Cultivating Righteousness: Gardening and Sanctification
I hate to admit it, but I was often a disgruntled field hand in my father’s garden. Things came to a head, however, the summer that I was fourteen. My father thought that raising pole-beans would be a great way for me and my two younger brothers to pad our portfolios (woefully underfunded savings accounts) [1].
His idea had many positive intentions and potential results: increased work ethic, better understanding of husbandry, appreciation for food, and some extra income. However, he miscalculated our distaste for sweating, blisters, and tortuous itching. The result was not simply a field full of poorly cared-for bean plants, but also an overwhelming desire never to set foot in another garden—at least if I could help it. Things haven’t gone exactly as I planned, however.
In her 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes, “I suspect that the real moral thinkers end up, wherever they may start, in botany” [2]. Perhaps she is on to something. Scripture constantly uses the image of gardening as a picture for explaining God’s truth in visceral, tangible ways.
Fifteen years after the great pole-bean project, I have found myself planting my own gardens that continue to expand in size and variety. In addition to producing food for my family and community, my time in the garden is also helping me spiritually. I would like to share with you some of this spiritual produce, especially as it regards the Christian life.
Cultivating Our Fallow Ground
Whatever the Christian life entails, it includes the process of becoming more holy. We call this sanctification—God makes the fruit possible, but we are responsible to cultivate it [3]. In Hosea 10:12, God commands wayward Israel, “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD.” He uses the field metaphor to call Israel to repentance and sanctification.
Ground that has been left to rest is referred to as fallow. During its rest it grows wild with brush and thistles; it becomes hard and unreceptive to seeds. Before any productive sowing can be done, the ground must be broken up and turned. The dead stalks from last year’s plants and the winter growth need to be turned under or burned. The weeds and thistles need to be raked out and manure needs to be tilled in.
In his book of meditations on gardening, Vigen Guroian writes, “Every garden is an intimation of the Garden that is Christ’s, that he himself tends in the hearts of those who welcome him in” [4]. As Christians we must always have hearts ready to be tended and husbanded by Christ.
Unrepentant hearts are fallow ground for righteousness. They are hard and thorny, in need of breaking up in preparation for the seed of righteousness. Christians then need to have receptive hearts. When we are receptive, the Holy Spirit uses Scripture to break up our heart’s hardness, and He prepares us to produce fruits of righteousness. However, breaking up our fallow hearts is only the first step in producing these fruits.
Sowing Seeds of Righteousness
Once the fallow ground has been broken up and prepared for planting, the real work begins. As Guroian notes, “In my garden the thistle grows more easily than the primrose. Sin grows in my body more readily than purity, and the keys to my garden do not admit me back through Eden’s gate” [5]. Hosea reminds us that our fallow ground needs to be sown in righteousness.
After I have broken up the ground and tilled under the manure, I plan out my garden for the year. Some plants do poorly next to others. Some plants need much more space and minerals than others. This is a process of research as well as trial and error. What works well for other gardeners may produce poorly in my plot of earth.
Each spiritual life is unique. While reading about others’ sanctifying practices is helpful, sanctification also requires intentional trial and error. Certain practices essential to some Christians’ growth may have less appeal to others. Different hymns, Scripture verses, and devotional practices help us cultivate faithfulness, love, or goodness. All such practices must be Scriptural and excellent, but not all practices will be equally helpful to individual Christians.
However, even assuming we cultivate such righteousness, it can’t just be left alone, for it requires constant nurturing.
Cultivation Requires Daily Commitment
After we have broken up the fallow ground of our hearts and have sown the seeds of righteousness, we can eagerly await the first signs of righteousness popping up. The characteristics of gentleness, faithfulness, love, peace, self-control, joy, patience, kindness, and goodness should begin to send up small green shoots in our lives. Paul does refer to these as the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22-23). But they are not our natural growth. We are prone to grow thorns and weeds of greediness, hate, discord, and perversity.
As the first tender slips of squash, cucumber, and okra unfold from the earth they are immediately in contention with the upstart crabgrass and thistles that have mocked my tilling. I now have to go through the garden with a hoe to chop out the weeds and leave their roots exposed to the burning sun. They shrivel and die under the sun’s onslaught, but there are still weeds remaining.
The weeds that grow near the plants can only be gotten rid of by kneeling in the dirt and plucking them out individually. I must also be sure to get the root out with the plant. A certain thistle that grows in my garden comes out easily, but it cuts viciously into my fingers if I’m not careful. It’s a long, difficult process rife with discouragement and despair. Every time I look up, the rows seem to have magically multiplied and lengthened. I keep finding weeds that I missed in the previous row. But I stick to it. If I don’t, the garden will become poor and ragged.
The same is true with spiritual gardening. In nurturing our Christian lives daily, we must be mindful of those weeds and thistles that would wreak havoc on our lives. Like the sun, Christ the Son will burn up the roots of sin we expose to His power and radiance, but we must be committed to this daily endeavor:
Like the deep rooted thistle weed, some of our worst habits withstand all but the most persistent, persevering, and strenuous exercise. A quick pull on the root, however, will not do the trick, nor will an aggressive chop of the hoe. Patience is needed, and the humble willingness to drop down on one’s knees and work carefully with the hand fork and trowel. The Christian gardener patiently picks sin from the soul’s soil and cultivates it with care and attention to the tender new growth of faith [6].
It is the patient humility of the Christian gardener who daily, carefully rids his heart of the weeds of sin who sees growth and production in the fruit of righteousness. The produce doesn’t come solely from the work of the gardener though.
Cultivation Requires Dependence on God for Produce
For the ground to produce the fruit of all of this labor, there must be water, air, and light in the proper proportion. “Every gardener knows this, and so recognizes that the right combination of these elements lies beyond the control of science or contrivance. That is the wisdom and agony of gardening,” writes Guroian. “God’s creation cannot subsist without God’s abundant grace” [7].
Our loving work in cultivating righteousness in our hearts would all come to naught if not for God’s grace. It is important to always remember that our sanctification is a gift from God, and not our own doing. Guroian helps us better understand the gratitude and wonder we should have toward the produce of our work in sanctification,
In June I step into the cottage garden where the peonies grow. They surprise me with enormous rose blossoms. Where did they come from? Just a month ago they were under the earth. Oh, I know that I planted them three years ago and that I fed them with bonemeal in March after the last snow. But these flowers are sheer gift. I cannot account for them, nor the joy that they give. My toil in the garden seems unconnected with what I see and smell and feel [8].
Much time, effort, and sweat goes into producing good fruit, but without God’s provision, not one slip of green will break through the stones. The same applies to our sanctification. We must always look to God with gratitude for His provision of the fruit of righteousness.
Despite my childhood frustrations with gardening, my ongoing experiences in it have helped me understand God’s work of salvation differently. It gives me experiential knowledge and a gut understanding of a spiritual truth. Guroian encourages us to “restore the images of the garden and the gardener” [9]. I heartily agree. Let’s celebrate the physical and spiritual dirt under our nails.
_______________________________________
[1] For the uninitiated, “pole bean” is a colloquial term for green beans (Kentucky Wonders in this case) which require some form of support on which to attach runners. The bean plant is a vine and its runners require direction and discipline or the beans will not produce well. Any structure can be used—lattice work, suspended strings, or tripods are all fairly common. My family subscribes to the use of twine suspended from barbwire which has been strung from posts at the height of six or seven feet. The runners must be guided daily to climb the string to which they have been assigned. Once the runners have reached the top of the string, the gardener is wise to send it on down the barbwire. We (my brothers and I) did not take the path of wisdom, choosing instead to create a stifling jungle of bean foliage by guiding the runners which had reached the summit of the string across the row and thereby creating a well-insulated roof for each row. This method while imaginative and innovative is not recommended. The encroaching plants trap heat underneath their awnings and deny any breeze registering below gale-force.
[2] Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (New York: Harper Perenniel, 1974; Afterward, 1999), 114.
[3] Our sanctification or any external righteousness we may cultivate is grounded, above all, in the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to us by faith. We might say that the Lord is the one who gives the seed life, as well as the spiritual resources to bring forth fruit.
[4] Vigen Guroian, Inheriting Paradise: Meditations on Gardening (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 15.
[5] Ibid., 5.
[6] Ibid., 22-23.
[7] Ibid., 13.
[8] Ibid., 42.
[9] Ibid., 61.
August 19, 2013
Phillip,
Wonderful article! Not only encouraged me to start my own garden, but to also be attentive to my own sanctification. Thanks for the experiential knowledge and embodied practice that you have laid out here!
August 19, 2013
Really great article on many levels – one of my favorites produced BT the Helwys Society.
August 19, 2013
Thanks, gentleman. I appreciate your kind words and I am glad you enjoyed it.