God's Greenhouse

 Preached at St Mary the virgin, Little Burstead on 27 March 2022

The Greenhouse

It’s the time of year when the seed trays are filled with special compost, seeds are sprinkled or perhaps carefully placed and covered, and the trays are gently watered. Once they have been prepared, they are placed in the greenhouse to protect them from a late frost – which can occur even in this age of global heating.

Then they are regularly and frequently checked to ensure they are moist enough, and we wait. For tomatoes, which I mainly grow, it’s normally about 7 days before the first two green leaves appear. Then there is even more attention required, as the trays must be turned so that the plants do not bend too much in one direction. Eventually the real leaves begin to grow, and by the time there are two or three of them it’s time for the plant to be moved out of the greenhouse to the grow-bag to do its real growing and to produce the fruit that we are waiting for.

Joshua

In our Old Testament reading this morning, the Israelites have celebrated their first passover since wandering in the desert for 40 years. (Ex 16) During that time God has provided them with ‘Manna’ every morning – He has been looking after their physical needs on a daily basis and no work has been required of them to produce this food. All they had to do was collect it. If they collected too much it could not be eaten the next day, except on the day before the Sabbath, when they collected twice as much, and it lasted two days.

This was also a test to see if they could be obedient – many of them could not.

Nurture

God has been carefully nurturing them – getting them to a point where they can ‘stand on their own two feet’. On Mothering Sunday, we should remember that God’s character is as much mothering as it is fathering.

They have effectively been in God’s greenhouse.

Now, they have been moved outside. Now they have to do the work – they have to work the fields, herd the sheep, prepare the food, build their houses, and eventually finish occupying the promised land.

Only then can they produced the fruit that God is looking for. That is for them to be a blessing to the nations of the world, as God promised Abraham they would be. (Gen 12:1-3)

Conversion

We, too, can be in God’s greenhouse. Think back to that time when you had just said your first prayer, giving your life to Christ. Not everyone will have had that experience, but it was true for me. After that, prayer was easy, and I seemed to get ready answers to most of my prayers. I could soak up bible verses like I was a sponge. Everything fun, and relatively easy. I’ve heard others report similar experiences. What was that time like for you?

Of course, it didn’t last very long, but by then I’d learnt so much and my outlook had changed from being a very sceptical agnostic to being a quite sceptical believer.

Growth

I’d grown a lot, in a very short space of time – perhaps only 6 months. Then there was the start of a calling, and I was quickly given things to do by those around me. That meant work, study, preparation, meetings, discussions and more work.

Nurture

I wasn’t on my own for any of this, there were older more mature Christians around me helping me to see where the Spirit was, or wasn’t leading, and helping me to learn in practical ways too.

Blessing

After all, we have essentially the same mission as the Israelites, to be a blessing to the people around us. To do that, it’s important to know what you believe and have some ideas about how to communicate it to others.

Real World

To be useful in the real world, in Jesus’s mission to save people from judgement and death, we have to be clear about verses like those in James 2:14-17

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

We don’t want to be like the Corinthians, where Paul says to them:

I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.

Or to continue my greenhouse analogy, we don’t want to stay in the greenhouse for our entire lives, but to get out into the grow-bags, and have the ability to produce some real fruit.

Mistakes

Of course, it is not all plain sailing, there will be mistakes along the way. Well, I say mistakes, there is only really one mistake. We see that in our New Testament reading.

The son leaves the father and goes to do his own thing.

That’s the mistake we make, in many creative and inventive ways, time and again.

The son realises his mistake, just in time, before he starves to death, and decides to return to his father. He is genuinely repentant, and willing to accept the consequences of his actions, only expecting to be employed as a labourer.

Re-instated

But that is not what his father has in mind at all. Instead of placing him among the workers, his father re-instates him to his position as son. To be sure that the errant son knows that he is completely forgiven, a celebration is held, and no expense is spared on the party.

The celebration is an act of nurturing and restoration. It is important not only that the son is restored, but that he knows he is restored. So, in my analogy, the son is given a little time in the greenhouse to recover, so that he can begin to grow again in the outside world.

Shows us God’s ways

This parable is showing us God’s way of dealing with us when we make the mistake of leaving Him, realise our error and return, accepting our mistake and the consequences it brings. When we do that we are restored to our former position as sons (or daughters) and are allowed, or perhaps I should say, expected, to carry on the work where we left off -consequences permitting, of course.

The other Brother

The parable has three characters in it, the father, his eldest son and his youngest son. The eldest has been faithful, and he has been working towards his inheritance all his life. If I’ve understood the inheritance laws correctly, he is to get two thirds of the estate, while the youngest gets one third.

As the Elder Brother

We should try to put ourselves in the place of the eldest brother. How do we react when new people arrive in the kingdom, with gifts and abilities which dwarf our own, and wild stories of a life we have never lived? Do we welcome them, nurture them, and celebrate their joining in with what is frankly a huge workload?

How do we react when people stray from the faith and then return?

Do we rant about how little pleasure we’ve had and all the hard work we’ve done?

It’s as though the elder son is jealous of his younger sibling's adventures, instead of being sorry for him that he left his father in the first place. I wonder if he can ever see his mistake, because in his rant, he has left his father just as surely as the younger one did earlier.

He also needs some time in the greenhouse to calm down and get his focus back.

Round-up

To round-up our thoughts about God’s greenhouse, there is just one other thing that I need to share with you this morning. Remember what I said earlier about the time immediately after conversion, when everything in the garden was rosy? (sorry, to mix the metaphors)

Looking back

I’ve known people who look back longingly at that time as some sort of ‘golden age’ in their lives. But living in the greenhouse only allows us access to a tiny part of the world, and limits our space to grow and therefore our potential achievements for God.

Looking Forward

The Bible reminds us that there is much more to come, and much more to receive from God:

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

I believe these verses, and others, tell us that we should look forward longingly to what God will graciously give us, outside the greenhouse, not look back at the little we have already received while in it.

Amen.