Bees & the Gardener

"If bees could talk, and we came across them busy in a flower garden and enquired what they were doing, their reply might be: ‘Gathering nectar to make honey.’  But if we asked the gardener, he would most certainly answer: ‘They are cross pollinating my flowers.’  In carrying out their manifest function to make food, the bees were performing a latent function of fertilizing flowers.  The mutual dependence of bees and flowers is an analogue of churches and society."

Bruce D Reed, quoted in a lecture : 'Redeeming Evangelism: Authentic Mission in the Church of England', by Very Rev Prof Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, at Salisbury Cathedral on Saturday 13 July 2019 - very well worth reading!