Ben’s August Letter
Dear Friends in Christ,
Years ago I preached a funeral for a man whose retirement hobby involved grafting different fruit onto his peach tree. His family had kept fruit in Pennsylvania when he was a child, and seventy years later he began doing it himself in his small yard in northwest Ohio. I didn’t know any of this when I preached on the fruits of the spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23)—which this man had in spades. It was only after the service was done that his daughter told me “I didn’t know you knew about Dad’s fruit trees…”. Sometimes God refuses to let us miss the point.
August is the best month in our part of the world for local fruit. Stone fruit and melons some berries are reaching their peak; by the end of the month the earliest grapes, apples, and pawpaws will be at the farmer’s market. It’s almost overwhelming if you like fruit, because it’s hard to eat all of it. Something about a table overflowing with peaches and tomatoes and cantaloupes and blackberries feels rich and abundant to me in a way that my groceries never do other times of the year. When Paul wrote his letter to the church in Galatia, he no doubt knew the feeling of a table covered in late summer’s finest fruit. He chose his metaphor of a life shaped by God carefully, because the feeling of an abundant table and an abundant life felt the same to him. Sometimes we need the Bible to be interpreted through context that is lost to us—but this context is not lost. We easily understand the similarity between a good harvest and a good life.
Evergreen 2030 has been talking about how our congregation can help its members and the world outside of our doors to experience the abundance of life we feel when we have the fruits of the spirit on the table. To see how life is better when our faith and its traditions have helped us to grow love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. An idea has grown, of an orchard, a grove, a garden—where we teach and learn how to love bigger, live with joy, foster peace, practice patience, show kindness, give generously, bring faithfulness to our relationships, to walk gently, to live with limits.
You will hear more about this idea, this orchard of spiritual fruit, in the months ahead. In the mean time, enjoy the fruits of late summer. Buy too many of them, wonder “what do I even do with all of these berries?” Share a watermelon with a neighbor. Put them all on the table and say “what a luxury to have so much fresh fruit…” Buy as much as you can carry, and give it to the Gleaning Booth for NEEDS. And then imagine what life is like when the fruits on your table are matched by the fruits of your life.
Rev. Ben