Well, if you are looking for a great landscaping service, you should
consider calling Landscapes by 2 D’s and G.  They do great work, and they are not very expensive.  Furthermore they come highly recommended.  The only thing is: they are not giving out their phone numbers because they have backs and hips that are not as flexible as they once were.  You might recognize their work as you look at the newly-planted flower beds around the church patio.  This was a three- morning (sometimes afternoons, too) labor of love.  And if you look carefully, you will see some new things growing there.  Ah, it is so good to play around in the dirt.

Gardens play prominent roles in Biblical theology:  Garden of Eden; Garden of Gethsemane; Garden of Resurrection in Jerusalem, somewhere.  The Church is like a flower garden.  Fess up!  You all wanted to be a flower child along the way.  All that freedom to grow as you wished with no one telling you what to do.  Some of you are still flower children.  Don’t ask me how I can tell. There are some tell-tale signs.

Here are some little insights about people, I mean flowers.   Not all the flowers will now grow at the same rate, depending on the amount of water and sunshine they receive . . . and how well they absorb the organic fertilizer added to the soil.  For some reason, some will grow taller and bigger than the others.  And . . . not all the flowers will bear as many flowers as the other plants. 

Check out the six zinnias to see which one produces the most flowers for the year . . . or  the four o’clocks or the red salvia or the little lobelia.  Just like church people: everyone grows at his/her own rate.  Just like the Parable of the Sower says:  some will produce 100 heads of grain; others, 70 heads of grain; and some, only 10 heads of grain.  And yet they all heard the same Good News of God’s love and care for them—that they get to live by grace and even flourish in the garden of God.  That is just how it is in a garden.  One just cannot predict; one never knows.

But . . . the really good news is that everyone is producing some flowers for the world to see and to enjoy.  We in the Body of Christ are privileged to observe the various red, blue, purple, yellow, orange, white and sometimes even green flowers that plants produce.  All that variety of plants with their blossoms makes the garden most attractive and inviting.  I guess one could say: inclusive as well.  I mean: how boring if the whole flower bed was just one big zinnia patch or a bunch of impatiens or a whole lot of lavender or marigolds.  They say that variety is the spice of life and that is certainly true here in the church.

So . . . the question is:  How are you blooming in the Garden of God?  Not the Gardens of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but the Garden of God around the patio here at Atonement Lutheran Church.  Are you getting enough nourishing water and fertilizer as well as sonshine so
you can bloom?

Pastor David A. Peters