Gardening with God: the Cambridge Mott Sermon 2010

In 1762 Alderman William Mott gave £5 p.a. to endow an annual sermon at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge. A memorial tablet in the church records that 10/6 should go to the preacher, 5/- to be divided between the minister, wardens and overseers for their trouble, and the rest to go to the poor. The money (I am told) has long since gone (though the poor, the vicar says, are still with them), but the tradition continues as part of the Mayoral Civic Sunday, and this year it is my privilege to deliver the sermon, on a theme close to my heart.                                              (photo © Cambridge 2000)

Thankyou very much for the privilege of preaching for you on this special and historic occasion. Our local civic government is seriously important to us, and we are grateful to those who serve in it, and keep them regularly in our prayers as Scripture says we should. Those prayers today are particularly with our new Mayor Cllr Sheila Stuart in what will be a demanding but exhilarating year, and in her honour I have dug out my own proper episcopal dress, which is still mercifully, I fear, a little cooler than mayoral fur.

Most of the time, of course, both the mayor and I will be dressed as you are, whether that is for undertaking our duties, or digging the garden. I don’t know whether Alderman Mott whose sermon I’m delighted to be preaching today (and whose 10/6 I would once have had) was a gardener, but Jean and I are totally Titchmarshed out after maxing all last week on the Chelsea Flower Show. We’re not born gardeners, but have twice been given large gardens to take on. The first was at a Cumbrian country rectory. It was a damp, sheltered spot and everything green grew like crazy. I used to dream of pruning. Now we have a lovely mature garden in Ely, where we can grow a wonderful variety of flowers and veg and we took ourselves off to the Beth Chatto gardens (pictured) a few days ago and came home well laden with new ones. Her motto is very much getting the right plants in the right places so they just romp away perfectly naturally. It’s a lovely image of how I think God wants it to be for each of us – growing splendidly, each in our own way, because we’re planted as we should be.

The idea of God as a gardener is of course built into the very structure of the Bible. It’s there at the beginning with the Garden of Eden. It’s there at the end in the image of the new Jerusalem. On the wall of the temple in the old Jerusalem, was a great garden vine because that was one of Israel’s main pictures of itself – as God’s vine in God’s vineyard. Jesus picks up the picture in several of his parables, and it was probably in front of the great golden vine that he gave the teaching we’ve just heard today, en route through the temple precincts – not unpoignantly – to another garden, that of Gethsemane.

Jesus’s teaching here is, if you like, his handbook for gardening with God. How can we grow as well as plants in God’s garden? He focuses on three things which we’ll look at in turn – first roots, then shoots, and finally fruits.

First, Jesus talks about is our need as Christians to remain or abide in him. The image, familiar to his Jewish listeners, is one of vine branches being grafted into a good rootstock, just as we do with say apple trees today. The rootstock is Christ himself. So grafted, the branch shares in the life of the root and grows well in a natural, organic, individual way. In theological terms, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, flows from him into us. In its vitality and strength we grow in him, like him and for him. Jesus compares the relationship to one of love and friendship and if he also speaks of obedience, it is the obedience of love, with us remaining faithful to our roots, so we can grow as we are meant to, not the obedience of a servant or slave. This is why we cannot be Christians without a deep relatedness in a very personal way, to Christ. We can unpack that in many ways, but the important thing, I suggest, is not the language or the labels we use, but whether the root of our life is in Christ or not, and whether we are doing the things that help us – such as prayer, Bible reading, good friendships, and wise counsel – to draw the nourishment he can give us. How is it with your roots?

Then shoots. The word ‘pruning’ is the one that catches our attention, and we must come back to it. But for now the excellent news is that just as in our Cumbrian garden, pruning implies that there has been abundant growth. We are not talking about a one-stem wonder here. God is the life giver par excellence and his garden is full of grafts, full of people-shaped plants. Every one of them is sharing in his own life, his love, his joy, his business – all of which are named by Jesus as flowing from the roots to the shoots. In work with children we say “every child matters”. As Christians we know that that is underpinned by the deep truth that we are all God’s children, and every child of God matters to him. This is the foundation of the inclusive society, and where we can say on principle that every person is also gifted and able, because of the gifts of God’s spirit are given to all. The church in fact, for all its foibles and recent bad press, is in its true nature the vey place where community can be built in a way that meets our deepest aspirations and can be a source of light and help for society for as a whole. When it works then hospitals are built, schools founded, great companies forge, the homeless housed and slaves set free. When it goes wrong, it is a tragedy that demands our sincere repentance and renewed determination to help every plant grow in the garden of God. How is it with your shoots?

This takes us to fruits, and back to pruning. The branches that are pruned out are the ones that do not bear fruit – and by that I understand the ones that choose to keep their life for themselves. God is the life giver, and the life that comes from him is designed always to be given away, shared, used for the benefit of others. It is all too easy for us as individuals or as churches or as whole societies to live for ourselves, not others. But even the best things go off if they are not put to use properly – like that fancy pate you bought before Christmas and only rediscovered at New Year growing green hair in that corner of the fridge that always gets forgotten. The Church must take the lead here. Archbishop Temple called it the only society that exists for the benefit of others, not itself, and said that its most important part was – the door. The Bible does not say that God so loved the church that he sent his son, but so loved the world. We need to be out there and doing, giving, not concerned with ourselves but for those with whom we can share the life God has given us. And paradoxically, the less we think of ourselves, the more we give to others, the more we in fact will grow as well. The latest rounds of public spending cuts mean that every one of us will need to be on active service in loving our neighbour as ourself. How is it with your fruits?

Roots, shoots and fruits. Letting the love that gave life to the whole of the cosmos grow life and love in us. Rejoicing that we are not alone in the God’s garden but actively enjoying and encouraging every person in it to play their part. And then giving it all away in the name of the God who gave everything to us and everything for us, and will give it all again.

Filed under: Gardening, Sermons and Talks