Casting on the Right Side

Meditation on John 21:1–19

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Rev. Karen Crawford

May 4, 2025

Art by Stushie, used with permission.

Listen to the devotion here:

Memories are a funny thing, aren’t they? They come in flashes, when we are least expecting them.

     That happened to me yesterday at the presbytery meeting in Mattituck. The Rev. Kate Jones-Calone, our Executive Presbyter, was sharing an inspiring message about living as Easter people.  Looking at her, I was suddenly propelled back to my seminary years with Kate, more than 15 years ago. I was remembering my student self, so uncertain about my gifts for preaching and ministry, in general. I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to shepherd a flock and use the gifts that God had given me. I was filled with fear and anxiety.

    Yesterday, with this flash of memory, a grateful thought came to mind, “Look at what God has done with Kate and me.” We are both in ministries that God has called us to. What a surprise that we would be serving together in the same presbytery—and that I would be living on Long Island.

     These flashes of memory are important. You have them, too, right? God is reminding us of the Risen Christ’s promise at the end of Matthew, when he commissions the disciples to go out into the world, teaching and baptizing, assuring them and us that he is with us, till the end of the age. God was with us in the past, in these flashes of memory. And the Lord is with us at this very moment. The Lord hasn’t changed, but we aren’t the same people we used to be. We are so much more than that. This journey of faith is transforming us.

    In today’s reading in the 21st chapter of John, it’s as if the Risen Christ is reluctant to leave his disciples when he appears on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius (another name for the Sea of Galilee). Without a doubt, he returns when they need direction and reassurance that they aren’t the people they used to be. They are so much more than that. They have changed and their lives have changed. And there’s no going back.

    Seven of them are out on a boat on the sea fishing again. The scene reminds us of when Jesus calls the fishermen, three years before, in Matthew 4:18-22, walking by the Sea of Galilee and calling to Peter and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. Then he saw two other fishermen—two brothers, James and John—in a boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called to them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

   This time, in John 21, it’s Simon Peter’s idea to go fishing at night. The others invite themselves to go with him. It’s as if they don’t want to be alone. I used to think that they were returning to their former occupations, but now I think it is more like therapy for them. Perhaps they can’t sleep. They don’t know where to go or what to do. They have lost their Shepherd. Their Teacher. Their Friend. With his death and resurrection, the world has been turned upside down. Everything has changed. So, what now?

    They return to a place they have been countless times—on the sea—doing what is familiar—fishing—looking for the peace and sense of purpose they had when Jesus was with them in the flesh. They fish all night and catch nothing. At daybreak, Jesus is standing on the beach, calling to them, affectionately calling them “Children,” knowing they have caught nothing and are hungry. He is a shadowy figure, a stranger, telling them to cast their net to the right side of the boat. Mysteriously, they do what he says without question. They cast the net on the right side and are unable to haul it in because there are so many fish!

It’s in the miraculous catch, the abundance, that stirs the disciples to recognize Jesus. They have a flash of a memory of Jesus multiplying a few loaves and fish and feeding a hungry multitude. They remember when Jesus says to them, when they are tired and want to send the crowd away, “YOU give them something to eat.”

 “It is the Lord!” says the disciple whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter hears this and puts on his outer garment, removed for fishing, and jumps into the sea. He can’t wait for the boat to bring them ashore.

Can you imagine this comforting scene? The hungry, weary disciples coming up to the shore to meet their Risen Savior, dragging a net full of fish, which miraculously doesn’t break. The smell of the charcoal fire and grilled fish and bread reaches them. Jesus invites them to breakfast, but it’s a potluck. He asks them to bring some of the large fish—some of the 153—that he has helped them catch, just to remind them that with Christ, all things are possible.

No one asks, “Who are you?” Everyone knows he is Jesus!

The Lord serves each one of them bread and fish. This is when John tells us that this is the third time Jesus has appeared to them after he is raised from the dead. The pattern of three is significant. Three times are needed for the disciples to be equipped to live into their callings. Three times are needed for us to hear and believe and through believing, have life in Christ’s name.

Three times Jesus asks Simon Peter if he loves him. Three times Simon Peter says, “Yes!” It builds to an emotional climax, when Peter final bursts out, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And Peter has a flash of memory. How could he possibly forget denying Jesus, after he is arrested, three times before the cock crows, just as Jesus had said?

The Lord has a plan for Peter. He meets him right where he is. He meets him fishing, and catching nothing, telling him to cast the net on the right side. He meets him in the abundance of the catch and in his joy at seeing the Risen Savior, once again. And he meets him in his sadness and guilt, recalling how he let Jesus down, betrayed him when Christ needed him. Then Jesus graciously removes the burden of his sin and shame and commissions him to be Shepherd of his flock—to tend his lambs, feed his sheep, and care for his followers.

Do this, he says, because you love me.

I find myself almost at a loss for words when I think about how the Lord has been with me all these years, guiding and strengthening me through so many hard things in my journey of faith. In a few weeks, I am preparing to return to Austin, TX, to graduate with a doctor of ministry degree. I know that I will have flashes of memories as the day of commencement draws near. And I know these flashes are to remind me that the Lord is always with me, as the Risen Christ promises all of us, to the end of the age. That there is nothing too hard for God. And that we are saved for a purpose—to love and serve the Lord by loving and serving the Church. Feeding and tending the lambs and sheep. We need no other reason except love for the Lord.

One thing that is key to this message today is that we have to seek the will of God for our ministry, continually, if we want to experience the abundance that the first disciples experienced with the miraculous catch and the feeding of the multitude. Today, I hear the Lord saying, “Cast your net on the right side.” Sometimes, the Lord will lead us in a way that doesn’t seem logical. It might be different from the way we used to fish for people. Why should the right side of the boat be any better than the left? The only difference was that the right side was God’s will. The right side was in God’s plan. This, my friends, is what we need to know—what is God’s plan for this flock that Christ has faithfully shepherded for 350 years?

Dear friends, God was with us in the past and the Lord who knows our future is with us in this present moment. The Lord hasn’t changed, but we aren’t the same people we used to be. The journey of faith is changing us. Seeking God’s will for the decisions that we make is transforming us into the people God has ordained for us to be. Remember, there’s no room in our resurrected lives for fear or anxiety. And there’s nothing too hard for God.

Brothers and sisters, do you hear the Lord calling us today, as he called his first disciples, after feeding them a hearty breakfast on the beach? Mistakes won’t be held against us. Peter denying Jesus was part of his formation. It humbled him and prepared him for servant leadership. What matters is that we trust in Christ, our Messiah, the Son of God, because through our believing, we have life in his name.

Do you hear our Risen Lord saying to us all, “Follow me”?

Good Shepherd, we give you thanks for the way you nurture and care for us, your flock, as we seek your wisdom and will. We love you and thank you for giving your life to rescue us when we were perishing and the promise of life in your name. Remove all fear and anxiety from us. Humble and restore us with your mercy, like you did for Simon Peter. Equip and empower us to obey you as you lead us, tending your lambs and feeding your sheep. Reveal your presence through your abundant blessings for our community of faith, as you revealed yourself to your disciples long ago with a miracle catch when they cast their net on the right side of a boat on the Sea of Galilee. In your name we pray. Amen.

Healing, Rest, and Sabbath

Meditation on Leviticus 25:1-12

Creation Care Sunday

Final Post: Tell Me About Your Garden Series

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 27, 2025

From https://sdcatholic.org/life-peace-and-justice/care-for-creation/

Listen to the devotion here:

    I am almost ready to plant my seedlings! The weather is still a little iffy, especially with nighttime temperatures dropping into the 40s.

    This is one of the hardest stages for me with growing plants from seeds. I have been nurturing them for a couple of months inside, with grow lights and careful watering. Now is the time to “harden” them, which is to help them make a gradual transition from their indoor homes and pampered lifestyles to growing in the earth in the community of weeds, flowers, insects, squirrels, rabbits, and deer—all God’s Creation.

     I have made mistakes in the past at this stage. I have rushed transplanting, only to have my careful nurturing of seedlings come to naught, with a sudden heat wave, too much wind, or too much rain damaging or even killing the plant.  The key is finding the right place to keep the plants outside, still in their containers, during the day for a few hours at a time to help them make a successful transition.

     Yesterday, though it was raining off and on and not as warm as it had been, was my first day of hardening eight of the seedling plant trays. I laid them on the covered veranda that connects our garage to the side entrance. And I asked the Lord to watch over and help them get ready for their new lives on the outside. May they flourish in their environment. May they grow big and strong and beautiful and become all that God has ordained them to be.

     I have learned about my faith through the nurturing of plants. I have experienced God’s encouragement and lifted mood and a sense of wholeness and healing. I have learned from other gardeners about their faith growing through connecting with the soil, too. Some report improved health, along with spiritual benefits.

     Stanley Kunitz, a Poet Laureate of the U.S. and Pulitzer Prize-winner, says when he was in his 80s, “I think that if I had been denied (gardening) I would not be speaking to you today. My gardens have nurtured, fortified, and sustained me that much. It is not only a sustenance of the body, but also of the spirit within. This is because the garden for me is more than simply a place for toil, it is also a place for meditation and a place for restoration of the inner life.[1] Gardening teaches you empathy, he says, “as you develop a respect for the life force that runs through other creatures, other forms of existence, even those that are very humble—and that some might dismiss as loathsome pests.”[2] He goes on, “In a sense, human beings and the earth’s flora are our brothers and sisters. We belong to the same kingdom, and we’d better learn how to get along in order to survive together and take care of each other. In my garden, if my plants promise to grow, I promise to take care of them.”[3]

      What Kunitz says about taking care of his plants and his spirituality echoes what some of our gardeners say. Faith speaks of her close relationship with plants. “I usually try to be very supportive of them,” she says. “I encourage them when they are making an effort.  I admonish them when they are lagging behind. ‘I think you can do better than that!’ I don’t have long, extended conversations. Everybody needs support. I am mildly amused with myself. It’s almost like I am really talking to myself. If things aren’t going all right. ‘What do you mean I’m not doing such a good job? When was the last time you watered me?’ There is a kind of joy in it… They are creatures in Creation, and I feel responsible for them as if I were a parent.”

       George and Lottie say that gardening has helped them persevere and heal through difficult times—serious health problems, unexpected early retirement, a move from a house to an apartment, and a sober journey. Lily has experienced relief from chronic pain while tending to her flowers and vegetables. “I feel like I come in exhausted but fulfilled. I could be hurting, being on your knees, going through everything, but just the joy of it takes away any little pain that you would have.”

       The healing of which gardeners speak is supported by medical research. Studies show that “green care” therapy—exposure to plants and gardening and not necessarily doing the physical work of gardening—has numerous health benefits, including “beneficial effects on mood and mental health.”[4] In some cases, all it takes is “simply observing nature, or even images of natural scenes. In a Japanese study, viewing plants altered EEG recordings and reduced stress, fear, anger and sadness, as well as reducing blood pressure, pulse rate and muscle tension.”[5] Patients exposed to eight different species of indoor plants after surgery had reduced hospital stays and reported less pain and greater satisfaction with their hospital rooms. Improving the surroundings for patients, visitors, and staff, “therapeutic gardens have been used in hospitals for thousands of years and were strongly supported by Florence Nightingale.”[6]

       During my interview with Belinda and Brad, Belinda reminds her husband that he told her after mowing the lawn the day before that he had “a whole lot of different ideas about ways to handle certain situations” when he came inside. Brad answers, “Well, it takes three hours to mow the lawn.” (Laughs) “So I get deep in thought.”  His wife later says that Brad came in from mowing much happier than before. She sometimes tells him to go outside and work in the yard because it makes him feel better.

The couple share easily about their comfort from God in April 2020, when Brad was digging the area of the yard that is now a fenced in private dog park for their pet Harley.  Brad’s father was hospitalized, and they were scared, as it was the beginning of the pandemic. Brad remembers, “Oh my God, we’re sending him to the hospital, and COVID is killing people…. I remember being back there working on that land, and then digging this (a figurine of Joseph holding Jesus) up, and saying. “This is a sign, you know!”

Belinda adds, “So it’s Jesus’ father. He’s worried about his father, then Jesus’ father comes out of the yard. …. Isn’t that incredible?” She turns to Brad, “It made you happy. It was very hard to find happy at that point, and it made you happy.”  

    But here on Creation Care Sunday, especially, a question comes to mind. Is it enough that our gardens bring us joy, peace, and healing and a greater connection to God and God’s Creation? This question came up in my oral evaluation last week. Is gardening anthropocentric? In other words, is it all about us and conforming a plot of soil to our own vision and expectations? Is gardening what God intends for this piece of earth where we live? Would it be better to just leave it alone and let it grow wild?

    It was a valid question. Not all gardening is good for the earth or the human and non-human creatures who live on it and therefore would not be a spiritual practice, I said, drawing us closer to God and one another; strengthening our faith, hope, and love; and bringing life to the world. If we approach gardening only caring about making our yards look good, at the expense of the health and wellbeing of all God’s creatures, then we have failed. Some gardening techniques, such as planting too many non-natives that destroy the habitat for native plants, insects and pollinators; over-irrigation that increases the salt content of the soil and depletes it of nutrients; and the use of chemical rather than organic fertilizers are detrimental to the health of human beings, to soil and air, and to the groundwater, which flows into our streams and rivers, and out to the Sound and ocean.

      Something else that is important to talk about, as we finish this series, is the importance of Sabbath living, not just for human beings, but for the land. In the seventh year, God calls for a complete rest for the land, as the Lord does in the 50th year, the Year of Jubilee, when the people of God “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.”

    This question of Sabbath challenges me, as I begin another season of gardening. I know it means that I should never turn gardening into a work or a chore that I resent, if my desire is for it to be a spiritual practice. Pat has urged me to get a bench and sit on it in my garden, taking time to enjoy the peace and beauty and presence of the Lord with me.

     The question of Sabbath for the land is even more challenging. I have decided that we will only use organic fertilizer and compost at the manse, instead of the usual 5 chemical fertilizer treatments each season. And we won’t use any insecticides. I want to do what is good for the land and all that lives on it.

     And what does it mean to live in the year of Jubilee, which is no longer once every 50 years but is now, with our new life in Christ? The Crucified and Risen One has set us free from the bondage of our sin and broken down the dividing walls between people. Therefore, how do our lives—our words and our actions—proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants, and, once again, give the land a complete rest?

      It stirs another question for me. How is God speaking to us today about the connection between our lives of liberty and rest to our own wholeness and healing as the people Christ has redeemed, those seeking to live new, resurrected lives together in God’s garden—the Church in the world?

      As this series draws to a close, I hope and pray that it will mean new beginnings for us. especially during the season of Easter and today, on Creation Care Sunday. Dear friends, I offer this blessing to gardeners and non-gardeners alike, to all who seek to live in peace with all human and non-human beings, to all who have seen and know what is good and what God requires of us, as Micah 6:8 says: to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. May the LORD guide you always; satisfying your needs in a sun-scorched land and strengthening your frame. May you be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Amen!

     [1] Connie Goldman and Richard Mahler, Tending the Earth, Mending the Spirit: The Healing Gifts of Gardening (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2000) 140.

     [2] Goldman and Mahler, Tending the Earth, 142.

     [3] Goldman and Mahler, Tending the Earth, 143.

      [4] Richard Thompson, “Gardening for health: a regular dose of gardening,” in Clinical Medicine, Vol. 18, No. 3(London: Royal College of Physicians, June 2018), 201-205.

      [5] Thompson, “Gardening for health,” 201-205.

      [6] Thompson, “Gardening for health,” 201-205.

The Gardener

Meditation on John 20:1-18

Tell Me About Your Garden series for Lent/Easter

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

Easter Sunday

April 20, 2025

Art by Stushie, used with permission

Listen to the devotion here:

Our sanctuary has never looked or smelled as good as it does today, on Easter morning! This worship space was lovingly transformed yesterday by three passionate gardeners. They carefully arranged lilies, tulips, and hyacinths so that we would be transported to the scene of Christ’s last days on earth in the gospel of John.  

    In this gospel, there is a garden in the place where Christ was crucified. Of all things! To plant a garden in a place of such suffering is an act of grace. The device they used to bring about his suffering and death was once alive and growing in God’s Creation. As Peter boldly preaches on Pentecost, “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.”

    In John, Jesus carries the tree himself to Golgotha or the Place of the Skull, where he and two others would be crucified. Standing at the foot of the cross were his mother and the sister of his mother, Mary of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and a young man who calls himself, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Now we all know that Jesus doesn’t love this disciple more than the others. But this phrase helps us see ourselves in the story. We are Christ’s beloved, as well. His love for us is everlasting. He is with us now and his spirit strengthens us to live in faith, hope, and love.

Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

In this garden, on a tree, broken and twisted for a cruel purpose, Jesus finishes the work of salvation, once and for all. Also in this garden is a “new tomb in which no one had yet been laid (John 19:41, NRSVue).”

A secret disciple named Joseph from Arimathea asks and receives Pilate’s permission to take away Christ’s body and prepare him for burial. Nicodemus, also a secret disciple who had visited Jesus one night, came with Joseph, carrying a hundred pounds of anointing spices made from two native plants, aloe—from the succulent leaves of aloe vera, widely used for medicine and embalming.[1] And myrrh—from a thorny shrub or small tree (Commiphora abyssinica) used in medicine, as an expensive perfume, and as incense in Egyptian temples.[2] Myrrh was a gift the magi offered to the infant Jesus, along with gold and frankincense. (Matthew 2:11).

Not Mary, Christ’s mother, but Mary Magdalene is the first to come to the garden that morning, while it is still dark, and find the stone removed. The tomb is empty! Mary, from a village on the west shore of the Sea of Tiberius, runs to get Simon Peter and the young lad who calls himself “the one whom Jesus loved,” telling them that someone has taken Christ’s body away. The three run to the tomb and see only the linen wrappings. They see and “believe”—but what they believe isn’t that Christ is risen from the dead! They believe, as Mary said, that his body is gone. They go home, despondent, presumably back to sleep, leaving Mary alone to grieve and continue to look for her Lord. She bends to peer inside the tomb. She is greeted by angels, who ask why she is weeping. “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him,” she says. She turns and runs into a man, who asks her the same question and adds, “Who are you looking for?”

I often wonder what the Risen Lord looked like that morning, when Mary runs into him outside the tomb. He isn’t shining, like he is on the mountaintop at the Transfiguration. Could he be clad in the ordinary clothing of a laborer? Slightly dirty and disheveled? In any case, he is certainly not out of place in his surroundings when she mistakes him for a gardener.

The 15 gardeners in our flock whom I interviewed for my doctoral project last summer and fall said they were not afraid to get “dirty” to care for their plants. One said his wife accused him of playing in the dirt, which made him say that it was “clean dirt,” containing microbiomes that are good for our health. The most touching part of the interviews was when gardeners shared about who inspired them. Because everyone was inspired by someone, usually when they were young and usually but not always by a close family member—parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

One gardener, Reese, had multiple family members who were gardeners. But the one who inspired him the most was his grandfather, who had a huge vegetable garden behind his house in Oakland, NJ. “Probably an acre,” he says. “He fed not only their family but neighbors …. He was a carpenter, a builder by trade. But he also had a love of gardening, and that’s really how I got started—in his garden, picking all his stuff.”

Home from college and looking for a way to earn some money between semesters, his grandfather had a job for him and not just picking vegetables. He said to Reese, “Come over here, and I’ll put you to work.” He had him driving truckloads of horse manure to people who needed fertilizer. Reese would first go to the horse farms and shovel dump truck loads full of manure and then deliver it to his grandfather’s neighbors and friends.

I wonder now what his grandfather would say about Reese, who has had a garden every single year, including the time he and his wife lived in a second-floor coop in Hauppauge. He had two tomato plants growing in pots on their balcony.

No matter the challenges, there will always be a garden, he says.

Reese and my other gardening friends would like to pass on their knowledge and love of gardening to their children and grandchildren, but times are different now. Lifestyles and interests are different. Not as many people garden as they used to at the turn of the 20th century. Reese’s grandfather lived in the Depression Era, when you planted a big garden, if you had the space, so your family could eat. And you always shared with extended family, friends, and neighbors so that others could eat, as well.

It’s that with church, nowadays, too. Lifestyles and interests are different. Times are changing. Not as many people go to church. At one time, not too long ago, we would have had three Easter services, including the sunrise worship at the beach, which was lovely this morning! This small, 200-year old sanctuary would be filled to overflowing. You had to get here early for the 9 a.m. service, so that you could get a seat. One member told me that she misses those days. Maybe you do, too, and looking around this room, you remember beloved friends and family no longer with us. Easter may stir a mix of emotions in you—joyful and sorrowful.

I have to say, when I look around the room, I am filled with gratitude. Thank you for your love for your church and for your Lord, who has chosen you, like Mary, to share your faith with the ones you love. Here in this beautiful sanctuary, adorned with fresh flowers arranged by passionate gardeners in our flock, I am wondering who inspired you to come to church and worship the Risen Savior? Who is responsible for you coming to believe? A family member? Neighbor or friend? Others nurtured you along the way, in addition to that one person who shared the spark that led to a flame that empowered you to hold onto your faith, though there were challenges. Maybe days, when you thought, like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, “Is the Lord God still with me or not?”

And who have you inspired to not only hear the good news of the Living Christ but also to hope in the promise of the new creation in him and his glorious return for his church, and our new and abundant life in him that starts the moment we first believe? Who will you inspire when you leave this place today with your faith, hope, and love refreshed and renewed?

When Jesus calls Mary’s name, she recognizes the one she calls “Teacher.” When she clings to him, the Risen One gently asks her to release him as he has not yet ascended. He charges her with the role of serving as an apostle to the apostles.

“Go to my brothers and say to them,” says the one she mistook for a gardener, “‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

 Mary runs home and announces to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”

Let us pray.

Holy, Triune God, thank you for sending your Son to be our Savior and to draw us back to you when we went astray. Thank you that we are your beloved. Help us to believe in the new creation; our new life in Christ that starts the moment we first believe; and the hope of Christ’s return, triumphant and gloriously, for his Church. And as we cling to our faith, in joyful times and times of sorrow, help us to feel your loving presence with us and inspire others to believe and come home to a house of worship on the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

      [1] Michael Zohary, Plants of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 204.

      [2] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 200.

The “Last” Supper

Meditation on John 13

Maundy Thursday

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 17, 2025

Art by Stushie, used with permission

Listen to the devotion here:

     Jesus is with his disciples for another meal in our reading in John tonight. He is eating, again! Have you ever noticed how many meals that Jesus eats in the gospels? And that some of the most profound and intimate interactions he has with others happen in the context of a meal?

     This was my experience during our Wednesday night Lenten suppers. They were a time of teaching, learning, and sharing stories. Members presented on the history of sports and building secrets; the history of ministry with women, children, and youth; and the history of handbells. And they were more than teaching and learning, sharing stories and eating soup, salad, bread, and cookies. Something beautiful and meaningful happened as we enjoyed our simple and not so simple meals, some prepared by numerous hands, others prepared by one or two. We grew closer to one another. We grew in friendship and love. Everyone was welcome to our Lenten soup suppers. No one was turned away. I even invited a stranger who had come for an AA meeting and got lost in our building.

     The Pharisees and scribes are critical of Jesus eating and drinking with everyone, welcoming all to his table and happily eating meals at the homes and tables of others, even the outcasts, such as tax collectors and prostitutes. In Mark 2:15-17, while Jesus is having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” are eating with him and his disciples. Levi is his Hebrew name, but you may recognize him better as Matthew, his Greek name. Matthew was a tax collector who worked for the Greek-speaking Romans. When the Pharisees see him eating with “sinners” and tax collectors, they ask his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” The word sinners is repeated so we don’t miss the point; Jesus never discriminates! Everyone, regardless of their past or current lifestyle, is worthy of his time, gifts, wisdom, and caring ways. Jesus’ table is open wide to every category of people, acceptable and unacceptable, in his time. On hearing the Pharisees’ question, Jesus says to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

     The same Levi (Matthew) gives a great banquet for Jesus at his house in Luke 5:29-32, and there’s a large crowd of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them, as was the custom when they ate.The Pharisees and their scribes are complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” His answer is almost identical to that in Mark. The meals have a greater purpose than simply nourishment for the body. The meals with Jesus are meant for the healing of the soul, redemption, and spiritual growth. Jesus says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick;I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

     Likewise, in Matthew 9:10-13, while Jesus is having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners come and eat with him and his disciples. The Pharisees, who must also be at the dinner, see this and ask his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus hears and answers, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

     We don’t know where tonight’s meal is taking place in John 13, except that it is in Jerusalem. We don’t know what the group is eating, except for the bread and wine. We don’t know exactly when, except that it is before the Festival of the Passover and that it is the night that Jesus will attempt to prepare his disciples for their future, for we know that his hour has come. Tonight, he will be betrayed by one of his followers, who has joined him for the meal. But it would be wrong to assume that Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, is the only sinner in the group. Everyone with Jesus, even you and me, would count as “sinners,” for by his own definition, these are the ones whom Jesus chooses and calls. This passage in John is the first time that we hear that Jesus has loved his disciples and how he will love them “to the end.”

     What’s different about this meal? The foot washing. The foot washing is the surprise for all who are gathered. He has taken on a servant’s position, laying down his outer garments and wrapping a towel around his waist. He reaches Simon Peter, first, whose response is shock and disbelief. This isn’t a job for their Teacher and Lord. Simon Peter says, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” And when Jesus tells him that he will understand later, Simon Peter insists, “Lord, you will never wash my feet.”

     Jesus answers mysteriously, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me,” and will later add, equally mysteriously, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

     Simon Peter will say almost comically, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” But he is not just joking around. Simon Peter is all in with Jesus—100 percent — until the moment he, too, will betray him, three times before the cock crows, after Jesus is arrested.  

    But even though Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, will set in motion the events leading to Christ’s death, and Jesus knows it, he welcomes him to the table. He feeds him bread dipped in wine with his own hand. He washes Judas’ feet. This is not just a host showing kindness to his guests. This is the gracious One to whom all things have been given, One who is from God, and on his way back to God. This is the Word who became flesh, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the Good Shepherd, Living Water, and Bread of Life. This Word, Lamb, Shepherd, Water, and Bread includes Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, with the ones whom Jesus loves, the ones whom he counts as his own. The ones whom he will love to the end.

   This humble act of foot washing, done only by the lowliest servants or slaves, is our Savior’s example to all of us on how to love one another. As the Apostle Paul will say in 1 Cor. 13, “love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.” Love is the greatest gift of all, a gift that the Spirit offers to everyone. This is a love like no other. It changes us—purifies and cleanses us from our sins. It strengthens us to love one another, as Christ has always and will always love us.

    But what about this meal that is often called the “Last” Supper? The words of institution may not be here, like they are in Mark 14 and Luke 22, nor is his commandment for us to do this in remembrance of him. Still, this is Holy Communion, just the same.

    And this won’t be Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. There’s another meal with the Risen Christ as the chef in John 21. The Lord invites the disciples, who have reluctantly returned to their former occupations as fishermen, to the beach for grilled fish. Jesus will say, “Come, have breakfast!” They will eagerly join him.

     But even that Resurrection Breakfast won’t be the last meal with his disciples. For every time we gather to share a meal, and thank and invite Christ to be our guest, he is with us, eating with those who have been cleansed from sin and lovingly redeemed by him.

    In a few moments, we will gather in small groups around the Lord’s Table to celebrate our Communion with Christ and be transformed, restored, and re-membered as his Body sent out for the sake of the world. As we do, we recall the holy meal with the ones whom Christ loved—his first disciples and all his disciples, in every time and place—the ones whom Christ will love to the end. Even the ones who will betray him—first Judas, who will put into motion the events that lead to Christ’s death and resurrection and our hope of abundant and everlasting life with him. And Simon Peter, upon whom Christ will build His Church. And we will remember his greatest commandment, shown by his humbling himself, to the form of a slave, to do the unthinkable—wash his followers’ feet.

He tells us now, “Love one another.” “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for showing us what love is when you washed your disciples’ feet and when you gave your life for the world. Thank you for your love, grace, and mercy for sinners and for nourishing us body, mind, and soul when we celebrate Communion and whenever we eat a meal and invite you to be with us. Strengthen us to love the outcasts and so-called sinners of today and to live in love with one another, so that everyone will know that we are your disciples. Amen.

Palms

Meditation on John 12:12-19

Tell Me About Your Garden Series

Palm Sunday

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 13, 2025

Listen to the devotion here:

Art by Stushie, used with permission

On Monday, though the weather was cold and rainy, I was outside pruning vines and ornamental grasses. Like weeding, pruning is one of those garden tasks that you either love or hate. For me, it depends on what I am pruning. Most of the gardeners whom I interviewed for my project said that pruning, like weeding, gave them a good feeling; they had peace, especially when they could see the results of their labor.

Lottie says of her and her husband George, “People like us, we take care of our plants like they are family. We make sure they are nourished; they are pruned.” She laughed when she told me about some plants that they have been “reeling in.” “We have had to chop them back to accommodate the other plants,” she says. “That’s part of being spiritual; we have to cut off the junk to see the good stuff.”

Kaitlyn says cutting back the invasive vines that grow under her fence is “cathartic.” She says to plants while pruning, “This is for your own good. You’re kind of a mess right now.” She understands her own need for God’s pruning in her life.

Hebrews 12:11 assures us, “Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Jesus says in John 15 that he is the vine, and we are the branches. Even Christ is pruned by His Father, the Vinegrower, who removes every branch in him that bears no fruit and every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. We need and can expect the same loving discipline from the Lord.

Kaitlyn says when you look at her garden, you can see her state of mind, but there is beauty among the chaos. Pruning invasive vines, “just like problems in life, if you don’t attack them early, they become bigger problems… As I pull them out, there’s something like, ‘OK, I can attack this and you are with me and God is with me,’ and there’s something very satisfying. Of course, they keep growing back. But that’s life. That’s where I need to do things like mulch. Prevention is key.”

When I read the Palm Sunday passage in John through the lens of all God’s Creation, and not just people, I find a new layer of meaning. The crowd is stirred to break off branches of palm trees, a form of pruning, but they aren’t doing it for the well-being of the plant. The pruning is all for their own well-being and self-expression. They are welcoming Jesus to the Holy City.

This is not just a simple greeting. They are crying out as he enters, “Hosanna” or “Save us, now!” This is an act of worship. He who has done many signs pointing to his true identity is the long-awaited Messiah, the Son of God, who has healed, fed, restored sight to a man born blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead, the last of his signs.[1]

The account of Jesus’ triumphal yet humble entry into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey (an echo of Zechariah 9:9) is in all four gospels. John is the only one who says the branches are from palm trees. These are actually date palms, which, along with other fruit trees, have a long and holy relationship with the Israelites.

Jerusalem botanist Michael Zohary says that “poetry and song celebrate trees and their fruit, which symbolize prosperity and peace.”[2] In Psalm 92:12-14, those who are “righteous are like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bring forth fruit in old age, they are ever full of sap and green (NRSVue).” [3] Palm trees and leaves are found in engravings and sculptures in Solomon’s Temple. Carved palm branches are found in artwork in the Capernaum synagogue, dating to the Third Century A.D.

Fruit trees are so sacred that it is forbidden to cut them down.[4] Deuteronomy 20:19 says, “If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?”

But the date palm, one of the Holy Lands’ oldest fruit trees, cultivated as far back as 4,000 BC, is in a category by itself. “The date palm was so strongly established as a symbol for the people of Israel that after conquering the land the Romans issued coins showing a mourning woman underneath a palm –Judea Capta (Judea in Captivity).”

The palm, mentioned countless times in the Bible, was an “emblem of victory” on coins during the time of the Maccabees in the Second Century BC.[5] In fact, the waving of the palm branches when Jesus enters the Holy City stirs us to remember—though it is spring and not winter when Hanukkah is celebrated—Judas Maccabaeus entering the city in 164 BC after defeating the pagan invaders and cleansing the Temple.[6] His followers entered the city “waving palm branches in celebration.”[7] N.T. Wright says that “Jesus and his followers were … bringing together Hanukkah and Passover” with the waving of palm branches. “They were saying that Jesus was the true king, come to claim his throne, and that this was the moment when God would set Israel free once and for all.”

Many people and places are named for the date palm: Tamar, in Hebrew. You may remember the story of Judah’s daughter-in-law, Tamar, in Genesis 38. It’s not a story for Sunday School. She is unjustly accused of killing two of Judah’s sons, and there’s so much more to it. But at the end of the story, Judah proclaims that Tamar is more righteous than he.

The Bible calls Jericho, thought to be the oldest city in the world, “the city of palm trees.”[8] Deborah, serving as a judge for God’s people in Judges 4:5, “sat under the palm tree, which served in poetry as a symbol of upright stature, justice and righteousness. Its leaves are among the four species for the Feast of the Tabernacles in Nehemiah 8:15, and it continues to symbolize holiness and resurrection in Christian worship.”[9]

Apart from the spiritual significance of the palm are its practical uses. “The fruit is sustaining, its honey refreshing; from the tree’s trunk a tasty juice could be made. The leaflets were woven into mats, baskets, and other household utensils, while its wood served for fences, roofs, and rafts.”[10]

This day that begins with joy and excitement, with the waving of palms and all the symbols and imagery that point to Jesus being the long-awaited Messiah will end on a sober note. No matter which gospel we read, we always end up with the disciples not really understanding what it’s all about and certainly not knowing what’s in the road ahead. The Pharisees are always angry with the disciples and the crowd. In John’s account, they grumble to one another, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!”

We know that all this joy, excitement, and belief will soon change to unbelief, betrayal, suffering, and horror in a matter of days. And we can’t do anything about it. The story needs to be told, over and over, though it doesn’t get any less tragic and terrible. I always want to say on Palm Sunday, “Don’t do it, Jesus. Don’t go to Jerusalem.” But dear friends, he goes to the Holy City, under the waving of the sacred date palms, for you and for me. For us and our salvation. Because God so loves the world that he gave his one and only Son.

We who have been on this Lenten journey since Ash Wednesday, when we were marked with palm ash and recalled that we who were made from life-giving soil will someday become life-giving soil, again, have now begun our Holy Week journey. We want to skip right to Easter and the empty tomb. We are ready to shout, “He is risen!” But the cross looms ahead. And those who are pruning and waving date palm branches, shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” will soon be crying out “Crucify him! Crucify him. Crucify him.”

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for your Spirit that has led us on this Lenten journey and will never let us go. We are now drawing closer to the cross as we begin Holy Week. Lord, be gentle in your pruning of us, but prune us, just the same. Help us to bring forth fruit and remain green all our days. Stir us to remember what is so horrifying: our betrayal and his suffering, so that we will be truly thankful for all that you have done through Christ and be more faithful. Help us to share the story and our joy and hope of abundant and eternal life in him through our words and kindness, in creative ways. In the name of our triumphal but humble king we pray. Amen.

      [1] N.T. Wright, John for Everyone Part 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 26.

      [2] Michael Zohary, Plants of the Bible, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 53.

      [3] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 60.

      [4] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 53.

      [5] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 60.

      [6] N.T. Wright, John for Everyone Part 2, 25.

      [7] N.T. Wright, John for Everyone Part 2, 25.

      [8] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 60.

      [9] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 60.

     [10] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 60.

Harvest (and Share)

Tell Me About Your Garden Series

Meditation on Matthew 9:35-38 and Ruth 2:1-17

Fifth Sunday in Lent

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

April 6, 2025

Listen to the devotion here:

Yesterday, I had a dollop of raspberry jam on my oatmeal for breakfast. And I thought of the gardeners who gave me raspberry jam and jelly—Betsy and Belinda. I was filled with gratitude. Gardeners offered other gifts to me—plants and cuttings so that I could grow my own.

   

Fresh dried oregano from Belinda and fresh picked figs from Kaitlin’s vine.

Cattie offered cherry tomatoes picked from a plant growing in a pot near her swimming pool.

Jim and I ate butternut squash, eggplant and zucchini, green beans, pickles, peppers, and more—all because of the abundance of the harvest and the generosity of gardeners.

    Last summer wasn’t the best harvest for the gardeners in our group. But it wasn’t a bust, either. As Betsy says, “Every year, there are successes and failures.” Reese complained of birds pecking at his tomatoes. Voles tried to wreak havoc in Betsy’s garden. She took to patrolling the area at night to try and protect what was left. Gardeners struggled with deer and rabbit damage, as well.

Julie, who provides produce all summer long on our church’s sharing table, says everything was growing pretty good until the flood in August.

Then, her garden was done. Or almost. She brought a bag of garlic to our gardener’s gathering on March 9 and begged us to help ourselves. Now, I have garlic growing in a pot in my dining room window. And every time I water it, I think of Julie and smile. George shares the vegetables he grows in a community garden plot at a Lutheran church with the people in his AA group who meet there. Betsy shares her plants and produce at her work because they always seem so happy when she does.

Reese likes to share with his non-gardening neighbors, especially the children, whom he has invited in previous years to pick pumpkins and pull carrots, just so they could see where carrots come from. “You got to see the kids’ faces when they pull a carrot out of the ground!” he says. “They may never look at a carrot the same way again.”

Cattie and Bonnie shared African violets with me that they had propagated themselves. Every time I look at them, I experience anew the joy of receiving their gifts and marvel at the beauty of the purple flowers.

Bonnie helped the children at Smithtown’s homeless shelter last summer plant their own raised garden. She wanted to share not just the produce, but the love of gardening. The shelter harvested tomatoes, she says, and made sauce. One little boy of 7 or 8 told Bonnie that when he grows up, he wants to be a farmer. “That’s my reward,” she says.

    Our passage in Ruth today is a window into an ancient society’s harvest practices. What can we learn from them? Ruth, a childless young widow from Moab, has risked her life and future to return to Bethlehem with her Israelite mother-in-law, Naomi, a widow whose sons have died. They have nothing except for Naomi’s kinship ties and the rumor that Bethlehem, consumed by a great famine 10 years before that drove Naomi and her family to live as resident aliens in Moab, now has “bread,” while there is severe famine in Moab, a mountainous region east of the Dead Sea. Ruth and Naomi arrive in Bethlehem just in time for the barley harvest, a sign of God’s providence, indeed, for the harvest would only last a few days.

    “The story is set in the period of the Judges “(ca 1200-1020 BC)—the time between Joshua’s death (Judg. 1:1) and the coronation of (the first king of Israel) Saul (1 Sam. 10).”[1] It is an “era of frightful social and religious chaos. The book of Judges teems with violent invasions, apostate religion, unchecked lawlessness, and tribal civil war. These threatened fledgling Israel’s very survival.”[2] And now, added to the social, political, and religious chaos, there’s a famine.   “Biblical famines have many natural causes—drought, disease, locust invasions, loss of livestock, and warfare. They were often believed to be God’s judgment.” But the writer of Ruth doesn’t tell us the cause of this famine. Instead, the story points to the biblical pattern for famines—that they often advance God’s plan.

      “Judean Bethlehem lay about six miles south of Jerusalem on the eastern ridge of the central mountain range… An ancient town, its name literally means ‘House of Bread.’ Wheat, barley, olives, almonds, and grapes grew abundantly there.[3] When Ruth arrives, she tells her mother-in-law, “I am going to the fields to glean ears of grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.” Why did she need to do this when the right to glean was guaranteed by law?

Leviticus 19:9-10 says, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.You shall not strip your vineyard bare or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God.”

Likewise, Deut. 24:19-22 says, “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this.” The foundation of these rules is the belief that God is the true landowner. “Israelite farmers might be the means of provision, but the great, compassionate landlord was the actual generous benefactor of the poor.”[4]

     But just because laws provide for the feeding of the alien, orphan and widow doesn’t mean that everyone followed them. Owners and reapers were greedy and “often obstructed the efforts of gleaners by ridicule, tricks, and, in some cases, expulsion.”[5] Ruth’s determination to ask permission before gleaning shows that she is a person of “remarkable initiative and courage.”[6] She sets aside fears at being a foreigner and a Moabitess, as the author calls her 5 times. She takes incredible risks to reveal and live out her devotion to Naomi, her faith, and her God. Her plan is to glean ears of grain among the standing stalks. She will follow the reapers, who are not slaves but hired workers, and pick up the ears that are already cut but accidentally drop to the ground. Male reapers grasp the stalk with their left hand and cut off the grain with a sickle in their right. When their arms are full, they lay the stalks in rows beside the standing stalks for women to tie in bundles.

     Ruth goes to a field and begins to glean, and “as luck would have it,” she happens upon a piece of farmland belonging to Boaz, who is from the same clan as Naomi’s late husband. Is it luck? Coincidence? Or God’s plan? Boaz arrives—more luck? Coincidence? He greets the workers, “May Yahweh be with you!” He is pronouncing a blessing, saying essentially, “May Yahweh prosper all your efforts with a bountiful harvest!” He is encouraging them that God is with them, “blessing their work.”[7] The people return his greeting with a greeting that was probably “used … at harvest time both to greet…and request God’s provision of a bountiful crop,”[8] “May Yahweh bless you!”

    Boaz notices Ruth, asks about her, learns what she has done. He shows unusual grace and kindness, tells her not to glean in any other field and stay close to the other girls. He offers her water whenever she is thirsty and tells the other men not to touch her. She asks why he is being so kind, since she is a foreigner. He answers because of her kindness to her mother-in-law after her own husband died and her willingness to leave her parents and country to come and live with a people whom she does not know. He prays over her. “May Yahweh repay your action, and may your wages be paid in full from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to seek refuge.” The image of wings recalls “the protective shield of a bird over its young, an image commonly applied to gods in the ancient Near East …and to Yahweh.”[9]

    At the end of the day, Ruth receives much more than she ever expects, being permitted to glean between the sheaves, with the workers pulling out stalks for her to pick up. She harvests until darkness falls and goes home to Naomi with an astounding amount of grain equivalent to at least a half month’s wages for a male worker!

    What can we learn from Ruth’s example—as laborers in God’s harvest? First, everyone is wanted and welcome to labor for the Lord, especially the most vulnerable. You don’t have to be strong or rich or a man or a citizen to work for God. She is a foreigner, a childless widow. But she is faithful and loyal to her new kin, her new home, and the God of Israel. Second, workers have different roles but share the same goal: serving the Lord of the Harvest and doing our part to reveal the peaceable Kingdom of God to the world around us.Third, the work for the harvest is characterized by kindness, gratitude, and generosity, and marked by humble prayer, remembering that the fields, the harvest, and the laborers all belong to the Lord.

    As we continue our Lenten journey, laboring for Christ’s sake, may the Lord make God’s loving presence known to us. May we be stirred to take refuge under Yahweh’s protective wings in these uncertain times. May the Lord grant us compassion for the world, because people today truly are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” May we remember to be generous and share with others, praying to the Lord of the Harvest to send out more laborers. For, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”

Lord of the Harvest, you tell us to pray to you and ask you to send out more laborers for your harvest. Thank you for calling us to serve as your laborers, working with the vision and promise of your peaceable Kingdom. Lead us to be kind to one another, like Boaz and Ruth, as we labor. Reveal your loving presence to us and hold us in your protective embrace, in the refuge underneath your wings. Stir our hearts to gratitude for all you have done in Jesus Christ and to compassion for those who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Amen.

    [1] Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., The Book of Ruth (The New International Commentary of the Old Testament) (MI: Eerdman’s Publishing Co.,1988), 84.

    [2] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 84.

    [3] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 84.

    [4] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 136.

    [5] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 136.

    [6] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 136.

    [7] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 144.

    [8] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 144.

    [9] Hubbard, The Book of Ruth, 167.

Weed

Tell Me About Your Garden Series

Meditation on Matthew 13:24-30

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

March 30, 2025

Thank you to the 15 gardeners who opened their hearts, homes, and gardens to me for my garden spirituality research for my doctoral program last summer and fall. May God bless you for your kindness!

Monarch caterpillar on the milkweed that I grow from seed in my garden. Milkweed is, well, a weed and can be rather invasive. It also provides a home and nourishment for monarch butterflies, who lay their eggs ONLY on milkweed plants.

Listen to the devotion here:

What would the world be, once bereft

Of wet and wildness? Let them be left.

O let them be left, wildness and wet;

Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

             – Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Yesterday’s weather truly felt like spring. I opened the windows and went outside to do a little spring clean-up. This is that in-between time for gardeners here, when we are still planning our gardens; some of us are growing seedlings indoors, like Reese and his heirloom tomatoes, and getting beds ready for planting, in another month or so. Betsy is ahead of some of us. She has already begun direct sowing of seeds in her vegetable garden: Swiss chard and lettuce, kale and collard greens, and peas and spinach. Soon she will plant her seedlings started inside: broccoli, cauliflower, and onions.

My spring clean-up includes removing fall leaves, old growth from perennials, and very carefully pulling up weeds. I say very carefully because it’s hard to know, at this stage, if what’s pushing through the soil is a weed or a flower that has reseeded itself.

It’s always interesting in spring to discover your plants growing in unpredictable places. Sometimes, wind or rain carry them there. Other times, it’s the wildlife that help with the transplanting. Sometimes, it’s just a mystery that stirs us to wonder and laugh. Gardeners Ernie and Reese shared about vegetables and fruits showing up in places other than where they planted them. Reese says, “I think there’s always a certain amount of ‘Wow! Look at this!’” He sees a cucumber plant growing up out of the middle of his phlox. “How it got there, I have no idea, you know?” he says. “And I think that sense of wonder is one of the reasons why I got interested in biology and science…And that’s really where all the early scientists were. They were trying to explain what God had done.” The Newtons and Galileos never took God out of the picture, he says. “They were trying to explain God’s world.”

This year, my Blanket Flowers and Black-eyed Susans are springing up between the bricks in our front walk. A landscaper pointed to them during his talk on how to kill weeds. And I thought to myself, “But they aren’t weeds.”

Which brings me to an important question. What is a weed, anyway?

 Ralph Waldo Emerson, a lifelong gardener,“once said that a weed is simply a plant whose virtues we haven’t yet discovered.”[1] Other romantics of the 1800s felt the same way—that “weed is not a category of nature but a human construct, a defect of our perception.”[2] Weed became a symbol for “wilderness,” which was seen as a good thing. Naturalist Henry David Thoreau, Emerson’s disciple, had different feelings about weeds when he planted his bean field at Walden, which, though it strengthened his attachment to the earth, led him to wage a war. “Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue, armed with a hoe,” he writes, “and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead.”[3]

But what about in the 21st century? What do we think now? A farmer in Minnesota once told me that a weed is a plant in the wrong place. Grass is a weed when you don’t want it growing on your farm field. But the majority view held by crop farmers was that weeds were plants that might interfere with the crops. When I planted perennials at the manse next to the church in Minnesota, a farmer expressed disgust. They were weeds that would end up seeding his nearby farm field! I never thought of that. I was just happy that the black-eyed Susans survived a Minnesota winter.

Gardening writer Michael Pollan did some research on the plants growing as “weeds” in his yard. He says that weeds “are plants particularly well adapted to man-made places. They don’t grow in forests or prairies—in the ‘wild.’ Weeds thrive in gardens, meadows, lawns, vacant lots, railroad siding… dumpsters and in the cracks of sidewalks. They grow where we live… and hardly anywhere else.”[4]

He makes another interesting observation. Weeds are not wild, contrary to what the romantic writers of the 1800s assumed. “They do better than garden plants for the simple reason that they are better adapted to life in a garden…Weeds have evolved with just one end in view: the ability to thrive in ground that (people have) disturbed.”[5] If Thoreau had a field guide with him at Walden, Pollan says, he would have learned that most of his weeds were “alien species, brought to America by the colonists. St. John’s wort, daisies, dandelions, crabgrass, timothy, clover, pigweed, lamb’s quarters, buttercup, mullein, Queen Anne’s lace, plantain, yarrow… not one of these species grew here before the Puritans landed.”[6] America had “few indigenous weeds” because it had “little disturbed ground” before the Europeans arrived. “Tumbleweed didn’t arrive in America until the 1870s when a group of Russian immigrants (settled in South Dakota), intending to grow flax. Mixed in with their flax seeds were a few seeds of weed well known to the steppes of the Ukraine: Tumbleweed.”[7]

So, I am back to my question. What’s a weed? For me, it’s an unwanted plant, often growing invasively in my yard. I actually like some plants others think of weeds—such as dandelions and clover, which help improve the soil and attract pollinators. Last year, I planted Solidago—better known as Goldenrod—which is often confused with Ragweed and mistakenly blamed for allergies. Goldenrod tolerates poor soil and produces abundant nectar in its yellow flowers for hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies in August/September, when many other flowers are finished blooming. And it is deer resistant, which is important where I live.

    But sometimes, a weed IS a plant that I purposefully grow by mistake. Have you ever made that mistake? The gardeners in our flock mentioned mint and scallions, I think. Evening primrose, a few years ago, was just a pretty, yellow flower that bloomed at night in my Ohio garden. The organist shared it with me, and I was captivated by it enough to take videos of the flowers as they opened, all at once, around 8:30 p.m. on summer nights.  On Long Island, it grew like a thick impenetrable wall, about 7 feet tall. It still had pretty, yellow flowers, but the plant overtook and overshadowed every other plant on that side of the deck. Before the end of the season, I pulled the evening primrose wall down and threw it on a pile with my other discarded plants that were growing like weeds, if not weeds themselves.

So, what does Jesus think of weeds?

He has some strong feelings about them as they interfere with the crops that are feeding the population. In his Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13, weed seeds are sown among wheat, which, along with barley, is one of the most important crops in biblical times; bread is a mainstay of their diet. It’s remarkable to me that Jesus’ attitude toward the weeds growing in the wheat field is much the same as the crop farmers whom I knew in Minnesota. Weeds intermingle with and contaminate the crops. It’s too dangerous to kill or pull the weeds when the crop is growing, lest the wheat is pulled and damaged. The weeds will be harvested along with the crop, before the weeds are finally destroyed.

Jesus will interpret his own parable, but only to his disciples, beginning at verse 37. He doesn’t say this to a crowd mixed with seekers, scoffers, and unbelievers. This teaching is to encourage his followers that one day, evil will end. As Paul says, our enemies are powers and principalities of this present darkness—not human beings. One day, Christ’s peace and justice will reign, when the Kingdom of God comes to fruition and the Lord comes again to take us to himself. But there is a time of waiting, for the Lord is patient and desires all to come to know him. Jesus says, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man;the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age (Matt. 13: 37-40, NRSVue).”

    You might be surprised to learn that of the 15 gardeners whom I interviewed for my project, only one or two expressed a serious dislike of weeding. Many say that weeding is their favorite gardening task! Faith says, “I like being outdoors, and I like the physical activity, cleaning out the beds, weeding, watering, and getting down in the dirt.” Pat remembers fondly gardening with her father. Her primary labors: watering and weeding. Jolene weeds a little every day. “It’s peaceful pulling the weeds,” she and other gardeners say.

     I had never really thought about it before, but I enjoy weeding, too, because it is up close and personal with the soil and plants. You have to pay attention to what you are doing, so you don’t pull up the plants you want to keep. But at the same time, I am not just looking at the weeds. I am listening to the birds. Enjoying the sun, the breeze, the blue of the sky. I am looking at all the new plants, and thinking how cute they are, with their tiny, unfurling leaves as they rise from the ground. I have hope. I am dreaming of what they will look like, in a few months, when the flowers are in bloom. I am remembering the people from my congregation who gave me many of these flowers to plant at the manse. And I am marveling at those that mysteriously end up growing between the bricks in my front walk. As other gardeners say, I lose myself and find myself in gardening. And when I go inside, I am a better person than when I went out. I am at peace with God, myself, and all Creation.

   Yesterday, when I was weeding, I caught sight of some evening primrose that seeded itself in the front yard. They looked happy and healthy—and I decided to leave them alone and give them another chance. Maybe this time, it will be the pretty yellow flower that it was in my Ohio garden, a flower unlike most others because it blooms at night. If not, I guess I will be pulling down 7-foot stalks and chuckling to myself.

Evening Primrose, growing to 7 feet in my Long Island yard.

    Once again, I am back to the question of what is a weed, and what does it mean to weed? Because if weeding brings us peace, and draws us nearer to the earth, over and over again, and helps us grow spiritually, then it can’t possibly be all bad.

    Pollan comes to a similar conclusion. Actually, that weeding isn’t a bad thing at all. He says that weeding is “the process by which we make informed choices in nature, discriminate between good and bad, apply our intelligence and sweat to the earth. To weed is to bring culture to nature—which is why we say, when we are weeding, that we are cultivating the soil. Weeding…is not a nuisance that follows from gardening, but its very essence.”

    Dear friends, as we continue our Lenten journey, I pray we will find time to be out in nature—losing ourselves and finding our true and better selves there. I pray that we will realize, more and more, how we are loved and cared for by a gracious and merciful God who doesn’t hold our mistakes against us. The Lord doesn’t see us as we might see ourselves as, I don’t know, the worst thing we might encounter while we are weeding: poison ivy. The Lord God who created us all in love, for love, sees us as precious and valuable. We are, to God, worth redeeming!  

Will you pray with me?

Holy Gardener, thank you for caring for us and all that you created. Thank you for redeeming us through your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you for reminding us that one day, evil will end, and that peace and justice will prevail. Teach us to see ourselves and one another as you see us—not as undesirable weeds, but as precious and valuable. Remind us that you are with us in the simple tasks of every day, including pulling weeds in a garden, and are ready to teach us more about you and your love and grace, ourselves, and one another with every breath that we take. Amen.

`

     [1] Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education (NY: Grove Press, 1991), 98.

     [2] Pollan, Second Nature, 98.

     [3] Pollan, Second Nature, 108.

     [4] Pollan, Second Nature, 109.

     [5] Pollan, Second Nature, 109.

     [6] Pollan, Second Nature, 111.

     [7] Pollan, Second Nature, 111.

Spur

Tell Me About Your Garden Series

Third Sunday in Lent

Pastor Karen Crawford

March 23, 2025

Many thanks to the 15 gardeners who opened their homes, hearts, and gardens to me and shared their stories as part of my doctoral project for Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Listen to the devotion here:

I transplanted my fig tree branch about a month ago. This was the branch that was given to me by two gardeners—George and Lottie—that I rooted in water. It was doing great in the water, though it took a while for the roots to grow. It was just a stick for a long time.

Finally, around Christmastime, it produced a green fig and then two leaves in January.

By February, I decided that it probably needed soil. Then, not long after I planted the fig tree in potting soil and gave it a good watering, the leaves shriveled and dried up. I thought, “Oh no.”

I asked myself, if I were a fig tree, what would my problem be? Is it not enough sun? Maybe it’s lonely on the bathroom counter? I brought the tree into my home office and put it in a sunny window, on top of my printer. Then, I tried to ignore it for a week or so and see if it might recover on its own. Maybe it was in transplant shock.

A couple weeks passed, and the leaves fell off. I looked at my cat, wondering if maybe he chewed them off, but he looked as puzzled as I was concerning the fig tree.

I mentioned the problem during our gardeners’ gathering on March 9. George and Lottie tell me not to worry. They will give me another branch. Fig trees are hard to grow, they say. Kaitlyn advises that I recycle it. Let it become soil again in the compost pile. Learn to let go. And that’s very tempting.

I put the tree out of my mind for a few days, then a week and a little more, as I was busy with ministry. Then, early this week, I transplanted the little seedlings that grew from seeds planted the end of February/beginning of March and the peace lily that Nanume Church had given me for my installation three years ago. The peace lily was completely root-bound. When I pulled it out of its pot, there was barely any soil left. No wonder the leaves had been turning yellow, despite my regular watering and its home in a sunny window. Now the peace lily is divided in three large pots, with fresh soil, enriched with compost. The plants already look greener and healthier, with new growth—only two days after the transplanting.

While all the transplanting went well for the seedlings and the peace lily, I can’t help but wonder how I might help the fig tree. Having this passage come up in the lectionary this week was fortuitous. At least, I thought so, but then I realized that it is one that scholars debate and find problematic. It isn’t as difficult as the passage in Matthew 21 where Jesus is portrayed cursing a fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit. That just doesn’t sit with me well, the picture of Jesus, through whom all things were made, cursing any part of God’s Creation.

In this passage in Luke, I don’t like how the man tells the gardener to cut down the fig tree in his vineyard, because for three years, he’s been watching that tree, and it hasn’t born any fruit. Maybe a fig tree takes longer to bear fruit than other trees. Maybe it had a hard three years, struggling with drought, insects, or some other problem that we don’t know about. But then something in me says, “Three years is a long time waiting for fruit. Maybe it IS a waste of soil, and it would be better, as Kaitlyn says, recycling it to the compost pile.

And then the gardener in the parable brings me joy. He intervenes on behalf of the fig tree and offers to do more to try and help it grow. He says, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.” This is the part that inspires me—what the gardener is willing to do to spur the tree to bear fruit. There is so much compassion here. And by helping the tree, he is helping the production of the entire vineyard. And he is helping himself, so that he can say to the man, perhaps the owner of the vineyard, next year, “I did all that I could as your gardener, and now look at all the fruit this fig tree is bearing.”

    This passage, when read alongside James 5, reminds me of how we are encouraged to live as we are waiting for Christ’s return—in loving community with one another. James encourages his church to be patient, until Christ’s coming, as “the farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient.” People living in Palestine in the First Century practiced dry farming, relying not on irrigation, but solely on the rains for crops to grow and bear fruit.

   This passage in Luke, read alongside Hebrews 10, makes me think about what we can do to “provoke or spur one another to love and good deeds,” just as the gardener was willing to loosen the soil around the tree and fertilize it to spur it to bear fruit. The writer of Hebrews says that the way to spur one another to love and good deeds is by “not neglecting to meet together” as some people were making a habit of not gathering, and by “encouraging one another all the more” as the Day of the Lord’s return approaches.

    Today’s lesson stirs me to consider my own growing conditions and seasons of abundance and dormancy. When have I had my most fruitful seasons, and born the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? I will share some thoughts.

    First, being planted in the right soil helps! I know the old saying, “Bloom where you are planted,” and that’s true, but whenever possible, go and plant yourself with the people who spur you to love and good deeds. Don’t hang around too much with the barren fig trees, unless you are trying to fertilize them and spur them to love and good deeds. Stay away from places that aren’t good soil for you, places where you know you won’t be at your best, grow, and bear fruit.

   Second, don’t wait for others to feed you. Mature Christians know how to eat. Come to church with open hearts and minds, ready to be nourished. Open your Bible and read at home. Put on worship music and sing. Take a walk in nature, plant some seeds, visit a friend, help someone in need, and seek the Lord with confidence in prayer.

   Third, ask for help. Sometimes it’s hard to ask for help when you are struggling. But when you ask for help, you provoke someone else to love and good deeds. You give them a ministry opportunity and you make THEM feel needed. Everyone is needed. Then, it’s a domino effect. When they serve you or help the church family, they spur you and others to love and good deeds.

    So back to the gardener and the barren fruit tree. Don’t you wish that Jesus would tell us the end of the story? Don’t you want to know if the tree stayed barren or if, the following year, when the man returned, the gardener was able to say, “Come and see all the fruit your fig tree is now bearing. All because of a little manure and a lot of patience.”

    Scholars say this passage is about divine judgment deferred and an invitation to repentance. Our loving and gracious God is so patient. The God who knows us better than we know ourselves wants to be known. Christ welcomes all to receive his forgiveness and love, and then come, follow him.

    Finally, what about my fig tree, which is now back to being a stick? Well, after I transplanted the peace lily, I transplanted the fig tree, once again. At first, I thought, am I just wasting my time and my good transplant soil? But then I did it, anyway. I gave it a new, clean pot. When I pulled it gently out of the other soil, I saw that those wonderful roots that had grown last winter in water are now all gone. What happened in the first transplanting? I don’t know. Something must have been wrong with the soil. It’s a mystery.

Now, the fig tree is on a sunny table with a flourishing Crown of Thorns with red flowers, a pot of Julie’s garlic, with green shoots pushing through the soil, and a healthy succulent, given to me by a church member when I arrived. Maybe living in a strong, growing community, with good soil and sun, will spur my barren fig branch to send out new roots and leaves. Perhaps, someday, it will bear fruit. I haven’t given up hope, not yet, just as the Lord never gives up on me.

What about you, dear friends? Do you need the gardener’s fertilizer and tender loving care? What spurs you to love and good deeds? What will you do to spur one another in this season of Lent?

Let us pray.

Gracious Gardener, thank you for your love and mercy for us, for being patient with us through all the seasons of our lives, seasons of abundancy and seasons of dormancy. Thank you for never giving up on us, no matter what, and the continual help we have from your Holy Spirit, feeding, guiding, and strengthening us to follow your Son. Spur us, dear Lord who is always with us, to love and good deeds. Teach us how to spur one another so that we all grow, bloom, and bear spiritual fruit. Amen. 

Sow

Tell Me About Your Garden Series

Meditation on Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

Second Sunday in Lent

March 16, 2025

You come to fetch me from my work to-night 
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see 
If I can leave off burying the white 
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree. 
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, 
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) 
And go along with you ere you lose sight 
Of what you came for and become like me, 
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. 
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed 
On through the watching for that early birth 
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, 
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes 
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

                                                                             —Robert Frost, “Putting in the Seed”[1]

Thank you to the 15 gardeners, ranging in age from 51 to 102, for opening your homes and gardens to me and sharing your stories in the summer and fall of 2024 and as a group in early spring 2025 for my doctoral project for Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Listen to the devotion here:

       I planted seeds a few weeks ago. They started in my basement on what I expect was either Rev. Edwards’ or Rev. Hulsey’s old dining room table. It has been repurposed for an indoor potting area, which I am truly excited about. I have never had a place in my home to plant seeds and transplant seedlings. It’s kind of a basement she-shed, if you know what I mean.

    One of our gardeners, Betsy, helped me with my seed planting. She is much more experienced at planting seeds than I am. She has planted a vegetable garden from seed since she was a teenager and learned from her father. Last winter was the first time I have ever started seeds in the house. I liked it so much, that I planted seeds and transplanted seedlings all summer long and into the fall. And the plants lived, much to the surprise of our landscapers, who scratched their heads. “No one plants in July,” Craig, Jr., says.

     Now I am hooked. I can’t stop planting seeds.

     Betsy provided the soil this time, as last year, I used a combination of potting soil, an organic garden soil, and peat moss. But I had some issues with the seedlings sometimes getting moldy. Betsy brought me a special soil for seed germination and another soil for transplanting. We put the transplanting soil at the bottom of the seed containers and the seed germination soil on the top, carefully added the seeds, and finished it off with a few sprays of water.

     Within a few days, the seeds started to sprout. Echinacea, Black Eyed Susan, Dusty Miller, Lupine, Red Salvia, Columbine, Butterfly Weed, and Bee Balm. Pretty soon I realized the seeds would be better off upstairs where it was warmer and brighter. Now my she shed is the living room!

      Maybe you grow seeds, too. Do you? Betsy, Belinda, and Reese all start seeds indoors and also direct sow in their garden in spring. Reese grows heirloom tomatoes from seed, as well as peppers and Swiss Chard. Ernie tried growing from seed once, but didn’t have success.

      Belinda says, “I love growing from seed. That’s probably my favorite. …Then you feel like you grew it; it’s your creation. …I probably do more from seeds than existing plants because I get a kick out of it. I also feel that they’re hardier if you grow from seed.” Her husband, Brad, shares how he used to sell seed packets door to door when he was 10 or 11. “I would literally go door to door with my packs of seeds and say, ‘Do you want tomato, or do you want corn?’” Brad even got his own boys to sell seeds door to door one year. “We tried to rekindle my childhood,” he says, and laughs.

Bonnie says she grows marigolds from seed because she wants her granddaughter to “see the results of planting seeds.” “She helped me transplant them to the garden in the front,” Bonnie says. “They were huge last year. I never saw marigolds that tall!”

This year, her granddaughter is anxious to plant seeds with Grandma, again, but this time she wants to grow flowers to attract monarch butterflies. Me, too. That’s why I grow Butterfly Weed. Last year, I found a monarch caterpillar on my plant. That was exciting.

     In biblical times, field crops grown from seed were winter cereals, mainly wheat and barley. Only one summer cereal crop is named in the Bible, a kind of sorghum, “which thrives well in the mountains, without irrigation.”[2] Biblical folks also had fruit and nut trees—date palms, olives, figs, walnuts, almonds, pomegranates, and sycamore.      

      And they planted small gardens near their homes, growing lentils, broad beans, chick-peas, garden peas, onions, leeks, and garlic, as well as coriander, cummin, dill, bitter vetch—an ancient legume—and possibly a kind of carrot. Additionally, they grew watermelons, mentioned in Numbers 11:5-6, when the Israelites in the wilderness are missing the foods that they were accustomed to eating and stuck with eating manna.[3]

     The funny thing to me about the Parable of the Sower is that we never find out what kind of seed the Sower is sowing. The focus is on where the seeds lands, and of course it’s about discipleship. How can we be faithful followers of Jesus Christ? Our Sower in the gospel of Matthew sows his seed everywhere he goes, and the seeds land in four kinds of ground—the footpath, rocky ground, thorny ground, and good, fertile ground.[4]

     Jesus explains the parable, saying the one who “hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path.” The seeds sown “on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet such a person has no root but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away.” The seed sown “among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of this age and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.” Finally, there is the seed “sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

     How should we respond to this teaching?

     Mary Ann Tolbert gives us all the characters in Jesus’ time to help us.  The scribes and Pharisees are those who rejected Jesus instantly, the first category. The “immediate joy and utter failure of the disciples, the second; the wealth, too great to give up,” the rich man in Matthew 19:23, the third.” But who is the fourth? The ones whom Jesus heals, such as the woman with a flow of blood in Matthew 9, to whom Jesus says, “Take heart, my daughter. Your faith has healed you.”[5]

    But there’s another way of interpreting the passage. We are the seed. On which kind of ground did we land? Are we those who didn’t understand the word, sown on the hard path, snatched by birds? Are we lacking in spiritual root, sown on rocks, scorched by the sun, falling away when trouble and persecution comes? Are we so overwhelmed with the “cares of this age and the lure of wealth,” that we yield nothing? OR are we the seed sown on good soil? Are we, indeed, bearing fruit and yielding a hundredfold?

   And there’s still another way to look at it, Barbara Brown Taylor says.[6]

“We hear the story and think it’s all about us, but what if we’re wrong? What if it’s not about us at all but about the sower? What if it’s not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns but about the extravagance of the sower, who does not seem to be fazed by such concerns, who flings seed everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon, who feeds the birds, whistles at rocks, picks his way through the thorns, shouts hallelujah at the good soil and just keeps on sowing, confident that there’s enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?”[7]

     What if the focus is about the grace and generosity of our Creator, who doesn’t “obsess about the condition of the fields.”[8] And isn’t “stingy with the seed.”[9] The Lord “casts the seed everywhere, on good soil and bad.”[10] This is a God “who seems to be willing to keep reaching in the Lord’s seed bag for all eternity, covering the whole creation with the fertile seed of God’s truth.”[11]

      And there’s one more way to interpret the story. This is my way. What if the Lord wants us to focus on the Sower’s generosity and kindness—and be like the Sower? What if we are called to sow extravagantly, without concern over whether the soil is good or bad, without judging if the seed is fruitful or not. Casting seed, sharing the Word, like it will never run out? Because it won’t.

      If you haven’t started sowing your actual seeds, yet, you still have time. One Long Island gardening expert says April is the month when her seed starting “takes root.”[12] Yes, you can start lettuce and broccoli inside as early as February and plant peas and spinach outside as early as mid-March.[13] But most of the tender seedling planting won’t happen around here till Mother’s Day. Maybe you haven’t had success with planting seeds in the past—planting actual seeds in the soil and nurturing plants and sharing the word of God with whom the Lord brings onto your path, into your life, and nurturing them in the faith.

     Be encouraged. It’s not up to us to judge the seed or the soil or our own skill for sowing. It’s not up to us to decide who receives the word of God and who doesn’t. Let us be like our generous, extravagant Maker, sowing seeds of kindness, grace, and truth, wherever we go.

     Sow like we’ll never run out. Because we won’t.

Generous and Extravagant Sower, thank you for your love, mercy, and grace. Thank you for offering your Word, the seeds of eternity, to all people. And that you are patient with us who may not respond right away to your call to be disciples. That you are patient with us who may struggle to share our hope in you with other people whom you bring into our lives. Teach us to be like the Sower, and be extravagant, generous, joyful, and merciful as we seek to be faithful followers of your Son. Amen.

      [1] Robert Frost, “Putting in the Seed,” The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem (NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969), 123-124.

     [2] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 41.

     [3] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 85.

     [4] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 25.

     [5] Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (MN: Fortress Press, 1989),124.

     [6] Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven, 26.

     [7] Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven, 26.

     [8] Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven, 26.

     [9] Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven, 26.

     [10] Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven, 26.

     [11] Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven, 26.

    [12] Irene Virag, Gardening on Long Island, 25.

    [13] Irene Virag, Gardening on Long Island, 25.

Bread

Meditation on Exodus 16, selected verses, and Luke 4:1-13

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

First Sunday in Lent

March 9, 2025

Precious Lord, take my hand

Lead me on, let me stand

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn

Through the storm,

Through the night,

Lead me on to the light.

Take my hand, precious Lord,

And lead me home. – Thomas A. Dorsey [1]

Thank you to the 15 gardeners, ranging in age from 51 to 102, for opening your homes and gardens to me and sharing your stories in the summer and fall of 2024 and as a group in early spring 2025 for my doctoral project for Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Listen to the devotion here:

I had semolina bread for dinner last night. My husband is the bread maker in our household. So I asked him, “What’s semolina bread?” It was delicious. Ours had sesame seeds on the crispy crust and was warmed in the oven with butter. He explained that semolina is a kind of flour made from durum wheat, the same type of flour used for making pasta. 

I had already been thinking about bread all week. We encounter Jesus in the wilderness, on this first Sunday in Lent, hungry and fasting for 40 days. The part in the story that stands out to me is the bread. For the first time, I smile a little when the devil tempts him, saying, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

How do you picture a loaf of bread? For me, the bread is a long loaf, like our Communion bread, and it comes wrapped in paper or plastic from a bakery or grocery store. The semolina bread we ate last night came from Uncle G’s.

But it didn’t really. And this is what I am getting at. When I think of bread, I think of the baked food that we eat, and even though I am mostly a vegetarian and a gardener, I don’t think of bread as being connected to the soil. Unlike other gardeners in our flock, I don’t grow many vegetables, at all.

Many of the gardeners told me that they want to grow FOOD for their families and themselves and FOOD to share with neighbors and friends. One gardener, I’ll call her Julie, said, “Well, flowers are pretty, but you can’t eat them. I like feeding people.” Betsy, Julie, Reese, and Belinda are mainly vegetable and fruit gardeners. Betsy is concerned about eating healthy and living in harmony with the earth. She does an extraordinary amount of canning, freezing, preserving, and cooking of what she grows. Nothing is wasted. Betsy, Belinda, Lily, and Julie make their own pickles, and Betsy and Belinda gave me raspberry jam and jelly, respectively, made from homegrown raspberries.

Jolene also grows food for her family, in addition to the multitude of annual flowers growing in containers around her yard. She grows five types of hot peppers—not sweet peppers—which she hangs, dries, grinds, and pours into jars to flavor her food. Her family’s favorite food grown in the garden, though, never actually makes it to her kitchen table. “Our best crop, she says, “is peas in the pod. We just love them.”

I have been doing them for years. I have never brought them in the house. I have never cooked them. We just eat them right off the vine. When the kids were younger and they had their friends over, I would see them out in the yard, picking them off the vine and eating them. One girl was like, “I don’t eat peas.” And I was like, “Well, you better try one of these.” And she was like, “Oh my gosh, these are delicious!” She was used to canned or frozen peas. There’s nothing like a nice raw pea from the peapod.

I can only imagine the girl who didn’t want to eat peas going home to tell her parents that night, “Guess what I ate? You should try them! They don’t taste anything LIKE peas!”

So, back to Jesus in the wilderness. I never could understand why the devil would tempt him with a stone, but bread in Jesus’ time was made into round loaves. A stone could resemble a loaf of bread in his culture. OK, so why bread? Why not tempt Jesus with a different food? Because bread was the food that everyone ate. That was the mainstay of their diet, along with fruits, such as olives, figs, and grapes. But there was another reason. The devil tempting Jesus to turn a stone into bread was to prove that he was the Son of God. For the Lord God had fed the Israelites bread in the wilderness in their 40 years of wandering.

God says to Moses in Exodus 16, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you.” But what was bread from heaven? Was it even a vegetable or grown in the soil at all? In Exodus 16:14-15, we read how each morning, “When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.” 

He had to tell them what it was! Usually, when someone serves you food, and you have to ask them what it is, you’re probably not very excited about eating it. The Israelites called it manna, which means, “What is it?”

It was “bread” like they had never seen or tasted before. Exodus tells is that it was “like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Jerusalem botanist Michael Zohary says that this is a mysterious thing because coriander is never found in the desert. So it must have really tasted “like coriander” and not have been coriander, which is an annual herb in the carrot family that is native to Israel and “occurs as a weed among winter crops. Once widely cultivated as a condiment, its leaves are sometimes used to flavor soups, puddings, curries, and wines. It also has some medicinal value.”[1]

You’re not going to believe what some scholars think manna really was. In 1891, a man suggested that “manna was a sweet exudation produced by small scaly insects feeding on the tamarisk tree.” The sweet liquid “hardens quickly, drops to the ground, and is collected by the Bedouin as a substitute for sugar or honey.” For a long time, this was considered the scientific explanation for bread from heaven, but then people got to thinking about how those insects are seasonal, and there’s not that many tamarisk trees in the Sinai. So, it’s still a mystery.

Whether the bread from heaven came from plants or insects doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is that God provided food for the hungry Israelites from the natural world around them that sustained them for 40 years. Did they get tired of it? Yes. But no matter what it was, it was a miracle.

In this season of Lent, I would like to challenge us to be more thoughtful and intentional about the food that we eat. Let food be a spiritual practice for us, as we remember that God is the source of ALL our nourishment—body, mind, and soul–and that it isn’t just food we need to nourish our bodies, but the Word of God. This is the phrase that is missing from our Luke reading, when Jesus answers, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’ He is quoting from Deut. 8:3 (NRSV), which says, “He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

And I will close my devotion today with a discussion of one another biblical plant that was eaten in the wilderness—not by Jesus, but by John the Baptist. Do you remember what John ate? Locusts and wild honey, right? Well, I always thought locusts were, you know, grasshoppers. But I learned that scholars think John the Baptist was actually a vegetarian. They have identified the fruit eaten from the “locust” in Matthew and the pods in Luke, in the story of the Prodigal son eating the pods that the pigs were eating, as the fruit from a carob tree.

Carob, which has a sweet and chocolatey flavor, is native to Israel and is called, “St. John’s Bread.” The Arabs make a sweet syrup from the pulp of the fruit from the medium-sized evergreen tree; it contains as much as 50 percent sugar and is consumed by both human beings and animals.[2]

You know, we are so critical of our bodies. God doesn’t look at us in the same critical way that we do. Instead of us worrying about our weight, size, or shape, instead, let us eat without anxiety and give thanks to God for our food, especially when we eat bread, remembering the miracle feeding of God’s people in the wilderness and our daily bread, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, the true Bread from Heaven that nourishes us to eternal life.

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for your Bread from Heaven, the manna that fed your children for 40 years in the wilderness and Your Son, whose body nourishes us to eternal life. Thank you for feeding us every day. Help us to recognize what is truly food, grown from soil in your Creation, and be more intentional, especially during this holy season, about what we take into our bodies. Teach us to make good choices so that what we eat truly is food to strengthen us to serve you and our neighbors with joy, all the days of our life. Amen.

 [1] Thomas Dorsey in Giving Thanks, Poems Prayers and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving, edited by Katherine Paterson, 36.

[2] Michael Zohary, Plants of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 92.

[3] Zohary, Plants of the Bible, 63.

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