Why did Church of the Lamb Plant an Orchard?
“What are we waiting for? Jesus is coming. Let’s go and plant those trees.”
This past weekend, parishioners at Church of the Lamb planted twenty-one fruit trees, and we’re going to add more for a total of 50–60 trees. Before planting, we consulted with several experts to determine the optimal location for the orchard, and we’ve selected varieties that flourish in our climate. We’re inviting folks to “sponsor a tree” that will be planted in the plot for $50, which will cover not only the cost of the trees but also supplies for their ongoing care. If you’d like to sponsor a tree, contact Linda Doherty–lindatdoherty@gmail.com. And we’re not done there: during our spring workday in April, we’re planting to plant dozens more trees along our section of Cub Run to restore it as a riparian buffer.
All of this begs a very obvious question: Why is the church planting an orchard at all? Don’t we have better things to do, such as evangelizing, caring for the sick, feeding the poor, praying, or worshipping?
We are resurrection people. We think that Jesus is coming back to renew this creation, to redeem every square inch of it, and to call it into glory. As such, every tree we sink into the ground is a conqueror’s flag. Every blueberry bush we plant is a tide marker showing just how far the resurrection will reach. The fact that Jesus is coming back does not give us a license to abandon this world to decay or to consign it to the burn pile; instead, it offers the most compelling justification for doing something about this sad world’s brokenness right now. We know that, mysteriously, our labor is not in vain. One Christian thinker puts it this way: “What are we waiting for? Jesus is coming. Let’s go and plant those trees.”
But we have other reasons for planting this orchard too. Humans tend to be dense creatures, which perhaps is why Christ spoke in simple analogies and parables. “The kingdom of heaven is like…,” he often said. It is hard to learn spiritual truths through abstract lessons. We need something that we can handle. Besides, trees factor so heavily in the Christian story. The Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the fruitless fig tree that Christ curses, John’s sublime picture that Christ is the vine, and His children are the branches, Micah’s enchanting vision of the new creation where each person will sit under his or her own fig tree and will reap its harvest–all of these show us the shape of the Gospel. We want to plant trees is that as we tend them, as we prune off dead (or even less productive) branches, as we water and wait for the fruit, as we pluck their bountiful harvest, and as the peach juice runs down our chins, we will learn who God is and how we should live in light of that reality.
Lastly, two of Church of the Lamb’s core values are hospitality and stewardship. It is exceedingly difficult to be hospitable without food to offer. Christ’s promise of abundant life will ring hollow and sound implausible if we fail to steward the gifts God has given us and allow Him to overwhelm our neighbors with His generosity. In other words, one way to bear faithful witness to the beauty of the Gospel is to grow food, prepare it well, and serve it generously. You can tell folks to taste and see that the Lord is good, but that sounds more credible when they’re holding glasses of apple cider that you pressed from your own apples. Hospitality and stewardship are the virtues by which we earn an audience to share the story of our faith and be heard.
