Pastor as Gardener in Biblical Ministry
The story of the early church—Mary, Thomas, Peter, and so many more—is a story of lives transformed through Jesus and then becoming more like Jesus in thought, word, and deed. The early Christians, as they lived in resurrection power and grew to become more like Jesus, were, perhaps not surprisingly, also mistaken as gardeners. They went forth pulling weeds and sowing Jesus’s resurrection seeds wherever they went.
As we mentioned earlier, Mary Magdalene was the first to be sent by Jesus with a message of hope to his disciples. And they, too, were met by him behind the doors of fear with a message of hope and peace, before they, too, would be sent forth: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” ( John 20:21). And even as Thomas is reassured by personally and intimately encountering Jesus in his doubts, Jesus couples Thomas’s comfort with a word pointing beyond that room and those disciples: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (20:29). The gardening work Jesus was doing in each person was paired with an outward movement to join in the resurrection gardening work begun in him. Perhaps the first disciples heard within all these invitations words Jesus had spoken while they stood before harvest fields while traveling together: “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for the harvest” ( John 4:35) and “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Matt. 9:38). God is doing a new gardening work in Jesus, and now he is not only gathering branches into his new vine to bring life into them but also assembling a veritable army of gardeners who will enter into the fields of the Lord, sowing seeds of resurrection and cultivating God’s fruitful work wherever God might take them.
Pastor as Gardener and the Role of Spiritual Growth
The apostle Paul picks up on this gardening imagery in relation to pastoral ministry in 1 Corinthians 3. Addressing conflicts within the Corinthian community over their allegiance to differing ministers, Paul offers his readers appropriate perspective, describing Apollos and himself as “only servants, through whom you came to believe” (3:5). Then, in describing their work, Paul turns toward agricultural metaphors, writing: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor” (3:6–8).
This portion of Paul’s writing, when taken together with Jesus’s teaching in John 15, highlights three significant aspects of how agrarian imagery in Scripture helps us reframe ministry within the model of the pastor as gardener. First, while Paul does not directly call God the gardener here as Jesus does in John 15, we are reminded that God is the ultimate gardener, or cultivator of the land. While we could read Paul’s words as emphasizing God as creator who gives life to everything, it seems more likely Paul is drawing upon the rich imagery throughout the Hebrew Bible of God as the one who cares for and cultivates his people. Considering his efforts to redirect the Corinthian believers’ attention away from him or Apollos, Paul stresses that fruit only comes from God’s gardening effort: “but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Cor. 3:7). Second, the field is God’s people, the church. This theme recurs throughout the Hebrew Bible, as well as in many of Jesus’s parables and in John 15, which we explored earlier. Third, there is a role that workers, like Paul and Apollos, contribute as ministers, but that role is clearly subservient to God’s role: they are “servants” (1 Cor. 3:5). Paul serves by planting seeds and Apollos serves by watering the seeds that are planted. Paul was an evangelist and church planter who started works of faith, while what we know of Apollos indicates that he was more of a teacher who nurtured the growth of disciples in the faith (Acts 18:24–25; 19:1). In a sense, these ministers are gardening assistants under God, who is ultimately in charge as the master gardener ( John 15:1) responsible for making things grow. Paul explicitly refers to himself in 1 Corinthians 3 as a humble “planter” in the gardening work of God, hoping that the Corinthian believers might, perhaps, mistake him for a gardener like Jesus.
Living Out the Pastor as Gardener Calling
As we consider renewed images for pastoral ministry, I wonder if it is possible that, like Mary, Thomas, Peter, and Paul, contemporary pastors might grow to look so much like Jesus in how we minister that we, too, could be mistaken for gardeners. In the ruins of a devastated world that needs new life, new hope, and new growth, those who minister in Jesus’s name have an opportunity to join in the divine gardening work of pulling weeds and sowing resurrection seeds. We might be mistaken for gardeners as we sow the message of Jesus—the gospel—into others’ lives that are broken down and ruined in this broken and beautiful world. We might be mistaken for gardeners by speaking new life to worn-out souls, offering pastoral counsel and spiritual direction so that new life springs up through our work with others. We might be mistaken for gardeners as we work alongside Christ in pulling weeds that crowd out life in individual lives through addiction or relational brokenness, planting resurrection seeds that bring healing and nourishment in ordinary places and lives. We may go forth into the created world and culture, pulling weeds and planting resurrection seeds by addressing the wounded aspects of creation or the wounded aspects of our culture. In dark times, we can work for life, offer new hope, and bring new glimpses of justice and righteousness in a world where such things have faded like long-forgotten memories. We may be mistaken for gardeners as we go to faraway lands or settings foreign to us to bear witness of our Savior or serve in contexts of crisis or great need, making tangibly visible that God is making all things new through Jesus’s death and resurrection. The potential ways are myriad, but the image of the pastor as a gardener may help us understand the depth of work and possibility before us. Like Mary, Thomas, Peter, and the disciples, may we open the soil of our lives to Jesus the resurrection gardener, allowing our lives to be changed and renewed in his resurrection power. And may we also allow Jesus to pull weeds and sow resurrection seeds through us into a world that needs the touch of his grace and truth.
Pastor as Gardener and God’s Eternal Vision
The New Testament concludes with the apocalyptic visions of John the Revelator, who speaks near the end of the book of a heavenly city placed within a garden (Rev. 21–22). The new heaven and new earth arrive with two wonders. First, we encounter the architectural wonder of a new Jerusalem descending from heaven as a perfectly formed and ordered city constructed by and with its source in God (Rev. 21). The second wonder is that this city finds its place in a perfectly restored and finely cultivated garden, a sort of renewed Garden of Eden, watered by a luxurious river surrounded by the tree of life bearing healing leaves and abundant fruits in season (Rev. 22). Thus, as many commentators have pointed out, the story of God culminates with God at the center of all things in an urban setting surrounded by a restoration of the paradisical garden. We begin in a garden and we end in a garden. Jesus is the seed, the vine, and the new gardener. Perhaps pastors could be mistaken for Jesus in many ways, but pre-eminently by looking like gardeners. Perhaps it is time to refresh our imagination through the vibrant and more earthy images of pastoral ministry that agrarianism provides. In the next chapter we will build upon the “metaphoray” of this chapter by exploring the contours of the way of the pastor-gardener.
