You Got Gold

Reflections on Shuffle-Play

We had three apple trees out behind the little house I grew up in.  The surest sign of spring each year was when the apple blossoms would begin to bloom – even though there would still usually be snow in the corners of the garden, I would move my bed over next to the window and leave that window wide open those chilly nights so that in the morning when I woke up those blossoms would be the first thing I would smell.  Lying there bundled under blanket upon blanket as morning dawned, the scent of those blossoms was a sign of promise to me.  That winter was over.  Summer would come.

I loved those trees.  They had perfect branch placement so they were easy to climb.  Many summer hours were spent climbing those trees and playing in their shade with our friends.

And in the fall came the apples – two of the trees had small, hard, tart red apples that my brother and I were sent out to collect in old ice cream buckets.  These were turned into jam and sometimes applesauce in a long, tiresome process.  The third tree had larger green apples that became transformed into pie.  To this day, the scent of September and early October is apples combined with sugar and cinnamon, enveloped in pastry – baked at 375 degrees.

And so over the course of the 18 years I spent with my bedroom window opening up to those apple trees, every special occasion seemed to require a picture taken by those trees.  Their blossoms decorated the backgrounds of our spring confirmation and graduation pictures.  The ripening apples are there in the September photos of my brother in his football uniform and me in my marching band outfit. The cycle of the seasons and the harvest played out right behind our house.

Of course, I never thought much about it back then.  I never stopped to consider what a miraculous process it was that each year those trees bore fruit faithfully.  We just came to expect nothing less – that each year a harvest would be available to us.

Bearing fruit is something Jesus talks about in the gospel of John (John 15:1-8). Jesus uses the image of vines and branches and some basic gardening advice to tell us some things that are necessary.  Turns out that a harvest is expected of us as well.

Yes, a harvest isn’t suggested – a harvest is expected!  And what is this fruit Jesus is talking about?  He says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.  And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

Fruit that will last…sounds a lot like some fruit that Paul tells us about in the book of Galatians.  He gives us kind of a shopping list that has come to be known as the fruit of the spirit.  They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Other places in scripture, Jesus says repeatedly that each tree is recognized by its’ fruit.  We can look at the apples falling off the tree and call it an apple tree.  We can see the partridge sitting among the pears and know we are looking at a pear tree.  The fruit the tree bears does more than says something about it – it identifies it!  And so it is with us.  If someone observed the fruit you are bearing…what would they know about you from it? 

 There is something real, something nourishing, some sort of abundant fruit that only you can provide to this lovely world we share.  There is some starving place, some hungry heart that needs the harvest that only you, by God’s grace, will bring about.    
You Got Gold

by John Prine