You are God's Field

Christopher Lloyd's Great Dixter, front meadow, Northiam, UK

The Bible is rich with agricultural imagery.  Often I think of the images while out in the garden, pulling this or planting that.   The Parable of the Sower is a particularly deep well that comes to mind again and again, but there are many others as well.

Currently, I'm reading 1 Corinthians, one of my favorite books of the Bible--and not because of "the love chapter" (1 Cor 13) either which I feel has been mangled and waved around until it feels limp and lifeless to me.

But, here, at the beginning of 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses division and jealousy within this church, a congregation beset by man-centered factions and petty distinctions.  Paul strives to put their focus back on God.  Why is this such a hard focus to maintain?  We lose our way so easily....

For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.
For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.                              -1 Corinthians 3:4-9

We are God's field.  Note that it's a collective concept.  Often, I'm tempted to diminish the corporate aspects of His Church, but clearly that's the vision here---not individual plants but the field.  Also, the focus is not on who does what.

We struggle with these principles in our household daily:

"That's not my dish.  Why should I have to pick it up?"

"I didn't leave that towel on the floor."

The trashcan is over-flowing, the rug remains crooked, the clean dishwasher sits there, unless I empty and straighten, or directly direct...which is tiring and adds a sense of weariness to the atmosphere.  

Is this a whisp of Paul's frustration--always having to redirect, refocus, reframe the larger goal as they became distracted with the pieces?