Plants and Stones

Plants and Stones

By: Joy Ortiz

            My yard is nothing to brag about.  When it comes to gardening, I have lots of good ideas and intentions yet very limited know-how.  The result is usually unruly beds full of the hardiest plants and a good mix of weeds.  Every once in a while inspiration strikes me, I buy a bunch of seeds and small plants, and I try to make something intentional happen.  During one of these gardening fits I bought a packet of hosta roots and planted them around the tree in the center of the yard.  Hostas are a pretty hardy, leafy plant, so I was confident that I wouldn’t kill them anytime soon.  Sure enough, with spring warmth and rain the hostas began to send up green shoots which unfolded into beautiful striped leaves.  Success!  At least, until I put my tortoise in the yard.

            I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have a fifty pound sulcata tortoise as a pet.  I would love to tell you all about him later, but stay with me.  Here’s what you need to know right now: he eats anything that is green.  During the winter he lives in a pen in my basement, so he was still in his winter home when I purchased my hosta roots and planted them.  When I planned my garden, I forgot about Chewy.  You see, once the weather gets above sixty degrees in the spring, we start bringing Chewy outside to eat fresh grass.  Along with the grass he eats dandelions, violets, mulberry leaves, and…hostas.  He munched them down to little nubs.  I thought they were dead.

            Here’s the funny thing though: those hosta roots are still alive.  Every spring they send up shoots, and every spring Chewy mows them down again.  I keep wondering, “Will they come back again this year, or are they finally dead?”  Every time I see the curly green peeking up out of the mulch I think, “I really need to get some stones and build a wall around this flower bed.  Then these hostas can finally grow.”

            Church, some of us are like those hostas.  Our faith is an old root in the ground.  Something used to grow from it, but every time we started to flourish, life came and mowed us down.  So we sit quietly in the dark where it’s safe.  We don’t reach out anymore because we have learned our lesson.  When you reach out, you just get hurt.  Our faith is still alive with potential, yet it’s impossible for us to grow and flourish when life is just so hard.

            Others of us are like stones.  Our faith is solid and steadfast.  We stand firm no matter the season or weather.  We know who we are in Christ and are unmoved by life’s circumstances.  Do you know how we got that way?  Did you know we used to be plants, too, when our faith was young?  Did you know that a plant can become a stone?

            Sometimes a plant such as a tree experiences natural disaster.  Storms and floods can bring a river of muddy sediment sweeping through a forest, and trees become buried alive.  Encased in the mud, they die from lack of light and air, but they cannot decompose since the environment is sealed off.  Eventually groundwater seeps through the layers of sediment and carries various minerals with it which slowly replace the organic cells of the tree.  When the process is complete, the entire structure of the tree is transformed from a plant to stone.  This stone is strong, heavy, and hard.  Sometimes loggers mistake it for a living tree and try to cut it with chainsaws, which wrecks the blades.  The details of the tree, the bark, wood grain, and rings remain virtually intact, so the tree still looks like a tree, but it’s a stone. 

            Maybe your spirit was crushed by a disaster.  Maybe your faith suffocated and died in the dark.  Maybe you felt alone, cut off from the life you used to live, and you wondered if you would ever see the light again.  Maybe you knew that things could never, ever go back to the way they used to be.  I have good news for you: Christ comes to make us new.  He runs through us like living water, penetrating every cell of our beings.  Bit by bit, he washes away our old selves and replaces us with a new substance.  He makes us like himself: steadfast and strong in faith.  Sure, we might look like our old selves on the outside, but we are not the same.  He makes us eternal.

            If you are a stone, then you understand this.  You have been there.  You remember the pain of the disaster, the loneliness and despair of the dark, the slow, redeeming life that seeped back into you, and the wonder you felt when you realized you could no longer die.  You know what it’s like to stand firm in the face of adversity.  You have learned to rest in the presence of Christ in you.

            If you are a plant, then you know that your faith may grow in seasons, sometimes flourishing and bearing fruit or flowers, sometimes lying dormant in winter only to rise again in the spring.  You have experienced the spirit of God stirring within you, sending out green shoots that look like love, joy, worship, peace, service, goodness, and prayer.  Maybe you have served in church ministry or led a small group.  Maybe you are brand new and just started waking up and growing in God.  Plants come in all different shapes and sizes.  Some grow quickly or slowly.  Some are showy, and some are simple.  No matter which kind of plant you are, faith lies within you, and you have the potential for growth.  But with that potential comes vulnerability.  You can be hurt, cut down by others.  You can be picked over and stripped bare of your fruit, left feeling used.  You can suffer changes in the weather, and you can get beaten down by life’s storms.  In fact, if things get bad enough, your faith might even die.

            Here’s the good news: our faith does not have to depend on circumstances.  The different seasons of life come and go.  Our faith does not have to come and go with them.  Christ came to teach us a hard truth: we must die if we want to be alive.  In Matthew 16:24-26 NLT Jesus tells his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.  If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.  But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.  And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?  Is anything worth more than your soul?”  We must be willing to die to our old selves in order for Christ to make us eternal.

When Jesus asked Peter, “But who do you say I am?” and Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” then Jesus told him, “You are blessed, Son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you.  You did not learn this from any human being.  Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.” (Matthew 16: 15-18) When we declare Jesus is our Messiah not just because we learned it from a human being, but believing because we have been tested by adversity and made new by the restorative spirit of God, then we become rocks, and Christ uses us to build his church.

            Church, we who are rocks need to surround our plants and create a safe place for them to grow.  One of the ways we do this is through prayer.  If you know someone whose faith is struggling to grow, please pray for them today.  You can also pray for opportunities to offer words of encouragement or verses of scripture.  Make time for these people in your lives.  There are so many who accept Christ and carry the spirit of God within them yet are struggling to grow.  It is the responsibility of the church to stand firm in Christ and provide a safe place for people to seek him and grow in him.

Plants, we need to keep growing and reaching out, even when we are afraid of being cut down again.  Pray for courage to face the pain of connecting with others.  Pray for opportunities to share your gifts with others. If you are in a season of growth, God bless you.  You make our garden beautiful.  If you are lying dormant, just wait.  Spring will come again.  Pray that the Spirit of God will stir within you and wake you up.  And if any of you is in that dark, dead, lonely place: hold on.  You are being transformed.  Someday Christ’s work in you will be complete, and you will become a stone upon which he will build his church.  Pray and declare him to be the Messiah, the Son of God, not because a person taught you to say that, but because you feel the weight of its truth in every cell of your being, changing you and making you new.