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on choosing peace
July 29, 2022
Robert Frazier
How might we, as God's people, in the middle of this tempest of a garden we find ourselves in, begin to plant seeds that do not cause destruction, but instead bring justice? What would it look like to sow seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness?
we sowed the wind, gusts
we shoved in the unwilling
earth, and it’s sprouted
into a tempest,
a tumultuous rainstorm,
a field of whirlwinds.
we cry “how long,” but
we planted injustice, so
what did we expect?
(hosea 8)
There is a beauty in planting seeds. It feels magical, the invisible transformation that takes place in the darkness of the soil, from a tiny living thing to a dewey green shoot. There is a comfortable reliability in the process, too. If you plant a zinnia seed, you know those colorful, happy flowers will sprout from your flower bed. If you plant a tomato seed, you can be sure to have ripe red fruit in the middle of summer. You will not get a melon from a basil seed, or rosemary from a carrot seed. I wonder, in the garden of our souls, what sort of seeds are we planting? And why are we surprised at the fruit cropping up around us, when the things growing in us are always planted there by what we allow to shape us, by the choices we make, by the seeds we bury in our hearts? Lately, we hear a lot of this line of questioning, the desperate cry of "how did we get here?!" Or, to put it another way, "where did all these weeds come from?" This seems to be on the hearts of both individuals and larger scale organizations, from politics to the American church. The answer is hard to swallow: "the garden has weeds because we planted them." The prophet Hosea once wrote, "they have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind." He was speaking about God's people who had traveled away from God into the darkness of the soul, one moment, one choice, at a time. Because the truth remains–whatever we plant will inevitably grow. Each choice we make in our day is like a seed we place into the fertile ground of our heart. How might we, as God's people, in the middle of this tempest of a garden we find ourselves in, begin to plant seeds that do not cause destruction, but instead bring justice? What would it look like to sow seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness? We are constantly planting gardens in the floors of our homes, churches, and neighborhoods. As we consciously choose to be shaped in the way of Jesus as a community, even in the discomfort, may we witness a garden of hope sprouting up everywhere and singing of the Kingdom of God–herbs of kindness, tomato plants of tiny delights, and wildflowers of every kind of gentleness, humility, and gratitude.
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