BY THEIR FRUITS.....

I was rushing through a local mega-mart this spring when a little plant in a near-the-register display whimpered, “Take me home!” You've seen those random near-checkout display shelves. The ones with the same compelling power as those of candy and gum by the conveyor belt where a child is apt to tug on a parent sleeve and say, “Please, Mommy (or Daddy), please.” The bedding plant looked so forlorn, I almost didn't “listen,” but I did decide to adopt it, and re-homed the plant in the sunniest place in my yard, right next to the mailbox. I put the wire supportive “tomato cage” around the infant plant it as preemptive protection!

I didn't hold much hope for its survival, but that little tomato start hung in there and grew and grew...and now is expressing its gratitude with tiny red, joy-prompting globes. “Cherry tomatoes.” Maybe call them “cheery tomatoes,” too, because their vibrant red skin promises delight inside, and I am not disappointed when I add them to my meal.

With time, my pitiful clearance plant grew strong and fruitful. So it is in the Christian walk, with time as we take in the nourishment of Living Water (scripture) and bask in the Sun of Righteousness (the Lord Jesus). And maybe that's another way of looking at His parable about the fig tree (Luke 13:6-9). In the parable, a barren tree was due for the rubbish pile because it just didn't produce figs. The farmer decided to give it one more year to prove itself. The analogy is to complacent Christians who aren't going anywhere in their faith walk. The lesson of “one last chance” holds both hope and fear.

Tomatoes, of course, are “annuals” with just one chance to bloom and yield fruit. Then the cycle begins again with the tiny seeds in each fruit that can carry on the fruit line. Without reproducing believers, faith would not grow and spread.

Living in an agrarian society, Jesus wisely taught from common things the people knew in their quest to feed and house their families with the basic necessities. And though our times have taken food production to new and sophisticated levels (ever eaten a green house tomato?), the lessons of God's creation never fail to teach again, and again.

Maybe next time you grab a tomato to put in a salad or BLT, pause a moment. That red globe didn't pop out of the air. God had a plan for it to grow and reproduce. Sound (humanly) familiar?

SPENT

Fall’s first frost came early this year, leaving us with way too many green tomatoes. I felt like some sort of grim reaper when I tore into our wilted line of tomatoes and removed the whole shebang. Some years I rinse the green tomatoes that show more “potential” in a weak bleach solution to ward off mold. Those with a hint of yellow go in a sunny windowsill to ripen nature’s way. The others I layer in a box between newspapers to awaken slowly. Of both methods, eventually some ripen, but some developed mold and had to be tossed. 
We’re “city-slicker” gardeners who buy fledgling tomato plants every spring from the hardware store. Bravo to the more farm-hearted souls who harvest tomato seeds and know how to bring the pinhead-size seeds to new life as “starter” plants. Think: seed pods made out of empty toilet paper rolls, stuffed with nutritious/sterilized potting soil, and nurtured with lots of green-thumb know-how. I watched the You-Tube! I could do it—if I wanted!

GIVING BACK

Imagine: claiming the abundance for more abundance!  That spiritual principle was Paul’s focus in nurturing the church in Corinth. Known as a worldly and perhaps selfish city, it was a good incubator for the concept of giving generously. As Paul emphasized the practical and spiritual rewards of giving, he urged them to give generously and graciously. The end result (for impoverished recipients in Jerusalem) would be the “overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God” (2 Cor. 9:14).

That passage came to mind a few weeks ago during the annual all-city "Make a Difference" volunteer day. Our newspaper ran a full page of project descriptions to help people figure out how they could spend a few hours improving our community. It poured rain that day, so some of the outdoor projects probably had to reschedule. But many folks got free haircuts, dental care, food, diapers, repaired bikes, property repair and other “helps.” And...the do-gooders undoubtedly got “feel-good” endorphins for giving of themselves.

The dynamics weren’t any different in the First Century. Those who give in the name of Christ, Paul said, receive back what can’t be weighed or measured: the surpassing grace of God (9:14). That concept should blow your mind. It did Paul’s, as he followed up with this exclamation: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (v. 15).

The Gift beyond all gifts, of course, is Jesus. With the annual celebration of His birth coming at us (with all its materialism and greed), we need the reminder that the seeds of Christ-motivated giving are within us. Even if tinier than a tomato seed, they have potential for harvest.

RIPE

This is the time of year when zucchini grow to the size of footballs and tomatoes engage in population explosions. We don’t grow zucchini. (I got zucchini-ed out in childhood by my frugal mother’s zucchini creations.) However, my husband has a favorite sunny spot by the garage for his yearly “farm” of tomatoes. By September they shout “pick me, pick me!”  We try to share, but find ourselves gifted by other tomato-growers whose plants went into overdrive and don’t realize we have our own stash.

I’ve been reading John 15 in different translations in preparation for a speaking opportunity in October. It’s about grape vines, of course, but in some ways the truths fit tomatoes, especially if we were real savvy tomato-vine-keepers. These three words seem to summarize the passage:

PRUNED: Our heavenly Father is the vine dresser.  He knows what to snip off so that more nourishment goes into the fruit-producing branches. If there’s a sucker vine, off it goes.  Have to admit grapes and tomatoes differ here. Tomatoes need “cages” or supports. Lesson: life’s unpleasant experiences can leave us better or bitter. “Better” if we see them as God’s pruning wisdom. “Bitter” if we think God doesn’t have our best interests in mind when hard, “life-pruning” things happen.

NOURISHED:  The passage talks about “remaining” in the vine. Staying attached to the main vine is the only way the auxiliary vines can get the nourishment to grow grapes. When we go off and do our thing, goodbye healthy fruit. Without a “cage” to support its wimpy branches, the tomato would similarly have problems, flopping all over with the fruit in contact with the ground where they’d be most likely to decay (or feed the local mice and rats). When I “lift up” my Bible off the table by my rocker to read it, or “lift up” my prayer concerns to Him, I am nourished and encouraged.

FRUITFUL: Finally comes harvest, and off come the grapes.  And what’s their purpose? To nourish! To provide fruit that will last (v. 16).  Jesus said, “This is my command: Love each other” (v. 17). Let’s hear it for tomatoes in salads, as sauces, and as lumps of red goodness in kabobs or cooked dishes. Oh yes, tomato juice, if you want to recruit a blender. God is not limited by what He can accomplish through our personalities and abilities. He never intended for us to sit on a platter and be admired at length!

Maybe I’ve been a bit light-hearted about our bumper crop of tomatoes. I remember that when Jesus taught, He used simple object lessons. Many of His listeners were farmers or had a small garden for their family. You don’t leave a crop (or a garden) to itself. It needs care, or you’ll just have what Proverbs described of Mr. Sluggard’s farm: full of thorns and weeds, and its stone wall in ruins (Proverbs 24:30-34).

I wonder if Mr. Sluggard intended to grow tomatoes.  Or zucchini....  

Some ripe, some not

My winterizing chores include “the last rites” at of the small tomato patch on a sunny side of our garage. It’s my husband’s attempt at farming, and he pampers the soil to grow the best tomatoes he knows how. But when the nights chill in October, and the leaves start withering, I know I add “tomatoes” to my yardwork chores.  It’s too bad, as some of our biggest tomatoes are struggling to redden, and there are dozens of tiny ones that will never make it. After I pick the “possibilities,” I feel badly about pulling up the rest.

I guess it’s my personality to offer second and third chances, hoping people will lift their hearts fully to the Sun of Righteousness, the Lord Jesus.  When that doesn’t happen, I grieve, and have to reconcile myself to an imperfect world.  Even as I pulled those tomatoes, I thought of the many still-unanswered prayers. I just don’t understand,  I mused, then halfway remembered a little-known hymn with those opening words. I’d learned of it another time of uncertainty and trial.

Searching through the indexes of several hymnals, I found it in a small hymn collection gifted to me forty years ago by classmates at then-Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland.  It was their way of thanking me for playing piano in morning worship sessions that year. Within a year and a half, both my parents would die, and that paperback hymnal become part of God’s “comfort kit” as I worked through my grief. That hymn begins:

I am not skilled to understand/What God has willed, /What God has planned, /I only know at His right hand /Is One who is my Savior.

I never gave much thought to the author of the lyrics except to surmise that this person must have also had a great sadness that they had to leave in God’s hands.  A few clicks on the computer mouse brought me to her story. The author, Dora Greenwell (1821-1882), in the language of the late 1800s, was especially concerned with “idiots” and “imbeciles.”  Today we’d call them people with severe physical, emotional and mental disabilities. She visited asylums for these people, lifted spirits of society’s “lowest,” and raised money to help them. One biographer spoke of her personality as “rippling sunshine.” 

 She was born into a wealthy family but her father’s financial troubles and death sent the family into poverty. She moved in with a brother who was a vicar and devoted herself to the less fortunate. One friend said of her, “Her life was hid in Christ in God, but it was also wonderfully transparent to all who knew her...She had a wonderful knack of making one happy in her presence.”

Frail in health, she supported herself as a writer. She wrote essays mostly about women’s education and suffrage and the slave trade, and published biographies about French priest Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire and American Quaker John Woolman. Her book The Patience of Hope was published when she was 39.  (I was 48 when my book on patience was published!) Her poetry had a style similar to that of Christina Rossetti.  In 1873 she wrote eight “Songs of Salvation,” which included “I Am Not Skilled To Understand.” Prolific Gospel musician William J. Kirkpatrick set it to music.

The last verse goes: Yes, living, dying let me bring/My strength, my solace from this spring;/That He who lives to be my King/Once died to be my Savior.

It was just the message I needed that day: to leave with Jesus the problems that only He can solve.

A vine at a time

Last week, I “retired” our tomato plants. About the middle of October, I realize that few of those tight green marbles will ripen as we inch toward the first frost. We have only five tomato plants, but they may as well be fifteen. Clipping a branch at a time, I save out the tomatoes with a yellow blush of potential. These I wash and put in a covered box with a red apple, whose off-gassing helps them ripen. Finally, I yank out the main stems that seem to be super-glued into the soil. Goodbye, a couple hours. It’s the down side to having fresh tomatoes the last part of the summer. It’s not my favorite chore, but I get through it.

In the midst of this chore, I thought of tough things in life that loom much more tangled and messy than my autumn tomato patch. One story I’ve often shared with people needing encouragement comes from the life of Dr. A.B. Simpson (1843-1919), a Canadian preacher, theologian, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Think back a hundred-plus years, before cars, air travel, phones or the internet. Dr. Simpson was preaching in Ireland when he posed the question, “What is it to abide in Jesus?” Then he gave this answer: “It is to keep on saying, minute by minute, ‘For this I have Jesus.’”

That phrase of trust lodged in the heart of the event’s pianist, a young woman whose family lived across the Irish Sea. During the service she received a telegram asking her to come home immediately because her mother was dying. “I have never traveled alone,” she told him. “But for this I have Jesus. I must make a long journey to the south of England. For this and all else that goes with it, I have Jesus.” As it turned out, in those days of slow travel, she arrived home ten minutes after her mother died. Her family was so distraught that responsibility for the funeral service and legal details fell to her. She later told how she kept claiming, “For this I have Jesus,” as she had to do things she couldn’t have done in her own strength.

The message from Simpson’s sermon is echoed in Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (KJV). Or, as the Greek-to-English translation is clarified in the Amplified Bible: “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me—I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who enfuses inner strength into me, [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]." My copy of the Amplified version was once my late mother’s, given her in 1962 by a godly aunt. Fifty years later, as I read the same words that my mother had underlined in red, I sense how she embraced this truth for her own overwhelming life challenges. They ranged from being the firstborn of nine in a family that knew profound poverty, to her life-long battle with asthma, to her final, hard-fought battle with cancer.

“For this”—for the intimidating, scary, impossible things of life—“I have Jesus.” The best part is that besides coming alongside in our challenges, He sees the eventual spiritual outcome. Leaning on Him, stretching with Him, and depending on Him are all part of growing in the faith. “For this,” there is a purpose.

I just checked the tomatoes in my “ripening box,” and a few are turning red. There’s another parable here, about God at work in the dark places, but I think Simpson’s hopeful counsel suffices for today.