Apollos waters to the moon and back

Dan Harper November 30, 2024 0 0

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1 Corinthians 3: 5-9 (NRSVA)

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labour of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

In a recent conversation with an arable farming friend, I learnt about sowing, looking after and harvesting grain. I also got a better understanding of farmers being people who hope professionally. You hope the seeds germinate. You hope the right nutrients are in the soil. You hope the sun and the rain do their job. And you hope everything grows and can be harvested. 

This isn’t a passive hope. When you hope the seeds germinate, you plant them in the right way at the right time. When you hope the right nutrients are in the soil, you test the soil is fertilised accordingly. When you hope the weather is kind, you choose seeds that are suited to the climate in which you are farming. When then you hope that all of this will convert your seeds into barns full of grain, you learn from generations past, from books, and from doing. And you know that if you do everything right, that only about three in every four seeds planted reach the harvest, and some years it is a lot worse. 

In Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth he refers to the role that he and Apollos played in the early churches there. He spoke of doing God’s work, emphasising that they didn’t just turn up in Corinth and a church appeared out of nowhere. The church in Corinth grew, because the seed was planted, and watered, and with the work of the Holy Spirit she grew.  

Paul says in his letter that he is simply a worker in the field, just like Apollos before him in Corinth. And that as they planted and watered the seeds, it is God’s work that causes Christians to grow and mature over time. 

The challenge for us is to join Paul in this task, tending the garden with active hope. We don’t know if the seeds of faith we plant will grow. We don’t know when those seeds will be watered, if at all. But like the arable farmers now, and the arable farmers in the time of Apollos, we plant with an active hope. Just as the faith that grows in us was planted with an active hope. 

Faith grows in us, as it grew in Apollos, in ways that are unique to us, but is shared across our faith community. We talk of the excitement and enthusiasm of a life with Christ, and hear others do the same. When we are in new places, we should take the opportunity to learn from others, and accept the gift of friendship offered. And then we can pass on the love and support we have felt, and help others mature in faith. And finally, we recognise that our hope for this, like all things, is found in God.

Let us pray:

God, help me plant, water and nurture seeds of faith. And help me hope this active hope to the moon and back. 

Amen