What if this is only the beginning?
What if, here, in this moment:
This moment of upheaval and testing,
This moment of slowing and contraction,
This moment of nervous disorientation,
This moment of fruitless indecision,
We are on the brink of something new, something beautiful, something inexplicable, something good?
What if this is only the beginning?
In recent days it has become popular in the church—especially our Anglican Church of Canada—to talk about decline, to focus on downward trajectory, to fixate on how many pews are empty, or how coffers are running low.
In recent days, there have been plenty of news articles in national papers talking about the decline of religion. Articles and stories blind to the emerging picture of evolving spiritual interest, of the fruit waiting to be born: the beauty and the mystery
of the divine presence, a presence experienced in myriad ways:
Mountains and rivers, the forests and gardens,
Alongside the beauty of silence, of deep listening,
The sweet honeyed taste of a fig,
Or of being treated as a whole person,
a person of inherent beauty and value,
Rather than a means to someone else’s end or a tool for someone else’s satisfaction. These articles tell the story of endings. We breathe the story of endings.
But what if this is only the beginning?
What if we had the capacity to zoom out from the life that is before us, the terrain on which we stand, the water in which we swim to see the picture from a distance, before planting our feet on this land once again?
We can become so fixated, mere mortals that we are, on what is right before us, on those things we confuse for the warp and woof of daily life that lead us to binary choices—this or that, yes or no dead or alive.
But what of resurrection?
We can become so fixated on what we see before us, the experience of this very moment, a moment that tells one piece of the story but is not the story itself.
All too often, my attention has been captivated—and perhaps yours has been too—by the steady ticker on CNN, or the endless stream we find while doom scrolling Facebook, Twitter, Insta, Tik Tok. With all of this, it's no wonder the anxiety fails to subside.
Our attention has been taken prisoner and with it our hearts, numbed to the underlying reality before us, the reality of a beloved Creation:
A creation that God loves,
A people that God loves,
A church that God loves,
Individuals like you and me that God loves, even as we experience the birth pangs of all that is to come.
I ask again: what if this is only the beginning (even as some things, beautiful things, precious things, are coming to an end?)
What if this is only the beginning of ways we will come to know God, to experience divine presence? What if this is only the beginning of a new and deepening way of feeding, of being fed in relationship with the source of all things?
In our gospel reading today, we encounter the birthpangs of a new age, the age that Jesus inaugurates, all the while there is chaos and famine, there is desecration of forests and rivers, fuelling rapid imperial expansion. The economy is changing, leaving many in poverty: homeless, alienated, communities torn apart.
In our reading from Luke’s gospel today, we encounter the birthpangs of a new age, the age that Jesus inaugurates, even as marginalized people are murdered in the outlying areas of Galilee—Jesus' home region—by a government more concerned
with commodities than the lives of the vulnerable poor who are dependent on the land for their livelihood. The peasant farmers and anglers of Galilee are just another cheap sacrifice for those building their power.
And whose fault is it? Not theirs, Jesus says. Even so, it is imperative. Vital. Necessary. That we free our minds.
There is a lot in the world we can’t immediately change. Floods and forest fires, crumbling buildings, war hungry agressors bombing innnocent civilians, people who transmit their pain rather than transforming it
There is a lot in this world we can’t immediately change, but there is something we can change, Jesus says. Starting right here. With you. With me. With all of us.
Repent, Jesus says. Free your mind. Be liberated by love. Look into the eyes of eternity and find that you are enough. And as you discover this to be true, your world, and the world around you begins to change.
In the next breath, Jesus says, “Let me tell you a story.”
As the people gather around, intent to hear what he has to say, Jesus tells the story of a fig tree barely three years old. Barely old enough to bear fruit. He tells the story of a fig tree and a landowner impatient for growth. Three years, no fruit.
What are fig trees good for, we may ask ourselves. If you hate figs, you might have a little extra edge in your voice when you ask. What are fig trees good for, if they don’t bear fruit?
Fig trees, like all fruiting trees, are good when they bear fruit. When they feed people. When they bring sustenance, joy, and delight to those who encounter them.
I remember a number of years back, walking on a sidewalk in Surrey, on my way back to the monastery from the grocery store when I felt the squish under my feet. Looking down, plum guts were everywhere. I looked down. I looked up, only to discover that many years before, someone had planted fruit trees to shade the sidewalks.
And while you wouldn’t get away with it now, the messy surprise filled me with such great delight.
I reshuffled my bags, put them down on the grass, and climbed the tree searching for more of the golden fruit. It was ripe,
all of it, and so I filled a grocery bag. I filled my hat. I filled the pocket on my hoodie, until I could fill no more. I dropped fruit down to my friends, waiting below, and then I jumped back down.
Our eyes shone. They glowed. What an incredible surprising treat. What an incredible gift to be shared.
Back in Jesus’ story, the fig tree is barren, and the landowner demands that it be cut down. It’s not doing its job, he says. There is no fruit. There is no delight. All it is, is a waste.
That’s when the gardener steps in. That’s when the gardener steps in with an injunction, a plea. That’s when the gardener steps in and asks, what if this is only the beginning? What if we give this new life a little more time?
Our scriptures start in a garden, and they end in a gardened city. Throughout, there are stories of land given, land lost, land regained. There are stories of great cedars and mustard seeds. Plants of all kinds. And from the beginning, God places us, God places Humanity, God places you and me in this global garden to tend and steward it.
Knowing how our story starts, as naked vegetarian gardeners In Eden, I want to draw our attention to the gardener (who I hope is decent enough to be wearing clothes this morning).
This is a gardener who sees that the tree is struggling and stands at its defense. The gardener stands in the way of destruction,
promising to dig around it, to boost the nitrogen, fortify the soil.
Why isn’t the tree growing? the gardener asks. What if the soil conditions aren’t ideal? What more can be done?
This too is a form of repentance. This too is a form of freeing the mind.
So often we look at a situation and find a solution that’s black or white. Like Bones in Star Trek, we pronounce, “He’s Dead, Jim.” We can respond with resignation, or we can cut ourselves off. Cut it down, we say, it’s good for nothing anyways.
But the gardener takes a different perspective. There’s something more that we can do, she says. There’s something more that we can do.
Let’s pay attention to the signs of the times. Let’s pay attention to the condition of the soil. What can we do, she asks, to help this tree bear fruit?
I wonder what it would look like to take such an approach in our own lives? What if we were to deepen our practice as gardeners of the soul? What if we were to tend to ourselves, tend to each other with the grace that the gardener extends here.
"I’m not feeling close to God right now," someone might say. The cashcropping landowner says, "well give up right there." It’s all a waste. But what does the gardener do? She asks what’s missing. And she seeks to find ways to nurture that faith, slowly, intently, intentionally back to life.
She points the way to Jesus. She points the way to practices that nourish and sustain. She is present, has her hands in the soil, just like the God who creates all things with dirt under fingernails.
What if we were to take this approach to our own lives and what if we were to take this approach to the church? Sometimes we dismay that demographics are shifting. We ask questions like, “where are the young people,” or "where has so-and-so gone?"
Sometimes we dig in our heels and say, let’s keep doing what we’re doing, resigned to our fate. If it’s good enough for us, it’ll be good enough for others. Other times we rant and rail, and threaten to burn the whole thing down.
But what if this is only the beginning?
What if we took the long view of history? What if, repenting of our apathy, repenting of our anger, we took the posture of the gardener? Stooped over, fingers in the loam, mixing in the manure. Right in the thick of it, the muck and filth of real life, our joys and sorrows, our disappointments and deep gladness, our fear and shame, all mixed together with whatever soil we find ourselves planted in?
What if we took the long view, God’s view? What if we took the view that Jesus takes, the one that weeps for the city, the one that weeps for all that has happened, the one who knows that while there is much we cannot control, there is still a way, if we change our minds, we renew our minds, we free our minds, and step into the future with our bodies.
What if we took the view that Jesus takes, the view that Jesus embodies, a view and a life rooted deeply in the soil of repentance, committed to enriching the soil day by day, year by year, decade by decade. With each interaction. With each new story. With presence, with prayer, with deep and abiding care.
One of the remarkable things about the resurrection story, and I’ll admit that this is a bit of a spolier alert, is that when Mary goes looking for Jesus after his death and burial, finding the tomb empty, she looks up and sees a man, who she confuses for the gardener.
She looks up and sees Jesus in his resurrected body, perhaps with his hands in the soil, tending to a fig tree, tending to that which lies before him.
When Mary goes looking for Jesus, she finds him in the garden. Doing as he’s always done. Doing as he’s doing right now in our midst. Tending to our hearts. Tending to our souls. Tending to his church. Tending to the body of the earth.
And inviting us to join him. Calling us by name.
Inviting us into the embrace of God’s impossible future, walking alongside us and asking that unsettling and hope-filled question:
“What if this is only the beginning?”
