A Walk in the Garden -Part II

“ I mean to restore the fortunes of my people Israel;

they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them,

plant vineyards and drink their wine,

dig gardens and eat their produce.

I will plant them in their own country,

never to be rooted up again

out of the land I have given them,

says Yahweh, your God .“

(Amos 9:14 -15 )

Amos was a prophet from a time approximately 750 B.C during a time when Israel was split in two parts. Kingdom of Israel had been split in two parts. Judah and Israel, Judah in the south, whose capitol was Jerusalem, and Israel in the north, whose capital was Samaria.

To back-track just a bit. These kingdoms split because Solomon had set up false idols and broke the Davidic covenant. The Prophet Ahijah told Jeroboam that God would grant to him 10 of the 12 tribes because of Solomon’s unfaithfulness. Solomon tried to have Jeraboham killed . Jeraboham fled to Egypt until Solomon had died. Rehoboam became king. To support the life of luxury he wanted he taxed his people heavily and they eventually rebelled. This was the split of the kingdoms.

Jeroboam’s downfall was that he feared the people would leave his kingdom if they went to Jerusalem to pray. He set up false idols and false gods for them to pray to. This was the reason Amos went to Israel to tell them of the end of their dynasty, and how the kingdoms will be reunited under the house of David ( who would have been Rehoboam’s son Abijah (Abijam). This was some 30 years or so before the great Exile. After Israels northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria .

Now the scripture above is part of Amos vision of the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel once the Northern kingdom gets itself straightened out and back on the right track. Gets rid of its idols and restores its proper worship of God and begins living according to the covenant of David.

As I have shared with you all I recently decided that both in order to create some productivity around the house and also to possibly take a small chunk out of the budget I decided I would do something I had never done.. grow a vegetable garden. I consider myself a fairly practical person. It seemed like something that was pretty straight forward, dig a hole.. put the seeds in.. give it water.. and in a few weeks/ months I would get an abundance of bounty for my kitchen.. WRONG !

I quickly learned , that I had much more to learn. There were things I needed to know that I had no clue about. Timing, structure, the stages of growth, protection, planning, and MORE WORK !

I learned a little. And mostly I learned how little I know. Its funny how life will teach you these things if you are humble enough ( or life kicks you around enough ) to see exactly how little we all really know about one thing or another.

I quickly learned that my little vegetable garden, was God’s way of granting me a (very) little bit of wisdom. I developed some insights as to how it is that this little garden was a microcosm of our spiritual journey. I will share more with you next time.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me !

May God give you the gift of His peace !

Tags: #Amos, #Banschbach, #garden, #SecularFranciscan, bible, Franciscan, OFS, Vineyard