Dirt Under Our Nails--August 27, 2021

Dirt Under Our Nails--August 27, 2021

"Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet 'in a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back.' But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved." [Hebrews 10:35-39]

As I write, there are sunflowers outside my living room window.  They are blossoming gloriously in all sorts of shades, from golden yellow to rich warm ochres to a variety in mahogany, too.  And they are towering over my head--all just the way sunflowers are meant to be.  They are what I was hoping for back in May when I cleared a small rectangle of ground and scattered seeds into the freshly tilled earth. This is the season I have been waiting for all along.

But like almost anything worthwhile in this life, those blossoms have been a long time coming.  And most of the work and waiting have been mundane, tedious, and tiresome.  Most of the work in tending the patch of sunflowers has been in the hot sun, without glamor or glory, getting dirt under my fingernails, pulling pernicious weeds, keeping deer and rabbits out, and wiping sweat from my brow.  This is just the nature of things--the nature of nature itself, actually.

I have been learning again this summer that this is so often what faith looks like: the day by day persistence in labor that might not look like it is doing anything, in the confident trust that the waiting and working will come to fruition beyond my own ability or power.  It's the willingness to keep going out into the garden, getting soil worn into the lines on my hands, sweat dripping off my forehead, knowing that there won't be any blossoms for a long while--and doing the good work of weeding or watering anyway.  We keep doing it--even though there are months of work without seeing results.  We keep at it, trusting that our efforts will be a part of the miracle God's creation pulls off by turning a tiny seed into a towering sunflower.

I think that's the way we have to understand this talk from Hebrews about the reward that comes from our enduring faith.  It's not like God is giving unrelated prizes to bribe humans into virtuous behavior. The gospel's promise is not a deal like, "Get a good enough score on your theology exam, and then you'll get a heavenly vacation as your winnings." It's more like gardening--you plant a sunflower seed and tend it, and what do you know, at the end of the season, you get sunflower blossoms to enjoy.  The "reward" is perfectly fitting for the labor, because it is the outcome of the labor itself.  Faith is the trust that earthy tasks done on hands and knees like digging and planting can be used in the process of creating a blossom on top of a stalk rising ten feet in the air.  And for us as the people of God, our trust is in the God who brings blossoms out of seeds, wine out of water jars, Lazarus out of the grave, and something good out of our meager efforts.  

On most days, Christian life will look embarrassingly ordinary, and easily overlookable: small acts of kindness, quiet words of comfort, a choice to speak truthfully, a choice to listen carefully, an effort to serve, or a silent wait with someone who needs you to be with them as the presence of Christ. But we dare to believe that in God's hands, such low-to-the-ground actions are a witness of God's Reign of love in all the world.  We trust that God will work through such humble raw materials as our words and actions, and that out of them God might just pull up a sunflower or two.  So we keep at it, through the growing season that we call life, even on the days it doesn't look like our efforts mean anything, and even when the work is tiring and thankless.  We keep at it because we trust the God who has called us to such work, and who meets us in those earthy places where love leaves the smell of humus on our hands.

Lord God, enable us to trust you and your power to bring wonders from our daily work to witness to your kingdom.