This time of year, gardens and farmers’ markets (and even our own fellowship hall) are often overflowing with tomatoes. Not just the neat, red, uniform kind lined up in grocery store bins, but heirloom tomatoes in all their wild unique beauty. Some are striped and spotted, others are lumpy and uneven. They come in every shade you can imagine, from deep purple to golden yellow. And there’s nothing quite like a tomato warmed and ripened by the sun, sliced open and sprinkled with a little salt. Or that perfect, simple southern classic, a tomato and mayo sandwich. The flavor is unlike anything that traveled miles in a truck to reach your plate.
Growing produce, especially tomatoes, always reminds me this time of year of the amazingness that can occur when things are allowed to ripen in their own time, and how, when they are tended with care, they often yield more than enough to share…which makes me think of my Papa. He would work in his garden, encouraging growth from his plants, and tending each of them with care until the exciting day when he’d walk in from the garden with sweat on his brow and his hands filled with whatever was ripe. And most often, there was more than he could carry so he was always giving some away. Whether it was fresh from the garden or the product of my Nannie’s canning, he was always pressing tomatoes or squash, green beans or pickles into the hands of any and everyone who stopped by. And tomatoes always seemed to be in plenty.
Some of them had been ripened perfectly on the vine, others might have taken a tumble down and split. Some ended up cracked or lopsided. And yet, all of them have a place. He’d use the fallen ones to feed the birds, away from the garden, or add them to the compost to nurture the soil. The odd-shaped ones often turn out to be the sweetest. And they all blended beautifully into salsas and sauces, salads and sandwiches. Tomatoes are a late summer abundance that often seems unending.
And aren’t they a picture of how love and grace work? Not neat or uniform, not limited to the “best” or “prettiest,” but wild and overflowing, spilling into unexpected places. We, like tomatoes, are different shapes, sometimes bruised, sometimes beautiful, but always part of the harvest. And the love that tends to and through us doesn’t run out.
Every harvest shared, every meal made, and every neighbor fed says: you belong, you are cared for, you are not forgotten. Whether we feel like the prize tomato on the windowsill or the one that fell and split in the dirt, there is still a place for us in the garden. We are still included.
So maybe this week, when you pop a little sun ripened tomato into your mouth or you see baskets for the taking in the fellowship hall, let it remind you of the hands that grew it, the care that nurtured it, and the joy of sharing it. Let it remind you of the kind of love that isn’t measured by perfection, but by welcome. The kind of grace that is overflowing in unexpected places. All ripening in its own time and still making its way to your plate…because even as the seasons shifts…it persists. Tomatoes canned in the heat of summer are opened on the coldest winter days, carrying with them the taste of sunshine. Love is like that too…nourishing us long after the moment it’s first given, sustaining us when we most need it.
While writing this week’s blog I learned of the unexpected passing of my friend and colleague, Helen Ryde of Reconciling Ministries Network; and my reflections on the love and pleasant memories of my Papa suddenly led to memories of the sudden loss I experienced when he passed many years ago. As I sit here with this, I remember the first time we made a winter pasta with his tomato sauce after he passed. I felt the love in those flavors and knew that his love did not leave me, it simply changed. So now, again, as I think about the life and impact of Helen…their presence is no longer here in the same way, yet the impact of the love they gave remains. Like jars opened in winter, their love will still feed, inspire care, and carry us through.
This is the mystery of love and grace: it never truly ends. It is planted, tended, harvested, and shared, and even when it seems the season has closed, it carries on—nourishing, sustaining, reminding us that we are never alone, never forgotten, always loved.
