Reflection

(from ‘Preaching the Word’ by Tom Clancy)

The arrival of a new season’s strawberries always interests me. As a young lad I earned pocket money picking strawberries so I had a vested interest in the health of the crop. Unlike the sturdy apple tree, the strawberry plants look fragile and yet, year after year, they produce a precious and delicate fruit. More fascinating still, they propagate themselves so simply.
Young flimsy runners shoot out from the plant. While still nurtured by the older plant, these runners take root and in a year or two, they are producing an excellent crop themselves.

Christians are like strawberry plants. The fruit of our lives must be forgiveness, peace, care and love: precious and fragile qualities in our society. Our faith must inspire such a crop each and every day. Nurtured by an adult faith-filled life-style, the young must be enabled to put down roots in their own world and then to produce their harvest of Christ-like-living.

The bible often uses the images of seeds and crops to illustrate the nature of the faith growing within us.