I went on splits with the full-time missionaries a few weeks ago. In our looping travels throughout the ward, we happened to stop by a sister who lives just down the street from me. She’s not very active in the Church and her husband is not a member. Her visiting teacher is the stake Relief Society president and her home teacher is the stake patriarch.
I’ve passed by her yard a number of times going home teaching, catching the bus, going to work or going to school. I can see right through the cracks in her fence and have noticed that she grows a garden each year. May is a popular time here in southern Alberta to plant our gardens, so in our conversation I decided I’d ask how her garden was coming along.
Her comments were interesting. Almost unexpected actually. She said to me after a bit of discussion on gardening, “Have you ever noticed how spiritual gardening can be?”
And that got me to thinking over the last couple of weeks. Do WE find gardening spiritual? Do we see the spiritual parallelism all around us in nature? Jesus Christ did. Zenos did. Alma the Younger did. Isaiah did. Lehi did. Many of the prophets did. All of them used gardening and plants to teach concentrated truths to the people around them.
Zenos, for example, gave us the parable of the olive trees. Here he used an orchard of olive trees to illustrate the organisation, dispersal and gathering of God’s people (see Jacob 5).
Isaiah used olive trees, cornstalks and grape vines to discuss the gathering of Israel (see Isa. 17 & 24).
Alma taught the poor people of Antionum from the Hill Onidah how the gospel of Jesus Christ is like a seed, and if planted with faith and nourished, will grow into a beautiful tree abundant with many fruits (see Alma 32).
Even Father Lehi’s famous dream in the eighth chapter of First Nephi revolves around a tree – the gospel being compared this time to a extraordinarily white and amazing sweet-tasting fruit. It doesn’t just portray the eternal struggle of God’s children between choosing between the popular activities of the world and the not-so popular but ever so more refreshing partaking of the gospel. It also shows the importance of missionary work.
The Saviour, however, was the most famous of all plant-parable tellers. He gave the parables of the sower, the wheat and the tares, and the wicked husbandmen. He used fig trees, mustard seeds and corn in his teachings.
So what does this all have to do with home and visiting teaching? Simple, aren’t we as home and visiting teachers to be helping our families/sisters to grow spiritually? Is it any wonder then that the prophets and Christ himself have used plant life to parallel the gospel?
No. What more perfect comparison can there be? Plants are full of life, ever growing, and reaching for the light of the sun. So too should our families/sisters be full of the Life (John 14:6), ever growing spiritually, and reaching for the light of the Son. And just as the single grain of wheat sacrifices its own being and existence that others may grow in its place, so too should we be willing to sacrifice our own life, time and efforts so others may grow (see John 12:24-25).
