise for the Creator. Through gardening I am reminded that I
am both a part of God’s creation and dependent upon other parts of that
creation for life. As one can be moved to praise God for seeing His
larger creation of the heavens (Ps. 8:1-8; 19:1-6), so one should be
moved to praise God and stand in awe of Him when observing His
micro-creation--the interaction of elements in the soils, the soil-plant
interaction, earthworm activities, pollination by insects, and
plant-plant interactions. Like king Uzziah, I “love the soil” (2 Chron.
3:5-6) as a reminder of God’s creation. I am moved to praise God
for the soil-plant interaction about which I know little and profit
much. Creation sets the stage for praising and worshiping the
Creator (Rev. 4:11).
2. Holy Wonder. Like most humans, I like to understand. But the
inability to understand many of God’s actions is inherent in His being
God and my being only one of his creatures. I accept the Genesis
affirmation that God gave “every seed-bearing plant on the face of the
whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be
yours for food” (1:29), animals as well as humans (v. 30). God fed the
Jews in the wilderness on manna and quail, a steady but narrow diet.
But today I am baffled by the wide variety and intricacies of plants in
the parts of the world I have visited, and I am confident that I have
seen a small fraction of what is to be seen. Without benefit of a
course on “soil science” I stand in awe of the One who produced the
fascinating soil itself. God fed the wandering Jews on manna and quail.
But in most places there is a staggering array of edible plants. Why
would God make it so?
As a teenager, Jonathan Edwards pondered why God would make a little
spider that could weave such a complex web, whether humans observed it
or not. Edwards concluded it was due to the “exuberant goodness of
the Creator” that He had provided for the “pleasure and recreation of
all sorts of creatures, even the insects.” Who knows? But the same
wonder comes to me when I contemplate the soil and the little universe
in some of the tiny plants. I enjoy both soil and plants without
understanding all their intricacies, the same relationship I have with
personal computers, hen eggs, oranges and my wife. What a holy wonder I
find in a garden!
3. Gratitude for Sustenance. Paul and Barnabas told the pagans in
Iconium that the God they did not understand had not left Himself
without “witness” since He “did good by giving you rains from heaven and
fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts
14:17). That affirmation, along with Jesus’ utterance about God’s
sending sun and rain on the just and unjust alike (Matt. 5:45), means
that God acts continually. Deists hold that God created everything, set
in motion “natural law” and essentially withdrew Himself from the scene.
But the writers in both Old (Deut. 11:14; Ps. 65:9-11; 147:8, 18) and
New Testaments held no such view, even though they did not see every day
as being full of miracles. All of this means that the regular acts of
God are still decisively acts of God, even in a loaf of bread.
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
And back of the flour the mill,
And back of the mill, the wheat, the shower,
The sun and the Father’s will.
(Maltbie Davenport Babcock, 1858-1901).
Gardening can provoke thanksgiving. Just as Israel offered up the
first fruits of her harvest in thanksgiving for God’s provision of food
(Lev. 23:9-14), so I am moved to thanksgiving when my wife and I eat
some of that wonderful, fresh, nourishing produce from the hand of God.
I can build a dog house or a tree house, but I cannot make even a small
carrot or spear of asparagus, much less a pod of beans, a sunflower, or
a cabbage that could be eaten for nourishment. Gardening prods me to
thank God for the fruit of the earth.
4. Severing the Technological Hold. Jacques Ellul (The
Technological Bluff) has made a needed distinction between technology
(using a telephone or word processor) and technologie (a philosophy that
technology will solve all major human problems). Similarly, Neil
Postman (Technopoly) registered a protest against “the surrender of
culture to technology.” In that same spirit gardening enables me
periodically to bypass the supermarket for some of my food and goads me
into the realization that ultimately basic foods come from land and sea
as sustained by God.
The immediacy of small scale harvest is a reality moment that pulls
back the camouflage created between harvest (and often processing) and
marketing. Lest I get caught up too much in trinkets and place my trust
in the wrong things, the little garden keeps me in touch with one area
of reality. As surely as there are “trees of the Lord” (Ps.
104:16) there must be “tomatoes of the Lord” who gives “food in due
season” (Ps. 145:16). A person works the soil, but that does not lessen
God’s activity. In a creation Psalm (104) we are reminded that it is
God who “makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to
cultivate—bringing forth food from the earth” (v. 12;cf. Ps. 65:9-13).
5. A Prod to Keep the Earth. Growing a small garden prods me to
think through what it means to “keep” the earth. Israel was punished
partially because she did not let the agricultural land rest, have a
sabbath (Lev. 25:1-7; 26:34-35). In one of Jesus’ parables he indicated
that fertilizing the tree—quite literally, “casting manure on it”—was
useful to it (Lk. 13:8). The soil must be “fed” good food. Growing a
small garden calls my attention to the need to keep the earth. When
earthworms cannot live in soils, I wonder what has been done to it.
What does that kind of soil do to vegetables grown for human
consumption? It makes me more sensitive to what we humans may be doing
to our environment in general and to farmland in particular. I am
moved to ask, What can I do to help on a larger scale? Is this soil not
to be preserved?
In addition to gardening, there are other ways, of course, to take a
break and be refreshed from the tedium of life. It is a way of honoring
God for one to “think Christianly” about all of them. But gardening has
great promise. Can I tempt you to try it?
C. Philip Slate
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
cpsmissions@juno.com |
