Leviticus
25:19: "The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live
on it securely." (NRSV)
Proverbs 15:17:
"Better is a dinner of vegetables where love is than a fatted ox and
hatred with it." (NRSV)
My
father had a garden every year. His garden was neat and tidy, planted with all
the things that should be in a vegetable garden: corn, cucumbers, tomatoes,
squash. He tilled his neat, even rectangle in the backyard then planted in
measured rows. We rarely ate anything from his garden, but it was there and
producing exactly what a home garden is expected to produce. That was my
impression of a garden and home-grown vegetables: ugly tomatoes, overgrown
cucumbers, and non-existent corn. So with this picture firmly rooted, there is
another garden worth talking about…
One
evening last summer, I called Sky. His daily report was one sentence: “I DUG UP
HALF THE FRONT YARD FOR VEGETABLES!” He went on to describe all his plans and
plantings, which sounded nothing like order or structure. I was confused (at
best) and terrified of walking into a man-eating plant situation (at worst).
This garden he was describing to me did not sound like a proper garden in the
least. It was jumbled and tangled with so many plants in so little a space.
When I actually saw the garden, he had not dug up half the front yard
(thankfully), but my fears about plants being everywhere were true. At no point
could I even find half of Sky’s garden because it was hidden on the bank or
half under the porch or climbing up the taxus bushes instead of stakes.
Out
of a jumble and tangle of wild planting, it sounds very possible to acquire
volunteer vegetables, doesn’t it? They sound like vegetables that appear where
you forgot you planted vegetables. Which happens to the best of us. But no,
volunteer vegetables are a little different. They’re vegetables that we didn’t
know we planted in the first place. They can be charming little reminders of
years past, left in our yard by letting a plant go to seed before harvest or
they can be scrubby little root vegetables that appear after a
head-scratchingly long germination time.
Volunteer vegetables can even appear from a scoop of half-finished
compost applied to a waiting bed in anticipation of the actual planting, which
would explain Sky’s cantaloupes and tomatillos last year.
So
we’ve established what volunteer vegetables are and where they come from (not
outer space), but why are we talking about them in chapel? And even more
obtusely, why did Matt read two seemingly random scripture verses? There is no specific mention of
volunteer vegetables in the First Testament or anywhere else in the Bible,
however. All we know is that the land will provide, vegetables are wonderful,
and Daniel thrived on them when he was in captivity. We know that the lovers in
Song of Solomon enjoy fruit together and the Christian virtues are compared to
fruit in the Second Testament.
Let’s
start with the passage from Leviticus: "The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat
your fill and live on it securely." Taking this passage entirely out of
context and being a bad Biblical scholar for a minute, the actual message is a
blessing for farmers. Hearing word that the land will be “good dirt” and worth
farming is enough to brighten any day. The promise of security and survival is
what a farmer—especially a pre-industrial farmer—looks for, and HaShem (the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) is promising such bounty. In context, this
passage comes in the section about the Year of Jubilee. It is a year of justice
and return; verse 19 addresses the concern of food security. There shall be no
planting, no harvest, and no food for the entire year of Jubilee. That sounds
like disaster, even to modern ears. But HaShem is clear that the land will
provide an abundance in the 6th year to carry the people through the
7th and into the 8th until the crops come up.
Abundance.
Abundance. I’ll let that word hang in the air for a minute. That term always
sounds good in a Biblical context and equally delicious in a farming context.
It certainly feels good to say. But how does an ancient promise of abundance
deliver in the 21st century? And how does that promise manifest for
non-farmers in the 21st century? First, we should make the promise
in Leviticus a little more abstract. This is gap-filling, but can we make a
promise like this into a statement about the character of HaShem? A divinity
who will provide for the lean times, especially when the lean times are in
service of justice and doing right to others sounds like a very good divinity
indeed. First Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann highlights the Year of
Jubilee as a radical return to just living and a practice of intense social
justice. If the Biblical promises wrapped up in the Year of Jubilee section are
taken to mean HaShem rewards justice and working for justice by meeting the
needs of the people as they work for truth and justice, we have a more
accessible and more applicable understanding of a rather obscure passage.
The
second passage is less esoteric: "Better is a dinner of vegetables where
love is than a fatted ox and hatred with it." This proverb sounds
warm and judgmental all at once. I turn to this passage today because of the
equation of vegetables and love. The author of this wisdom book saw fit to line
up simple vegetables with love and fancy food with emotional suffering. Better
are the simple things when they’re wrapped in love than the finer things that
have a side dish of bitterness. I’m sure we’ve all had moments where a simple
dinner of left-overs from our own fridge eaten in peace sounds more appealing
than the emotionally-fraught family or work dinner being spread before us.
Using this passage as another gap-filling moment, I like that vegetables are
the lowest of the low here. They are the simple, the common, the ordinary. It
is more remarkable when ordinary things contribute to extraordinary moments.
Superheroes can save the day, obviously. But can we—ordinary folks without
magic lifting or flying powers—manage to do so as well?
I
suspect everyone here has had a moment of extraordinary strength in their own
time. The strength may have been physical, emotional, or spiritual. Maybe you
held a friend up through their darkest days or even through your darkest days.
Perhaps you organized an event during finals week and managed to excel at both.
Or you accomplished something that was beyond your body as you know it like
hefting furniture into a moving van to help a friend start a new life. Those
moments of extraordinary being often happen with us and in us without a lot of
mental engagement. Analyzing how we are able to accomplish something that is
well beyond our perceived abilities comes later in the process. When we can
finally sit down, take a breath, and say, “WOW!” is when the volunteer
vegetables of our soul start to emerge.
In a
journal entry for FC 101, I wrote, “I have all the tools at hand, but these
seeds were planted long ago before I was even aware of them.” The essential
falling apart and rebuilding of that class forced me to analyze what was actually
growing in the garden of my heart, and I saw qualities there that I had not
cultivated. These seeds were sown by others: patient friends, careful leaders,
wonderful family members, and even annoying co-workers. These qualities that I
needed were my volunteer vegetables. And that is often how it works in our
lives. I am embracing the promise of living securely as I embrace the volunteer
vegetables that are growing in my life.
I challenge you, Friends, to reflect
on the volunteer vegetables in your own life. What gifts have you been given
that were nearly unknown? What surprising shoots have come up in your heart
that carried through challenges? How have you been blessed by seeds sown?
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