25th July 2017

July is a good time in Sydney to work over the strawberry patch in preparation for a new season. A new season, that is, of feeding birds! Their timing is impeccable. If only I could make my strawberries ‘impeckable’, that would be a worthy achievement. Maybe all I’m doing is fulfilling Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He said – in teaching us not to worry – that the Heavenly Father looks after the birds of air and feeds them. And maybe that’s why the birds always beat me to the spoils. Their Father in heaven gives them the ‘head’s up’!

Strawberries are marvellous things. Not only with ice-cream and icing sugar. But as to their physical composition. They are one of the few ‘fruits’ whose seeds are on the outside. Technically speaking, the things on the outside that look like the seeds, are actually the ‘fruit’ that contains the seeds. Which all sounds a bit inside out. But therein lies the marvel.

This inside-outness is something that is not unfamiliar to Christians. Our lives are meant to be lived with some external dimension and our living is meant to be seen by others. ‘Let your light shine before men,’ said Jesus in his Sermon. Why? Because God loves to make himself known, and God, through his people, loves to express his goodness to all. Why? In the hope, says the Book, that they might seek him and perhaps reach out for him….and find him.

DM 25th July 2017