How
Shall We Wait?
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the September 24, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“I
planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who
plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he
who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward
according to his own labor.” 1
Corinthians 3:6-8, NIV
I grew up in the small town of Port Orchard, Washington.
Strangely, perhaps, there were few if any orchards to be found in that port. The
port had originally been named Sidney for the father of Frederick Stevens who
platted the town site. Soon after and shortly before the turn of the 20th
century, the county government was moved to Sidney. A campaign soon followed to
rename the little community, Port Orchard for Orchard Bay. Eventually, with the
help of the Post Office, the new name stuck. A thriving little community
developed based on the lumber industry and a naval shipyard built across the
bay in Bremerton. By the time I lived there, the community, which is over 11
thousand today, had become a town of about 3 thousand citizens. This was the
1950s-60s
The high school I attended had the distinction of being
one of the larger high schools in the state. When you couple a large student
population with a rather small town, opportunities for part-time employment for
a teenager were scarce. However, I found summer employment with my
great-grandmother who lived on a few acres in an even smaller town halfway
between Port Orchard and Bremerton at the head of the bay. That town had been
founded by her second husband, Willet Frone and another man. They tossed a coin
to determine who would have the town named after him and who would get a street
instead. Since there is a Frone Drive in Gorst, Washington, we know how the
coin toss went. Being a fairly rural location, in spite of making pretensions
to being a town, Gorst was a place where my grandmother was able to have some
land in raspberries as well as a small orchard and a vegetable garden.
By the time I was a teenager, she had survived two husbands, but in spite of
her age and some disabilities, she continued to struggle to keep her little raspberry
farm in operation. In order to make that possible, I and my siblings would
spend weeks there in the summertime helping with the many chores. As the
oldest, more of the physical work perhaps fell my way. Picking raspberries in
the hot sun for much of the day, was draining work that required a certain amount
of stamina to keep going. Of course since we were children, more than a few
berries found their way into our mouths. Delicious, juicy berries are very
tempting in the summer heat. However, since we were paid a portion of the sale
price of each flat we picked, we soon figured out that putting berries in our
mouths meant the flats did not fill as quickly and therefore, our earnings per
hour in the field suffered.
While we usually picked berries every third day, this
did not mean we weren’t busy the other days. We made use of hoes to weed the
berry rows as well as the vegetable garden, and because the sandy soil quickly
dried out, we were constantly watering the berries. Even today, I am amazed at
the amount of water necessary to have a beautiful crop of raspberries. While my
grandmother with the help of this teenage boy who could push a wheelbarrow from
the manure pile to the berry patch would organically fertilize the berry
plants, it was the water that made the real difference in the size and
juiciness of the crimson globes.
While my work in her berry fields allowed me to earn
enough to purchase my first transistor radio, my first guitar, and my first
bicycle, it also taught me a lot about principles that would later be
reinforced by reading in the Bible. First I learned that there is a lot of work
that has to be done that isn’t actually picking berries, and while I reaped the
reward of being paid a portion of the price for each flat of berries, a lot of
unpaid work earlier made that later reward possible. If I served the berries
well, they would serve me well. This is a principle that is true for every
farmer and every crop and at every level whether small farm or large. Without preparation
the harvest would produce many fewer berries that were small and difficult to
sell due to their undesirable appearance. No amount of glib salesmanship could hide
the fact that the berries had not been properly cared for. The berries
themselves cried out about the neglect.
A second lesson I learned was that the harvest was
progressive. The berries did not all ripen at the same time. I could not simply
sweep through the vines, harvesting every berry I found. My grandmother
instructed me to pick the berries “clean, but not too clean.” In other words I was
not to miss any ripe berries, but at the same time I was to avoid picking
berries that weren’t quite ripe yet. Those who did not listen to her counsel
about this found out the hard way the wisdom of her words. While the temptation
to pick the slightly green berries prompted us at first to try to fill the
flats more quickly in order to be paid more, when the next picking time came
three days later, the bushes yielded fewer flats so less was earned overall
than would have been earned if the berries had been picked properly. Some apparently
continue to struggle with this lesson. Even today, when I buy a box of berries in
the store, and I find several half green berries in the box, I feel cheated,
but I also know why they are there, and I hope that the picker learned to do
better.
Until fairly recently, mankind lived primarily a settled
agrarian existence. With such an existence, the lessons of the Bible spoke
directly to our daily experience. This was understood to be tied to mankind’s
purpose from the very beginning.[i] Perhaps this was intended
to teach man and woman, in their care for the plants, to exercise similar care
for one another. It is not a great leap from seeing plants thrive with proper
care to seeing fellow human beings thrive with proper care as well. We have
wandered far from that understanding over the centuries as we have found
ourselves more willing to take what we can to cater to our own desires than to
nurture one another. It was never God’s intent for anyone to be lonely,[ii] impoverished,[iii] abandoned,[iv] or neglected.[v] When we minister to these,
we are serving the harvest to come. Just as I watered, fertilized and weeded those
berries, and I anticipated the harvest but could not actually see it, so we
serve one another by being there with open arms and hearts for the lonely,
financial support and mentoring for the impoverished, restoration for the
abandoned, as well as providing equally for those who have been neglected. In
doing all of this, we must be sure to provide the ingredient that is as essential
to our fellow human beings as water was to the berries – hope.
There is an evil in the world that feeds on accusations,
despair, and doubt. But the counter to all of that is hope, and as Christians,
we should be sure we never leave anyone without hope. Everything written in the
Bible is to that one end, that we might have hope.[vi] That hope is personified
as water, living water, in Jesus Christ.[vii] That hope will bring us
to the best possible harvest as we continue to water the world with it. The
sandy soil of this planet is easily parched when hope is not applied liberally.
Then the vines wilt and the harvest which should have been abundant is meager with
small, hardened fruit. When we take away hope, those who lose it may question
their purpose and may even question the need to go on living. They become like
raspberries that question whether or not they should even be raspberries. But
when we water others with the hope of the Gospel, and we see that hope take
root in their hearts, we also renew our own hope through that experience. The
crop that we feed, in turn feeds us. As we serve one another, we in turn are served.
It is also important for us to realize that as we work
in service to the harvest that until the end of all things, the harvest will
continue to be progressive. We should not become discouraged because some or
even many of the berries on the vine are still green as gourds. These are for
future harvests and must continue to be served in the same way as those which
are plump and red. Looked at from this perspective, every human being, just as
much as every berry, deserves equal service and nurture. One day, the owner of
the field will return and one glance at the fruit will tell Him whether the
vines were well cared for or allowed to wither. He will not be impressed by
learned discussions about the biology of fruit growing. He will not be impressed
about our professed love for Him as owner of the field. Instead, He will read
in the harvest about our feelings toward Him. Fortunately, we still have time
to tend the vines.
