The Parables of the Different Fruits

Today, I want to share with you the parables of the different fruits. No, these are not the parables of Christ. These parables come from my yard.

A Little Background First…

My day started with thinking about church. One of the first things I saw online was data from a Barna survey about how 1 in 3 people was no longer attending church.

I left this comment on a friend’s post when he shared the Barna post: “I think Christianity and even church will look very different when this is over. Not only because those who get community elsewhere don’t have to go to church but because of the way Christians have handled this crisis amongst one another. God is doing something to turn over his church like one tills the soil. Just my opinion.”

Shortly after I read a well written post by Beth Moore. The woman does not claim to be a prophet, but I very well think she is one. Click on the link to read the whole thing:

The Parable of the Butterfly Bush

I really felt the Spirit leading me to my butterfly bush and Matthew 13, which I wrote a bible lesson on last year. So after much of how I got here, here’s the first parable of today.

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Three years ago, at the end of the summer season, I planted a butterfly bush. I planted it at the bottom of my deck stairs. She was a purple, majestic beauty that quickly grew beyond my expectations. I considered her the crown jewel of my garden, casting off purple flowers as quickly as she possibly could have. I cared for her daily, regularly deheading any wilting flowers. The following picture shows her the second summer.

By last summer, she’d grown bigger than the garden we’d made for her and over the stepping stones we’d wrongly assumed we’d have room for. She must have been five or more times herself when I got her or even from the previous summer. She was fruitful. As long as I deheaded her flowers, several more grew in their place. We all marveled over how she’d grown and so quickly.

Then we came to 2020. The winter was a time of great rain, and as it the time drew near to blooming season, we could tell something was wrong with the butterfly bush. Her leaves were frail and sickly. I had to trim most of her back because her branches had died. One lone branch stayed. This branch produced new leaves and new blooms. Overnight and suddenly, the branch died. It wasn’t because it needed water; it was a mystery.

I had to clip it back and the following shows all that is left of my bush.

In the second photo, you can see my stepping stones where the bush used to hang way over. Now all that is left alive, is two sprouts with only one bloom. The other greenery is a lantana, not the butterfly bush.

I kept thinking God was using this to teach me. My bush often reminded me of a bible lesson I had written for church on Matthew 13. This is when parables are first introduced. I specifically thought about Matthew 13:31-33.

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Matthew 13:31-33

The parable of the mustard seed is often misunderstood and interpreted positively. However, this parable is about unusual growth in the church and how Satan uses this growth to infiltrate the church. My butterfly bush just seems to drive it home. God always leaves a remnant, albeit sometimes, small. But large and abnormal growth cannot be sustained and pruning may occur. We tend to go for unusual growth in the church. This parable teaches us to stay slow and steady, growing roots that dig deep into the foundation of God and nothing else. I don’t doubt the pandemic is doing a little bit of pruning, shifting, and shaking for us in the church.

For some reason, God has me think about church culture and church life a lot and this bush always has me conversing with God. For me, my butterfly represents the mustard seed bush that grew so fast it became a tree, when it was only to grow into a bush.

The Parable of the Cucumber Vine

I am in the Jesus & Women bible study at church, so this little story is relevant to that. It is also about church as well.

I have a very small vegetable garden, and one of my plants is the cucumber. My mom also has a vegetable garden, and she told me about something she recently learned.

The cucumber vine makes flowers. The flowers make the fruit. But what you may not realize is that some flowers are male and some are female. The female flower has a small fruit underneath it. The male has nothing. But the bees and flies and pollinating insects of the world have to do their part for the female flower to grow its fruit. So if the female doesn’t get fertilized, no fruit is produced even though she carries the seeds in which to grow the fruit. It’s in some ways, similar to human reproduction.

God commands us to be fruitful and multiply, and it applies to us as a people – to produce more people and to us as a church, to grow more disciples. Only three things are necessary. Men, Women, and God.

Oftentimes women have felt their voices are left out or unimportant in the church. But without men AND women, the church will go fruitless. We women are important and intrinsic image-bearers. It is God who makes sure we bear fruit. But it is on us to do the work that creates the fruit, and it must be done with men and women. Without one or the other, the church will shrivel up and die like my butterfly bush.

God must be there. Men must be there, and Women must be there.

Parable lessons learned

What do the parables of the different fruits teach us?

Unusual growth is unhealthy. Think about unusual growths in your body (they usually have to be removed, speaking from recent experience here). The church will need to change with the changing times, and cultivate slow growth, rather than large. God will sift us when needed to keep us on track, growing healthily.

In order for the church to keep bearing fruit, it will require the work of both men and women co-laboring side by side. When we are faithful co-laborers, God will supply a harvest.