It Would be a Shame to Give up Now

 My garden looks like a complete weed patch. I did such a great job taking care of it early on in the spring and summer. Hours spent tilling the soil and planting the seeds. Days spent pulling weeds so the new seeds could grow.  So much work to grow food for our large family to eat fresh this summer and to store for the whole rest of the year. But then, I was busy planning our church summer camp, and then a short family vacation, and then busy getting ready for our confirmation retreat, and as time went on I would glance at the garden on my way past and see all the weeds taking over and I would quickly look away. "I don't have time to tackle that right now, soon I'll get in there and take care of that" I'd tell myself. Every now and then, I'd pop in and pick a zucchini or two, or look for a ripe tomato. But mostly, I avoided it because the weeds had gotten so bad, I didn't even know where to start to save it. Some of the weeds have been allowed to grow so long their roots are so big I am not strong enough to pull them out. Some of the weeds have grown so long and tall that the climbing beans have actually wrapped around them to use as support and pulling out the weed would only kill the bean plant as well. (Mt 13:30?) 

You might look at this garden, so overtaken by weeds and give up on it all together. We could just mow it all down and start again next year. We could spray it with a chemical to kill everything off so those weeds don't keep coming back. But if you were the one who planted it, you would know that hidden within all those weeds is actually a lot of good fruit and vegetables. Rows and rows of huge potatoes that were fully grown before the weeds took over and are waiting safely underground that just need to be dug up. Beans that have climbed above the weeds and are dripping with green pods and loaded with more white blossoms that say many more are still coming. Cabbage curling now into beautiful purple heads and tomato and pepper plants heavy with the weight of huge fruit on their branches. If you really search, if you know where they were planted, you'll find the largest onions I've ever grown and a beautiful row of carrots growing along quietly under the soil. But if you didn't plant it, if you didn't know what was in there, if you didn't ask anybody, if you didn't take the time to really look, you might just see a big patch of weeds that needs to be mowed down. And even if you were the one that planted it, the weeds might just intimidate you into staying away as it looks too far gone. So much work. 

Is this sounding familiar to you? I think sometimes I can look around at the world, at the church, at a relationship, and see so many problems I don't even know where to start that I just want to avoid it all together. Maybe even words get tossed around about a fresh start, no hope, need to start over. But if you see what I see, you'd see there is still so much fruit in that garden hidden in all those weeds. And if you give up on it now, all that hard work will be lost. All those hours you spent tilling the soil and planting and weeding. All for the goal, not of having a weed free garden, but of GROWING FRUIT remember? When we set out to share the gospel our goal is not to eradicate evil but to sow hope, to make disciples, to harvest souls in spite of a field of weeds. 

I know it would certainly be easier to give up now. To look away and not even enter into the weed patch I call my garden. To mow it all down, till it up, and start again next year. As it would be to say of our world, our communities, our churches, our families. There are so many problems with all of them, there is so much sin. But they are so full of fruit. And I need it. My garden needs to feed my family not just this summer but for the entire winter. We live in an age where we take for granted that we can go to the grocery store and always have food available to us. We might understand this lesson more if we lived in a time where we alone were responsible to growing our own food. If I give up now, my family might actually starve. (This might be a good time to remind you, if all the farmers and food producers of our world decided to just "stay home" during covid like so many of the rest of the world did, you would all starve too.) Not only is it not in our best interest to give up now, we just simply can't. Our survival depends on it. 

I spent last weekend with some teenagers in our parish. I love working with teenagers because I have always seen what incredible hearts they have and the great gifts they offer the world. But people don't often see this in teenagers. They see attitude and defiance and poor decision making. They never get past the weeds to see the fruit that is there. And sometimes because of that, it goes unharvested. We miss out on essential gifts that have been sown into our churches because we won't even enter into the garden to try to find it. But it is there. Because God plants good things in His garden. 

I know, the news, the emails, the people who don't even know the difference between weeds and fruit, it's all so frustrating, so discouraging. You aren't the only one who has cast a glance at a weed filled garden and wondered if it's even worth it. Wondered if you even have it in you to do anything about it. 

But if you could see what I see, you would know it would be such a shame to give up now. The fruit is ripe and I think there is more of it than there has ever been before. I know you are tired, you have a lot going on on, there really isn't "time" to freeze corn, and beans but that's the thing about fruit. It doesn't wait. When it's ready, it's ready, and if you don't harvest it and take care of it, it will go bad. And even if you don't realize it, you REALLY need this fruit to survive. So get to work, "the harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few."Lk 10:2