A few weeks ago, I attended a Lay Ministries Celebration Day at which the theme was “Harvesting Hope”. The keynote speaker was Carrie Myers, the National Church Lead for Lay Ministry and during her address she asked us all to identify which garden flower or plant described our personality best. The suggestions were as far-ranging as you would expect, everything from a rose (structured, statuesque, deliberate) to a strawberry plant (capable of delicious fruit but rambling everywhere and appearing in unexpected places!).
How would you identify yourself?
Well, of course there are no right or wrong answers. The joy of a garden is that it is full of a wide variety of plants and flowers, different colours, patterns, shapes, purposes, all of them complementing each other. The Christian Church resembles a garden, the members all different, all contributing their individual attributes, personalities, skills and abilities. Every plant has its place and function – sun/shade, front/back of bed, soil-type, weather conditions, and time of year where it flourishes best, and every Christian has his or her particular skill and ability to use for the good of the whole. The garden is richer in every way when it is full, varied and vibrant.
Christ is given many epithets – teacher, healer, shepherd, the way, the truth and the life, but I am not aware that he is described anywhere in the Scriptures as “gardener”, but that is what he is as well. The Bible is full of stories of Gardens – the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and many of Jesus’ parables are related to things that grow – the sower, the mustard seed, the vine. Just as the joy of a garden is that all the plants combine together to produce something beautiful and bountiful, so the joy of Christianity is that all the members combine together to produce something that satisfies and draws others in.
Those familiar with the Scriptures, and in particular Paul’s Epistles, will recognise the similarity of the garden with Paul’s description of the Church as the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12.
There are many metaphors for the essential characteristics of the Christian Church; I much enjoyed hearing another!
John Sweeting, Ministry Team