Today’s find: Jim Dandy

It was the Jim Dandy that got me.

Our little peck of peach-pickers had already been at it for 45 minutes or so, concentrating on acquiring other varieties – the Red Haven and Glo-Haven. But it was clear that we weren’t the first ones who’d gone through those rows at the orchard, and so the fruit – while still abundant – seemed a little picked-over in my view.

Our bountiful peach-picking gets underway…

But then we got to the Jim Dandy trees. They’d only recently been opened up for harvesting, so their limbs hung heavy with large and sinfully succulent fruit: Peaches, baseball-sized and bigger. The peaches we’d already picked looked puny by comparison.

And so I guess I went a little nuts…picking those Jim Dandy peaches. We wound up with way more than we really wanted or needed: 65 pounds of peaches in all. Goodness, gracious. But that’s just kinda what happens…when you let a Goofy Ol’ Gramps wander unsupervised through a bumper crop of temptation hanging from a tree.

So many peaches, so little time: One can truly get lost in the abundance…

Not to worry, though: Within a few days, certain Sensible Women Folk of my acquaintance had cut our bumper crop down to size – slicing and dicing and cooking and canning until we had lots and LOTS of peach preserves and pie-filling packed away to enjoy in the months to come. (I even pitched in a little, by whipping up a batch of savory peach salsa.)

Before all this peach-bounty disappeared into its various storage spaces, I got to thinking how very much it resembled the qualities you find in the Kingdom of Heaven – at least, as Jesus tells the tale. The parables we hear this week seem to focus on excess and abundance.

First, there’s the guy who unexpectedly finds treasure buried in a field and “out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

And then, there’s the “merchant searching for fine pearls. When he finds a pearl of great price, he goes and sells all that he has and buys it.”

Who are these dudes, anyway? They’re both a little over the top, don’t you think? And how can they…in their exuberance…teach us anything about the Kingdom of Heaven?

But when you get up-close-and-personal with a peach tree, you start to realize this is how God often operates: It’s not simply a matter of fruitfulness. God wills a prodigal yield, way more peaches on a tree than any one person (or even a whole family) can handle.

And perhaps in the context of these gospel stories, we happen to be the treasure that our over-the-top God seeks; it’s we who are the pearl of great price that Christ desires to wash clean in his infinite love and mercy. I think maybe that’s what St. Paul is talking about in his letter to the Romans, when he marvels at the hand he (and we) have been dealt:

For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

You don’t have to go get lost in an orchard to realize that this is, indeed, a Jim Dandy of a deal.

But now we can enjoy the delicious bounty for some time to come!

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS