Planting and watering

Our garden went in a couple of months ago. The peas have already burned up after just a couple of pickings, but we're starting to get some beans; the rest is still just promise and potential.

I could see the garden this morning from the deck as I read Paul's writing about planting and watering (1 Cor 3:6-9). Especially noteworthy: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth."

Paul's point was that the Corinthians were giving too much credit to their earthly leaders, but as I sat thinking, I had a couple of other thoughts.

The first was that this whole gospel-spreading business is hard for us because it's a long process. The planting and watering, the part before we see any harvest, can cover such a span of time that our leaders come and go. We don't like that; we're ready to give up on people after only a few weeks or months. Yet pastors and church planters know what Paul knew, that time and numbers are very poor ways to measure success in this business. Converts come one at a time, and it takes longer than we think it should.

The second thought is maybe a little more pointed: I wondered if I'm a planter or a waterer. Truth is, at different times I'm probably one or the other, but is it OK to be neither? Not very often, I wouldn't think.

Most of us probably shy away from planting, that rigorous, thankless work of getting our hands dirty in the world, sharing the great good news with people who, often as not, don't want to know. That means that we'd better be ready to start hauling water for those new, fragile believers who need nurturing, and for the older plants stressed by the heat.

That line of thought suggests that if I'm not evangelizing, I should be nurturing. I should be a friendly, warm person who can handle hanging out with a half-formed Christian, which means I need to get over my fastidiousness about cigarettes and body piercings. I need to widen my tolerance on music and conversations, so that I don't immediately seem negative when they're just living life. I need to help them without working so hard to make them over in my image.

In fact, I need to remember that I'm being made over too. I shouldn't want them to be like me, I should want them to be like Christ. That's the point of planting and watering.