And so earlier this week, I was updating my database of sermons and scriptures and hymns from the past six months, and I noticed a pattern emerging in my sermon titles, and I’m wondering if you noticed it as well: January 16, “Sticks & Stones;” January 23, “Aprons & Bibs;” March 27, “Wisdom & Innocence;” April 10, “The Forest & The Trees;” later that same day, at Leanne Sterio Walt’s installation, “The Yoke & The Mantle;” June 26, “Caprice & Covenant.” And it wasn’t just my sermons which displayed the affliction: on February 27 Angie preached on “Revolutions & Wildflowers,” and on April 3, “Solitude & Solidarity.” And to top it all off, on January 30 the whole congregation got into the act when we voted to become “Open & Affirming.” The word “and,” or more specifically, its diagrammatic symbol, the ampersand, has gotten quite a robust workout here at Second Church in the past six months. And I realized that perhaps someone was trying to tell me something, and it occurred to me that, of all my sermon topics over the past thirty two years, I have never preached on the most commonly used word in the Bible, and it is high time I did!
The UCC has lately been fond of punctuation; our denomination has adopted the comma as a symbol, quoting Gracie Allen’s memorable words, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma;” God is still speaking. But as much mileage as we have gotten out of the comma, I do believe the ampersand is stronger and more muscular - partly because it has gotten such a good workout lately, and partly because it is a more powerful conjunction. For example, when we use the word “Lord” in church, we naturally think of Jesus, and when we talk about Simon, we think of the chief of apostles. And this morning you are going to help me demonstrate the power of the ampersand. I’m going to give you a word, and you are going to give me its partner. Let’s think of some famous pairs joined by the ampersand, starting in the world of entertainment: for example, when I say Abbott &, you say, Costello. How about Laurel & (Hardy)? Good! Ginger Rodgers & (Fred Astaire). George Burns & (Gracie Allen). How about some famous musical pairs: Rodgers & (Hammerstein) – Lennon & (McCartney) – Simon & (Garfunkel) – see, the ampersand made you think of someone besides Simon Peter! How about the family dinner table – what is every kid’s favorite meal? Macaroni & (cheese). Or possibly spaghetti & (meatballs). And for lunch? Peanut butter & (jelly). One more stop, the world of retailing. We can shop at Sears & (Roebuck), or Abercrombie & (Fitch), or Lord & (Taylor) – and the ampersand made you think about somebody besides Jesus when I said “Lord” from the pulpit. That little ampersand must be a pretty powerful symbol if it can keep you from thinking of Simon Peter and the Lord Jesus in the course of a single paragraph.
And, for all its ubiquity, can be a powerful little word. In fact it is a key word in the gospel of Mark, though contemporary translations won’t necessarily reveal it. In fact, Mark uses the word and so many times most translators look for alternatives just to relieve the repetition. You may have noticed that every sentence of today’s New Testament lesson begins with the word, and: “And when the sixth hour had come...” “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out...” “And some of the bystanders... said...” “And [some]one ran, filling a sponge...” “And Jesus uttered a loud cry...” “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two...” “And when the centurion... saw he breathed his last...” Mark begins every sentence of this brief passage with the word, And. We will see why in a moment. But in what is generally the better translation, the New Revised Standard Version, the editors try to mix things up a little: “When it was noon...” “At three o’clock...” “When some of the bystanders... said...” “Then Jesus gave a loud cry...” Clearly somebody – perhaps an English teacher - decided there were too many ands, so added some variety. But believe it or not, and is one of the key words in Mark’s gospel: he uses it 507 times in his 666 verses. Five of every six verses has the word and. In spite of its brevity and ubiquity, and can be a muscular conjunction.
Consider three sentences. First, “Ruth and Alan are doing the readings today.” This is the weakest and. You could exchange the order of our names and the sentence would mean the same thing. “Alan and Ruth are doing the readings” means the same thing as “Ruth and Alan are doing the readings.” Then there is the stronger and: “Ruth returned to her seat and Alan started to preach.” Here you can’t just exchange the names and get the same sense, but it falls short of cause and effect; Ruth’s returning to her seat did not cause Alan to start preaching. But then there is the muscular and: “Alan finally finished his sermon and Ruth shouted, ‘Hallelujah, it’s about time!’” In this sentence the word and signals cause and effect. Right? The end of Alan’s sermon caused Ruth to shout “Hallelujah!” And is no longer a weak, benign conjunction, but a powerful, causative one.
Much of the time when Mark uses the word and it is in one of the former senses, as a simple conjunction joining ideas. This is especially true in the earlier chapters of his gospel. But soon after his story of the transfiguration, after Jesus appeared on the mountaintop with Moses and Elijah, Mark changes the way he uses the word. It becomes less a way of connecting ideas, and more a verbal tool for creating a sense of urgency, of crisis, of one event crashing into and shaping the next one. It is Mark’s way of saying to the reader, Time to sit up and pay attention, because something really important is happening here. This is what we heard taking place in chapter 15: “And when the sixth hour had come... and at the ninth hour... and one of the bystanders said... and somebody ran and got a sponge full of vinegar... and Jesus cried out... and the curtain of the temple was torn in two... and the centurion said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” It is like the climax of a Beethoven symphony, or the final battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, or the final scene of Romeo & Juliet. This is the strongest use of the word and, in its most robust causative manifestation - this is the muscular ampersand.
And it is not just a grammatical curiosity, as Ruth’s reading from Ecclesiastes revealed to us. I mentioned earlier how the UCC has adopted the comma as one of its symbols, but I personally think that in doing so our denomination has forgotten its history. The United Church of Christ is the product of four historic ancestors, the Congregational Church, the Christian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the German Reformed Church. In 1931 the former two denominations merged to create the Congregational & Christian Church, and three years later, in 1934, the latter two denominations merged to create the Evangelical & Reformed Church. And then in 1957 the Congregational & Christian Church merged with the Evangelical & Reformed Church to create the United Church of Christ. You might say the UCC has ampersands in our very bloodstream. Four faith traditions have become one.
There is strength in numbers, and this is the point of Ecclesiastes 4: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other, but woe to anyone who falls alone and has not another to lift them up. Again, if two lie together, they are warm; but how can one be warm alone? And though and enemy might prevail against one who is alone, two will quickly withstand.” And then comes the kicker: “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” In other words, every time you add another person to the equation, you become stronger. I will often use this lesson in marriage ceremonies which involve blended families, because even though two are becoming one, this scripture celebrates the importance of any children from a previous marriage. Every time you add another person to the relationship, the relationship becomes stronger.
This is why our Second Church welcome is an extravagant one. It is why we say that “No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, you have a church home here.” Every single person, every individual in this church family, is necessary, and we still have brothers and sisters who haven’t come through these doors yet who will someday be equal partners in the work and worship of our ministry. No addition to this faith family is a weak and, just another name to add to the rolls so that our roster of members becomes longer and longer. Each person who comes into this family of faith is a robust & muscular addition, brings unique gifts and ideas, and is as important a member as any other. Our fifty and sixty year members and the person who may be visiting for the first time today each brings a distinctive contribution to the character of Second Church.
It is because of the importance of this little three letter word that God keeps adding to the great cloud of witnesses. And it is why today’s sermon will likely be the only one I ever preach that begins and ends with the word, and.
[Hallelujah! It’s about time!]
Let us pray.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Vision Test
Is anyone else quietly relieved that the stock markets are closed on Saturday and Sunday? I think I’ve come down with a mild case of vertigo this week from watching stocks rise and fall like one of those corkscrew roller coasters at Six Flags, the kind that not only climbs and drops, but flips you around and around and turns you upside down and empties your pockets – an apt analogy – before you come to the end of it and wonder what in the world just happened to you. Down 600 points on Monday, up 400 on Tuesday, down 500 on Wednesday, up 400 on Thursday, and up another 100 on Friday. Yet for all of that frenetic activity, the market as a whole is only down 175 points since it all began. And I’ve noticed that everyone has an pet theory: it’s because the President is not providing stronger leadership; it’s because the House Republicans decided to play chicken with the debt ceiling; it’s because Italy and Spain are in danger of following Greece into default; it’s because the Fed is keeping interest rates so low; it is because we, the consumer, are not spending enough and it is because we the consumer are not saving enough. In other words, don’t even try to figure it out, because it is probably a combination of these and a host of other factors I don’t understand. But I did appreciate the words of a news commentator the other night who tried to put it into perspective. I’m a huge fan of NECN news; it’s the only local news I watch, and the station’s financial analyst Jennifer Lane offered some solace the other night. She said, basically, to ignore the short-term. She had been getting letters and phone calls and emails from panicked investors asking what should they buy and what should they sell, and her response was basically, if you have fluctuation fluster, get out of your chair, turn off the TV and go outside for a walk. For while the daily gyrations of the stock market are not meaningless or inconsequential, it is always best to take the long view. If the market falls today, it will rise again; if it soars today, it will come back down to earth. Pause, take a deep breath, don’t panic over yesterday or tomorrow, but look toward the horizon and know that better days are coming. Or as Jesus said in a different context, “Let the troubles of the day be sufficient to themselves.” Take the long view.
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord...” We heard John Knott read these words of Jeremiah, not once, not twice, but three different times in this morning’s Old Testament lesson. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord... when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch... The days are surely coming, says the Lord... when it shall no longer be said, As the Lord lives... The days are surely coming, says the Lord... when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” The days are surely coming, says the Lord, but they are not yet. There lies the tension. We don’t know what the days that are coming will bring, which is often the source of anxiety. But we do know that the days that are coming, come from the Lord.
At the time these words were written, Israel was in exile. Entire communities were uprooted from Israel and Judah and forcibly marched to Babylon and Assyria, where they lived as refugees. It would be as if the entire population of Beverly and Salem were compelled to gather whatever belongings we could fit in our cars and forced to settle in Woonsocket, or maybe Central Falls. It was like that for three generations, and in the early days of the exile, Jeremiah, against all empirical evidence, tried to reassure them and comfort them, saying that things may look difficult and unsettling for now, but better days are coming: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord...” Like NECN’s Jennifer Lane, Jeremiah advised taking the long view: don’t panic because of what yesterday looked like or what tomorrow might bring, Jeremiah counseled, but look toward the horizon, look toward the God of hope, and keep God’s faithful vision before you, because better days are coming. Jeremiah brought Israel a vision, and in doing so he brought them hope.
As a church, God also bring us vision and hope. You and I are coming into our third year of the Vision we adopted two years ago, and I think that every now and then it is helpful to take stock of where we have been and where God is leading us. The focus of our first year was Extravagant Welcome, this past year was Congregational Life, and this coming year we will turn our focus to Mission and Outreach, but as we look back, we recognize that while we intended to focus on one aspect each year, all three have been in fact intertwined, since none of them really stands alone. Our weekly study groups have used Unbinding the Gospel and Living the Questions as ways of deepening our own faith and learning new ways of articulating that faith among others. We’ve hired Judy Levy as our new Assistant Administrator for Electronic Communications, and Judy is currently redesigning our church web site, which will be up and running next month, and we will be seeing other communications upgrades, both among our congregation and out in the community as well. We decided to make it crystal clear that Second Church welcomes all God’s children into our church family, and became an Open and Affirming Congregation. We have deepened our relationship with God in our Faith Empowering Group, and with each other with a variety of lay ministry projects. We sent a mission team to Washington DC, we gave Dane Street Beach a good spring cleaning, we became involved with Recovery High School, and we strengthened our relationship with already established mission partners, from Beverly Bootstraps to the Casa San Jose. And, miracle of miracles, there are even signs that God is beginning to reveal to us that elusive holy grail of congregationalism, namely new and creative ways of governance and organization. Because God brought to us our church vision, our eyes have been lifted from the day to day, which is to say, where we are today - to help us look toward the horizon, which is where we are being led; God gave us a vision of who we are as a congregation, and who we can still become.
Three weeks ago, you and I got a letter in the mail which brought news that can best be described as bittersweet: the good news is that the Federated Church of Cotuit, on Cape Cod, is getting a wonderful new minister in the fall. The bittersweet side of it is that their wonderful new minister is our wonderful current Associate Minister, who has served our congregation for almost exactly six years. We are excited for you Angie, at the same time we will be sorry to see you go. The time for farewells and testimonials is not quite yet, since you’ll still be among us through the end of September. But it is time to begin considering God’s vision for us, vis-à-vis pastoral ministry, and what that will bring. At a time like this I am reminded of words of the seemingly immortal Susan Shelmerdine, who has said to us both on more than one occasion: “Ministers come, and ministers go, but I’m still here!” Susan may as well have been talking about the church as about herself. But even though ministers come and ministers go and the church is still here, it is often the shape of ministry that changes, and it is God’s vision and desire that draw the contours of that shape. Both our church staff, and some of our church leadership, our board chairs and moderator, have begun conversations about the transition ahead of us, and the Board of Deacons as well as the congregation as a whole will be determining what our next steps will be. As we do so, I think we would do well to pay attention to the words of Jeremiah, who counsels us, even as we attend to the passing of days, to keep our vision fixed on the horizon as well: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with you... it will not be like the covenant which I made with your ancestors... I will write my words upon your hearts, and I will be your God, and you will be my people, and you shall all know me, from the least to the greatest, and I will forgive your transgression, and remember you always.”
While our vision is looking to the days ahead, there is one more ship on the horizon that is sailing our way, and that is the celebration of Second Church’s 300th anniversary. In 1713, the Colonial Council in Boston granted a charter to the Parish of Salem and Beverly; in 1714 the original church was built, portions of which still stand in the viewing cupboard against the cemetery wall; and in 1715 The Rev. John Chipman was called to be our minister, and served for 60 years. This means that, in two years, we will have three years of celebration ahead of us, and plans are already underway to celebrate our heritage and to provide for our future.
The story Angie read from Acts this morning is a story of multiple visions. God spoke to Ananias in a vision, and sent him to a man named Saul. Saul, who was temporarily blind, had a vision in which someone named Ananias would come to him. And when Ananias reached Saul, he placed his hands upon him and Saul’s vision was restored, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Saul’s name was changed to Paul, and Paul became, even more than Peter, the spiritual and theological architect of the Christian church. All because Saul, and Ananias, and many who came before them and many who have come after them, saw God’s vision before them. In the days before us, as we continue to live into our Vision, to lean into our transition, and to look toward our tercentennial, may we be as receptive to the vision God has for us, as Jeremiah and Ananias and Saul were to the one God had for them.
Let us pray.
“The days are surely coming, says the Lord...” We heard John Knott read these words of Jeremiah, not once, not twice, but three different times in this morning’s Old Testament lesson. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord... when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch... The days are surely coming, says the Lord... when it shall no longer be said, As the Lord lives... The days are surely coming, says the Lord... when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” The days are surely coming, says the Lord, but they are not yet. There lies the tension. We don’t know what the days that are coming will bring, which is often the source of anxiety. But we do know that the days that are coming, come from the Lord.
At the time these words were written, Israel was in exile. Entire communities were uprooted from Israel and Judah and forcibly marched to Babylon and Assyria, where they lived as refugees. It would be as if the entire population of Beverly and Salem were compelled to gather whatever belongings we could fit in our cars and forced to settle in Woonsocket, or maybe Central Falls. It was like that for three generations, and in the early days of the exile, Jeremiah, against all empirical evidence, tried to reassure them and comfort them, saying that things may look difficult and unsettling for now, but better days are coming: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord...” Like NECN’s Jennifer Lane, Jeremiah advised taking the long view: don’t panic because of what yesterday looked like or what tomorrow might bring, Jeremiah counseled, but look toward the horizon, look toward the God of hope, and keep God’s faithful vision before you, because better days are coming. Jeremiah brought Israel a vision, and in doing so he brought them hope.
As a church, God also bring us vision and hope. You and I are coming into our third year of the Vision we adopted two years ago, and I think that every now and then it is helpful to take stock of where we have been and where God is leading us. The focus of our first year was Extravagant Welcome, this past year was Congregational Life, and this coming year we will turn our focus to Mission and Outreach, but as we look back, we recognize that while we intended to focus on one aspect each year, all three have been in fact intertwined, since none of them really stands alone. Our weekly study groups have used Unbinding the Gospel and Living the Questions as ways of deepening our own faith and learning new ways of articulating that faith among others. We’ve hired Judy Levy as our new Assistant Administrator for Electronic Communications, and Judy is currently redesigning our church web site, which will be up and running next month, and we will be seeing other communications upgrades, both among our congregation and out in the community as well. We decided to make it crystal clear that Second Church welcomes all God’s children into our church family, and became an Open and Affirming Congregation. We have deepened our relationship with God in our Faith Empowering Group, and with each other with a variety of lay ministry projects. We sent a mission team to Washington DC, we gave Dane Street Beach a good spring cleaning, we became involved with Recovery High School, and we strengthened our relationship with already established mission partners, from Beverly Bootstraps to the Casa San Jose. And, miracle of miracles, there are even signs that God is beginning to reveal to us that elusive holy grail of congregationalism, namely new and creative ways of governance and organization. Because God brought to us our church vision, our eyes have been lifted from the day to day, which is to say, where we are today - to help us look toward the horizon, which is where we are being led; God gave us a vision of who we are as a congregation, and who we can still become.
Three weeks ago, you and I got a letter in the mail which brought news that can best be described as bittersweet: the good news is that the Federated Church of Cotuit, on Cape Cod, is getting a wonderful new minister in the fall. The bittersweet side of it is that their wonderful new minister is our wonderful current Associate Minister, who has served our congregation for almost exactly six years. We are excited for you Angie, at the same time we will be sorry to see you go. The time for farewells and testimonials is not quite yet, since you’ll still be among us through the end of September. But it is time to begin considering God’s vision for us, vis-à-vis pastoral ministry, and what that will bring. At a time like this I am reminded of words of the seemingly immortal Susan Shelmerdine, who has said to us both on more than one occasion: “Ministers come, and ministers go, but I’m still here!” Susan may as well have been talking about the church as about herself. But even though ministers come and ministers go and the church is still here, it is often the shape of ministry that changes, and it is God’s vision and desire that draw the contours of that shape. Both our church staff, and some of our church leadership, our board chairs and moderator, have begun conversations about the transition ahead of us, and the Board of Deacons as well as the congregation as a whole will be determining what our next steps will be. As we do so, I think we would do well to pay attention to the words of Jeremiah, who counsels us, even as we attend to the passing of days, to keep our vision fixed on the horizon as well: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with you... it will not be like the covenant which I made with your ancestors... I will write my words upon your hearts, and I will be your God, and you will be my people, and you shall all know me, from the least to the greatest, and I will forgive your transgression, and remember you always.”
While our vision is looking to the days ahead, there is one more ship on the horizon that is sailing our way, and that is the celebration of Second Church’s 300th anniversary. In 1713, the Colonial Council in Boston granted a charter to the Parish of Salem and Beverly; in 1714 the original church was built, portions of which still stand in the viewing cupboard against the cemetery wall; and in 1715 The Rev. John Chipman was called to be our minister, and served for 60 years. This means that, in two years, we will have three years of celebration ahead of us, and plans are already underway to celebrate our heritage and to provide for our future.
The story Angie read from Acts this morning is a story of multiple visions. God spoke to Ananias in a vision, and sent him to a man named Saul. Saul, who was temporarily blind, had a vision in which someone named Ananias would come to him. And when Ananias reached Saul, he placed his hands upon him and Saul’s vision was restored, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Saul’s name was changed to Paul, and Paul became, even more than Peter, the spiritual and theological architect of the Christian church. All because Saul, and Ananias, and many who came before them and many who have come after them, saw God’s vision before them. In the days before us, as we continue to live into our Vision, to lean into our transition, and to look toward our tercentennial, may we be as receptive to the vision God has for us, as Jeremiah and Ananias and Saul were to the one God had for them.
Let us pray.
Yes, We Have No Zucchini
In the waning years of the nineteenth century, Guiseppe and Guiditta Vumbacca emigrated from a small village in Calabria to the promise of a better life in America. Once they passed through Ellis Island, where an immigration officer who didn’t understand Italian chopped the final vowel off the family name so that Vumbacca became Vumback, they moved to central Connecticut and resumed the only life they knew: they started a farm. And because a farm needs farmhands, they produced ten children, the eldest of whom, Thomas, was my maternal grandfather. Tom had mixed feelings about growing up on a farm: it was his job every morning before school to go out and milk the cows, and at the end of the day, he had to grab a chicken, wring its neck and pluck the feathers for that night’s dinner. Which explains why, as an adult, he never drank milk and never ate chicken again.
But Tom Vumback loved his vegetable garden. And it is probably because of this that ever since I was little, I always had a vegetable garden too. I can remember lazy summer afternoons helping my grandfather in his garden with easy chores: planting beans, picking tomatoes, hoeing around the eggplant. And when we were finished he would set up two chairs, light his cigar, hand me a bottle of root beer, and we would sit and talk and just listen to his garden grow.
I also worked in my dad’s garden when I was young, but unlike my grandfather, my dad actually made me work. I had to turn the garden over by hand each spring, shovel the chicken manure he had delivered... have you ever worked with chicken manure? Dad insisted it was superior to cow manure, and it certainly was in the department of aromatic pungency... its ordure is forever tattooed on my olfactory. I also had to weed my Dad’s garden, and thanks to the chickens, there were weeds aplenty. I had to stake the tomatoes, pick the beans and keep the zucchini under control. But still, I remember Dad’s gardens fondly, and it is the reason why, in my adult life, I have still always had a vegetable garden. I dug one in our back yard at our first house in Calumet, Michigan, I dug one in the back yard of our parsonage in Bridgewater, Connecticut and I dug one in back of our garage on Conant St.
And it has always been an Italian garden. I’ve planted tomatoes, pole beans, zucchini, several varieties of peppers, eggplant, and onions; my herb garden has oregano, basil, parsley, chives and dill. It’s great to be able to just go out in the back yard and pick what you need when making dinner, because let’s face it - if all of a sudden you’re just jonesing for some dill, and the stores are closed – it’s so nice to just walk out the back door and pick it fresh.
But I’ve come to notice something a little different about my Beverly garden: it only grows what it wants to grow. When I first started it ten years ago, I tried planting what I’ve always planted, with decidedly mixed results. My eggplant was disappointing. The peppers bore fruit, but to paraphrase the apostle Paul, that fruit did not abide. Tomatoes grow great, and I’m sure that’s thanks as much to Jake as it is to anyone. Most herbs grow pretty well, though the basil only grows so big and then stops. My garden loves to pump out the beans – I have three different varieties this year. But oddly enough, one thing that will not grow in my garden is zucchini. Zucchini! Everyone can grow zucchini! You can throw a couple seeds out the church window and have enough zucchini to feed a small nation. But zucchini just will not grow in my garden. I get lots of squash flowers: they grow into bright yellow trumpets that mock me in the morning – but no fruit, no zucchini. So after years of stubborn planting, forming the little hills just so, making sure there is fresh soil and, yes, manure each year, fertilizing as it grew, I’ve given up. And in doing so, I finally learned an important lesson about gardening. You’ve got to listen to your garden. You’ve got to listen to your garden.
Suzanne Munore read us one of those biblical stories that we hear so often, and think we know so well, that the point of it usually gets lost. “Listen!” Jesus said, “A sower went out to sow...” And what do we usually call this parable Jesus tells? The parable of the sower and the seeds, right? But the parable is not about the sower, and it is not about the seed. Listen:
“Some seed fell on the path, and the birds ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it sprang up quickly, and when the sun rose, it was scorched. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns chocked it. And other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold. Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.”
Jesus’ parable is about soil – about the different kinds of soils in which the seed is planted. The sower in each instance remains the same: it’s safe to say that the sower is either God or Jesus, and we get that. Likewise the seed in each instance remains the same: it is the gospel, the good news, the message of redemption that Jesus brings. The only thing that varies in the parable is the soil, the medium into which the seed is introduced. And that soil, folks, is us. It’s not about how good a sower God is, or how fruitful the word-seed is, it’s about us and how receptive we are to God’s speaking to us. The UCC likes to say, “God is still speaking;” the parable Suzanne read asks us, “Are we still listening? Can we hear what God is saying to us?” Are we the well worn path, the place that everybody walks right on by and doesn’t notice that God is trying to say something to us? Are we the rocky ground, have we hardened our shells so that even if we hear God speaking to us, we are too sophisticated to think we need to do anything about what God is saying? Are we the thicket of thorns, where there is already so much going on in our lives that there isn’t room for God to grow in us? Or are we the rich soil, filled with the nutrients and open to the sunlight that wants to stream into us and help us grow and mature into the fruitful people God knows we can be?
Notice that Jesus begins and ends this parable with the same word, “Listen.” And you know, as it turns out, I was not listening to my garden. I was planting what I wanted to harvest, and darn it I was going to keep planting zucchini year after year until those flowers finally produced fruit. But all along, my garden was trying to tell me what would actually grow there, it was giving me beans and tomatoes and onions and such, yet I kept insisting on planting what my garden was trying to tell me would not grow. It is a parable about the soil, and in this instance at least, the sower wasn’t listening to the soil at all.
The same thing sometimes happens to a church. Some things will grow, and some things will not, and we need to listen to the garden before we start planting seeds indiscriminately. I think this is something our Vision process did for us; it taught us to listen to each other, learning what kinds of things would make for fertile soil and fruitful growth, instead of just latching on to the latest church growth strategies and assuming that what works for another church would work for us. The Right Reverend Kirk Smith is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, and six or so months ago he wrote a great reflection on the things that really make a difference in healthy, vital churches; here is some of what he said:
Be genuine. Do not under any circumstances try to be trendy or hip, unless you are already intrinsically trendy or hip. If you are a group of ninety year olds who like crocheting and Beethoven, by God be proud of it.
Actually read the Bible. Start with Genesis, it’s pretty cool, and don’t worry, it’s OK to skip the boring parts.
Start worrying about extreme poverty, violence against women, racism and consumerism.
Stop worrying about getting young people into the church. Stop worrying about marketing strategies. Take a deep breath. If there is a God, that God is not going to die even if there are no more Christians at all. Don’t forget, it’s not all about you; it’s all about God.
Figure out who is suffering in your community. Go be with them. Learn how to sit with people who are dying.
Listen to God, listen to Wisdom, listen to Love, more than you speak your opinions.
These are the kinds of general things that prepare the soil, if you will, that will make the conditions ripe for growing. How often though the church is tempted to go out and buy the magic beans that promise to grow the stalk that reaches into the clouds. “Let’s get a Christian rock band; let’s replace the entire front of the church with a projection screen; let’s meet on Saturday nights instead of Sunday morning.” These are things that might work for some, but I think what Smith is saying is that there are some things that are appropriate for the church as a whole, and there are some things that are appropriate only for particular churches. Listen to your garden; it will reveal what it needs to grow.
This is the lesson of Revelation. I was a little reluctant to choose a reading from Revelation so soon after the rapture failed to materialize, since so much of that conversation grew out of a gross misappropriation of the last book of the Bible. But now that the Bruins have won the Stanley Cup, the rapture can come any time it wants, and we are free to understand that this morning’s New Testament lesson is actually a key to understanding both the book of Revelation, and to what we are saying about the church this morning. Revelation is a letter, a general letter written by John, addressed to seven churches in Asia Minor. Chapter 1 and chapters 4-22 are written to everyone in all the churches. They are words of warning and words of encouragement to those churches; they are not a prediction of the future, but rather a word of guidance to the present church of John’s day. Words, as I said, meant for everyone. Chapters 2 and 3, however, contain words of advice addressed specifically and individually to each of the seven local churches that John names in the first chapter. There is a specific message for the church in Ephesus, there is a specific message for the church in Smyrna, there is a specific message for the church in Pergamum, and so on for the churches in Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea – because each individual church also needed to hear something different. John’s words in Revelation are not one-size-fits all: what works in Ephesus may not work in Philadelphia. Rather, John understood what each church needed to hear, and so he provided it, first to each, then to all.
Listen to your garden. Understand what the soil will bear. Don’t try to plant zucchini in a tomato garden, even if all your neighbors have such an abundant crop of zucchini that they are giving it away to friends and strangers alike. Heck, do them a favor and take some off their hands! When we listened to our garden here at Second Church, we discovered the fruit it would bear. We became an Open and Affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ. We are sending a mission team to Washington, D.C. in July. We have just hired an Assistant for Electronic Communication. We are exploring more creative models of church organization. We are expanding our local mission, and we heard last week about one of our newest partnerships, with Recovery High School. This is just some of the fruit of our Vision. What works for us may or may not work for others, and what works for others may or may not work for us. But if we listen to our gardens, and understand that growth is more about the soil – about us - than about what gets planted in it, then the harvest will be a rich one, and God will be known, and this, God’s garden, will be blessed.
Let us pray.
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