This morning, before we settle at the table and pour our second cup of coffee, I want to take you into the garden.
There is a patch of ground beside our house that has been overtaken by Japanese knotweed. If you have ever encountered knotweed, you know how persistent it can be. It spreads quickly, establishes deep roots, and seems almost insulted when you try to remove it. Cut it down, and it returns. Pull it up and another shoot appears nearby. At times, it feels less like gardening and more like negotiating with a plant that has no intention of honoring the agreement.
Nicky has been working on that patch almost every day. She pulls what she can and snaps off the new shoots as soon as they emerge. There has been no single dramatic afternoon when the knotweed surrendered, and the garden was restored. The work has been patient, repetitive, and largely unnoticed. She returns to the same ground and does what needs to be done, knowing she will probably have to do it again tomorrow.
This week, however, she noticed something.
New plants were growing in places where, for as long as we can remember, nothing but knotweed had grown before.
The knotweed has not disappeared. The work is not finished. But something has changed. Her persistence has created enough room for light to reach the ground and for other life to emerge. What had seemed like a lost patch of earth is beginning to reveal possibilities that were hidden beneath the surface.
With that image in mind, let us brush the dirt from our hands and return to the table.
For the past several Sundays, Jesus has been leading us through fields and gardens. First came the sower scattering seed with extravagant generosity. Then came the field where wheat and weeds were growing together, and the servants were warned against assuming they could safely sort one from the other. This week, Jesus continues the conversation with more images of the Kingdom: a mustard seed, yeast hidden in flour, treasure buried in a field, a pearl of great value, a net lowered into the sea, and a householder bringing old and new treasures from the storeroom.
At first, these may seem like a collection of unrelated sayings. But Matthew has arranged them as parts of one continuing conversation about the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is teaching his disciples—and us—how to recognize God’s presence and activity in the world.
The Kingdom, Jesus says, is like a mustard seed. It begins so small that it can easily be overlooked, yet it grows into something large enough to provide shelter for the birds. It is like yeast that disappears into flour and works quietly until the whole loaf has been transformed. It is like treasure hidden in an ordinary field or a pearl recognized by someone who understands its worth.
The Kingdom does not always arrive with trumpets and banners. Sometimes it appears as a small shoot in ground we thought had been lost.
That is the lesson Nicky’s garden has been teaching me. New life may already be waiting beneath the surface. Our task is not to manufacture it. Our task is to cultivate the conditions in which it can emerge.
I think the Church needs to hear this.
Churches spend a great deal of time asking how we can attract new members. We discuss programs, publicity, worship styles, websites, music, and signs by the road. Those may all have their place, but perhaps we are beginning with the wrong question.
Instead of asking only, “How can we attract new people?” perhaps we should ask, “What needs to be altered so that new life has room to grow?”
New plants did not appear in the garden because Nicky advertised the available space. They appeared because her patient work changed the conditions of the ground. Light reached places that had been shaded. Space opened where one plant had occupied everything. Life that had been hidden finally had room to emerge.
The same may be true in our churches. There may be people in our communities longing for companionship, purpose, spiritual depth, and a place where their questions will be welcomed. They may not be waiting for a clever invitation. They may be looking for a community in which they can put down roots and grow.
Before asking why they are not coming, perhaps we should ask what they would encounter if they did.
Would they find room for their questions? Would their gifts be recognized? Would they be invited to participate in meaningful ways? Would they discover a community willing to listen as well as speak? Would they be welcomed as they are, or would they first be expected to become more like those already gathered?
These are difficult questions because they turn our attention away from the people outside and back toward the conditions we have created inside. They ask us to look honestly at the customs, assumptions, and preferences that occupy our common life. Some of those traditions nourish us and connect us with generations of faithful people. Others may once have served a purpose but now consume so much light and space that little else can grow.
This does not mean tearing everything out by the roots. Last week’s parable warned us against becoming too confident in our ability to distinguish wheat from weeds. Something unfamiliar is not necessarily harmful, and something familiar is not necessarily life-giving. The people around us are never the knotweed. We are not called to remove people who think, worship, vote, love, or live differently from us. The work of cultivation is directed toward the habits, structures, and assumptions that prevent people from flourishing.
The purpose is not destruction. The purpose is restoration.
Jesus concludes these parables with the image of a scribe trained for the Kingdom, like the master of a household bringing out treasures both new and old. Jesus does not ask us to choose between them. The old is not discarded simply because it is old, and the new is not rejected simply because it is unfamiliar. Both are brought into the light and considered in relation to the Kingdom.
Honoring the past means remembering those who cultivated this ground before us: those who built our churches, taught our children, sang the hymns, prepared the table, buried the dead, fed the hungry, paid the bills, and kept the light burning through difficult seasons. We are here because of their faithfulness.
But honoring them does not necessarily mean preserving every choice they made. They responded to the needs of their time with the wisdom and understanding available to them. The deepest way to honor their courage may be to respond just as faithfully to the needs of our own time.
The past gives us roots, but the future needs room to grow.
Perhaps we might think of the past as compost rather than concrete. Concrete preserves a particular shape by preventing movement. Compost receives what has been, allows it to be transformed, and returns it to the soil as nourishment for what comes next. Nothing is wasted. The prayers, sacrifices, wisdom, failures, and love of those who came before us become part of the ground from which the future grows.
This is not change for the sake of change. Nor is it an excuse to discard whatever has become inconvenient. It is discernment rooted in the character of God.
We begin with God. We remember that every person bears the divine image. We remember that God gathers people into covenant and calls us to live not as isolated individuals but as a community responsible for one another. Then we ask the question that has been quietly following us through these Sundays:
What does love require of us now?
Love may require us to preserve a tradition because it continues to carry wisdom and grace. Love may require us to reinterpret that tradition so another generation can receive its treasure. Love may require us to release something with gratitude because it has completed its work. Love may require us to confront habits that exclude people or prevent their gifts from flourishing. Love may require patience, humility, courage, or the willingness to return to the same patch of ground tomorrow and begin again.
If God is still speaking, perhaps this is the question God places before every generation: What does love require of us now?
The answer will not always be obvious. That is why we return to Scripture, tradition, prayer, reason, experience, and one another. We bring the old and new treasures to the table. We listen for the Spirit. We look carefully at what is growing. And we resist the temptation to finish the conversation before God has finished speaking.
The new plants in Nicky’s garden appeared before the knotweed was completely gone. I find great hope in that. Renewal does not wait until every difficulty has been resolved. Resurrection does not require perfect conditions. New life can emerge while the struggle continues.
Perhaps that is the mustard seed. Perhaps that is the yeast hidden in the flour. Perhaps that is the treasure waiting beneath an ordinary field.
The Kingdom of God may already be growing among us, quietly and persistently, in places we assumed were beyond recovery. Our vocation is not to control it or manufacture it. Our vocation is to notice, to make room, and to cultivate the ground with love.
The garden teaches us to see. The table teaches us to love. And somewhere between the garden and the table, the Kingdom continues to grow.
