The Resurrection of Our Lord (2007): "The Grafting of the Gardener of Souls"

The Resurrection of Our Lord (2007): "The Grafting of the Gardener of Souls"
Acts 10:34-43;
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26;
John 20:1-18
preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, on April 8th, 2007

I’ve tried gardening. And I’ll probably try gardening again. I wouldn’t call myself the best gardener, though – there’s something about gardening that assumes you’re going to keep your eyes open, and be diligent. You’ve got to keep watering, and make sure you plant the right thing in the right season.

That part I can do well enough, most of the time. That’s not the part that I have had the most difficulty with. The hardest part for me is keeping my eyes open to what’s around me.

***

When I was about 12, a sapling started growing up in our yard. It was an elm sapling. I loved that little sapling. I was the one who mowed the lawn, and every Saturday, I carefully mowed around this sapling.

The rest of the trees didn’t matter to me at all, just this little sapling, this little elm tree. It took years for that little tree to grow to any height, and it was still there when I went away to university. But when I went away to university, someone else started mowing the lawn. So you know what happened, right? My precious little sapling got mowed over by someone with a little less love for that little elm tree than I did.

***

I lived in California for a few years, and Karen and I had our first back-yard there. So we thought we might do some gardening. One of my favourite herbs is rosemary, so I was particularly excited to grow some rosemary in our new back-yard. I gave that little rosemary so much attention. But it never grew. All I had was a little shrimpy rosemary branch sticking out of the mud, so small that to take enough rosemary off that shrub for any cooking, was to risk the life of the poor little guy. So we cooked without rosemary.

That rosemary never grew, and Karen and I left it to die when we left that house.

***

And so we find Mary Magdalene in another garden, in another time, looking for her Lord, the one who was going to save her, but who died an anonymous, wretched, and torturous death on a cross, just three days before. She went to the tomb to visit a dead man, but what she was looking for wasn’t there; and she discovers that her Lord and saviour is not only dead, but his body has disappeared: “They have taken my Lord out of the tomb,” says Mary to Peter and the beloved disciple, “and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Her saviour is not only dead, he’s dead and gone.

***

You know that little elm sapling that I so lovingly mowed around, only to have it get mowed over by a reckless gardener? If I had taken a minute to look around I would have realized something. Let me say a bit about where I grew up: I grew up near the centre of the city, in a neighbourhood where old old trees grew on the boulevard all the way up and down the street. Think about it for a second – I was worried about a little elm sapling (as beautiful as it was), but if I had only looked up to what was there – I grew up on Elm street, it wasn’t called Elm street because poplar grew on it! Great, hulking, cathedral elms swung over my head every day I mowed that lawn. Seeds had already been planted,
and the fruits of someone else’s labour swung above me, and if only I took a minute to look up, my pet project would sure have been put into perspective.

And in California, while I agonized over that little shrimpy shrub of rosemary, if I had taken a minute to look around, I would have seen that rosemary grows like a weed in that little California town. If I had taken a good look, I would have seen that people grew rosemary for shrubs on their front lawns, and that I passed rosemary bush after rosemary bush every day on my way to the bus stop. If only I had looked, I would have seen that the fruits of the seeds that someone else had already planted were already there, the fruit was available in abundance – and my little pet project would have come into perspective.

And when Mary Magdalene, who is looking for a dead man, when she looks up,
it turns out she is as dense as I am. Mary is looking for her Lord, who she thinks is a dead man. But she finds a gardener. And Mary says to the gardener, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Mary couldn’t see what was right in front of her, as concerned as she was with her nearly meaningless errand.

But the gardener says to her, “Mary!” And in a moment Mary understands; what she has been looking at, but not seeing, was that this man, the gardener, is the man she thought was dead; her Lord, the gardener, the first fruits of her salvation, this gardener is her Lord. Mary doesn’t finally see her Lord in a fit of ecstasy; she is not in some kind of deep prayer; she only needs someone to tell her who she is: “Mary!”

Jesus the gardener calls out her name, and in this calling of Mary she finally sees the gardener for who he is; Mary was looking for a sapling, but found a cathedral elm;
Mary was looking for a sprig, but found a field full of rosemary; Mary was looking for the dead, but she finds a living God, a living man.

And this living God, this living man, is the gardener of souls, the one we see for who he is when he calls out our name. This gardener of souls is calling out Mary’s name;
he’s calling out my name; this gardener of souls is calling out your name; and when we hear our name from his lips we call out to him “Teacher!”

***

But this gardener of souls offers us far more than the friendship he spoke of at the last supper; he offers far more than being our Teacher, though this gardener is both of these things: he is our friend, and our teacher.

But this gardener of souls, the man who is God, the crucified one, the risen one, says to Mary: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” This gardener of souls offers to us participation in the divine life of the Father, participation in the divine life of God, through the work of our brother, our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. The world has been pruned and is ready to bear the fruit of everlasting life because this gardener is himself the first-fruits of the salvation that we will know if we believe in him. He has died, yet he is not dead; he is risen and has ascended, yet he is here with us in the power of the Holy Spirit. Through death and resurrection the gardener grafts us to himself, saving us and bringing into the fullness of life through participation in the very life of the Holy Trinity.

***

So what have you come here looking for? I don't know exactly why you're here, but if your looking for anything less than the living God, open you eyes! The living God has walked among us as a man; the living God suffered death on the cross in Jesus of Nazareth; the living God in a living human body has risen to the fullness of life in the Father; and the living God leaves us signs of his presence in the fruit of the field and the fruit of the vine made true by the Holy Spirit.

Feed on the fruit of salvation made known to us in the one who offers himself on this table, the salvation made known to us in the crucified one, the risen one.