2012 : Cold Ashby and Hollowell:  2[nd] Trinity 17/6. 
Yesterday some of us were at  the Literary Festival at Althorp.    At the end of a very stimulating presentation about her biography of Charles Dickens, the author Claire Tomalin was asked who among the various people whose lives she had studied and written so eloquently she found the most interesting.  Her answer was Samuel Pepys the diarist  called  " Pepys The Unequalled  Self " she called her book.   
 She described him in what was to me a telling phrase as having a life full of   " adventure of the spirit and the senses. "  And I thought to my self that that was what we all ought to be aiming at, using the creative gifts that God has given us. 
As my wife of 49 years will tell you, I am no gardener.  Indeed I sometimes joke that when we made our wedding vows I said  " for better for worse for richer for poorer and no gardening".  Actually, in the confessional atmosphere of a church, I can say that I feel rather embarrassed about my lack of knowledge and horticultural expertise and even at this late stage in life feel that I ought to know more. 

But hitherto I have followed, in the garden at least,  my physician father's somewhat tongue in cheek advice to his patients : Profit to the best of your ability by the efforts of others.  To adapt Rudyard Kipling's  poem   

"  Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner-knives "

I don't know if any broken dinner knives went into the creation of the flower beds around this church, but there they are a testimony to that basic human desire to create something beautiful, just for the sake of it, to show off God's house with flowers. 
Our gospel this morning about the mustard seed reminds us that all gardens start with seeds, planted by accident or design. And in the Bible of course starts with a reference to the fact that  
 "The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and placed there the man whom He had formed. And from the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and bad." --Genesis 2:8-9
The connection between man and growing food jumps out at us in this verse.  God planted the garden, but placed man there immediately.  Why else create a garden that is "good for food" if there's no one there who needs nourishment?  
There was then a  relationship  in the Garden of Eden  and it remains in the wider world of today between privilege and responsibility.  God will show us a good land and how to live there, but it's our responsibility to only accept the good land if we're willing to commit to the "how-to." Of working within it.   This first biblical garden is a powerful story to me because it really highlights that relationship. 
After all, a few verses later we read "The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it."  So there's always a job to do, always work involved if rewards are to be reaped.  There's a fairness to the arrangement, even if human nature is to rebel against such control.  As Adam and Eve did.
As we know, they didn't last long in this paradise of perfect work-reward balance, and we've been trying to get back to Eden since the moment of their exile.  So have we landed on a good reason why we create garden spaces and grow food at home, in allotments or parks, and in churchyards?  Perhaps the human yearning we connect with there is about more than eating, it's about growing.  Growing back to Eden, maybe.  It's a thought. 
It's another fascinating thought that so much of life  -  as our lesson from St. Mark's Gospel today tells us  -  is contained in tiny seeds.  Today we had Jesus'  parable of the sower who wakes up in the morning to find his seed has sprouted "he knows not how".   And then he goes on to that parable of the mustard seed, illustrating how from tiny beginnings great things can  happen.  That, of course, is what happened to Christianity, where Jesus scattered the seed of his teachings in an obscure part of the Roman Empire and from those small beginnings a worldwide church was created.  
In each of us, then, is as a seed with a chance to sprout.  We all have talents : it's a question of finding them, letting them grow and using them.  But for some people,  sadly, the chance to develop their talents never comes.  They never. Fopr whatever reason,  receive the right stimulus.   If you agree with me that we all have talents by nature, it follows that  the reason for the lack of development must be to do with nurture.  And Christianity is part of that nurturing  of the human spirit.  It teaches us that giving part of ourselves to others and always to thinking what part of our talents can be used for the good of others brings us nearer to God. 
This is probably harder for us that for  past generations.  Life is so much busier, and longer,  The distractions are greater.  We live in a society that promotes self interest, self assertiveness.   " It's my life:  I have to do what's best for me"  Advertisements tell us   "go on spoil yourself"  and if all else fails we indulge in self pity.  Why me? 
The Christian way is to subordinate our wills to God and in following Jesus we can try to follow the example he set of obedience to that will.   It should be fun.  We need to use Claire Tomalin's phrase to find  in our lifes " Adventure of the Spirit and the Senses".  And here in our own parishes we are embarking on such an adventure now in supporting the work of the two youth workers who have just joined us.  For rejuvenation of the Christian spirit is what it's all about.  Think about ways that we can help encouragements, introductions, helping with events, putting a bit of our money where our mouths are.  
The mustard seeds are falling on the Uplands Benefice.   







