TREES, SHEEP, AND THE GOOD NEWS
Psalm 100, Jeremiah 17:5-8
October 5, 2008 ~ 50th Anniversary ~ Concluding Worship Celebration ~ Rev. Janet Robertson Duggins
We have come – almost – to the end of our 50th anniversary celebration. Our celebration over the last 15 months has included a lot of different things:
Big things, little things
Fun things, serious things
Opportunities to give, and opportunities to receive
Looking back, and looking to the future
It seems appropriate to me that we didn’t celebrate with just one day, or in just one way, because there isn’t just one kind of event or activity that would be an adequate celebration of who we are, any more than you could really say what we are all about as a church in just a few words.
So as I look back on the last 15 months I’m really glad we did all the things we did: We had parties and hosted concerts. We made some great improvements to the church building. We sent some folks on a mission trip. We planted narcissus bulbs. We donated money. We honored our charter members. We reminisced. We got to find our names on a timeline of the church’s story. We renewed our ties with former pastors. We thought about the meaning of the symbols in our stained glass window. We began to think in some new ways about outreach and about our future.
And amazingly, most all of it went really, really well!
Not everything
turned out as well as we could have desired:
we’d have liked to send a few more people on the mission trip to
And as you probably know, the tree we planted with so much ceremony and hopefulness at the beginning of our celebration in June 2007 was destroyed in a vandalism spree this summer. At first, I thought it was heartbreaking to see the poor broken tree. I kept remembering when we planted it, and how it was meant to be a lasting commemoration of our 50th anniversary celebration.
But after a while, I started to think that maybe what happened was in some ways perhaps even more symbolic of what it is to be the church: it’s not so much that we persist when everything is going very smoothly and successfully (that wouldn’t be too hard, really!); It’s that we persist in trying to follow Jesus and do his work in the world even when the road is bumpy and filled with obstacles.
The truth is that not everything turns out the way we think it will, no matter how well we plan. Not every seed that’s planted grows. Not every person we reach out to is responsive to our caring. Not every great idea works out. Not every effort to do good makes the difference we hope for. We encounter unexpected problems and even opposition. A simple project turns out to have major complications. Sometimes we don’t have the resources to meet a need. Sometimes we can’t quite see what God is doing. Sometimes our timing is wrong. Sometimes we make the wrong choices, and sometimes we just screw up.
It’s all part of being human. It’s part of being a community – a church – that exists not in some idealized fantasy, but in the real world. What we learn from setbacks and challenges and disappointments shapes us and helps us grow. But those things aren’t what define us. They are not our bottom line. Our bottom line is that our hope is in Jesus Christ, who has called us to follow him.
Sure, we get discouraged sometimes. Occasionally, we slip into the-cup-is-half-empty mode. But that’s not where we live. That’s not where we belong.
Because we have experienced the goodness of God we call grace. We know that we live in it. That’s what’s brought us this far. We know that our failures are not, never will be, the last word. God’s grace is greater than our sin, our goodness, our successes, our failures. God’s grace is the church’s heartbeat. God’s grace is our history; God’s grace is our future.
So we have planted a new tree in the place of the first one. We work at forgiveness. When we try something that doesn’t work, we try something else. When we mess up, we ask for forgiveness. We keep on trying to change the world, to love each other, to welcome strangers. We do what we can to help those in need. We teach the stories of Jesus to the kids of each new generation, and we tell our own experiences of grace. We keep planting seeds, generating ideas, asking questions, taking risks… never knowing what will bear fruit.
We learn from it all. We do everything imperfectly, but we discover (sometimes quickly, sometimes not for a long time, but eventually) that God has been at work in it all.
This is how it has ever been in the church. This is how it will always be.
Two images from today’s scriptures are good images for a church beginning its second 50 years of ministry:
First, Jeremiah’s tree: A tree – especially if you picture a big one! - implies rootedness that goes very deep, reaching for a water source that will continue to give life. You know, I’ve been told that many trees have root systems as large as their above-ground trunk and branches. This isn’t a picture of a shallow or impermanent existence but of deep, long-lasting commitment. We might think in terms of connection to the traditions of our faith; we might also think about a desire to become better acquainted with scripture and to deepen our faith. Jeremiah’s main point, though, is to stress the importance of reliance on God. He’s very blunt in his opinion of a community that puts its trust solely in its own good qualities or in the gifts of its leaders: a community like that is doomed, according to Jeremiah. Eventually, it will succumb to discouragement, apathy, burnout, or the like.
As we go into our second 50 years, we need to be deeply rooted in God’s grace if we are going to thrive.
And then, consider the image of the sheep: the Psalmist, in the midst of what is really a song of praise to God, touches on the heart of our reason to be grateful: we are God’s people, “the sheep,” he says, “of God’s pasture.” That beautiful phrase implies belonging, it reminds us of God’s readiness to give us guidance when we are willing to accept it, it hints at the ways God has provided for us. It also implies a flock – a community made up of different individuals. That can be a little chaotic at times; there can also be a particular kind of beauty in it.
I read recently about a writer in
Someone said, “This is a pretty good image for the church.… We in the church would do well to think of God as writing poetry with our lives. You can’t write a poem with one word. It takes a whole flock. Half the time, we seem a jumbled mess. Sometimes we fight over our place. Other times, [we] allow the slightest sign of trouble to scatter us. But always, God is trying to figure out how to get us to be this unexplainably rich poem we’re capable of being.”
As we go into our second 50 years, we need to understand that we ARE the good news of God’s grace… and that we proclaim it most truly and eloquently when EACH of us understands that we ALL contribute to the beauty and completeness of the message.
I want to show you one other thing; give you one other image as we think about moving forward into our next 50 years: this is one of the 50 golden narcissus bulbs which our kids planted last fall and which bloomed in the spring around the 50th anniversary tree. They were dug up when the new tree was planted; it doesn’t look like much now, but these bulbs will be replanted and you’ll see them blooming next spring. But here’s the wonderful thing: there were 50;
Now there are 115! In the first spring of our second 50 years, we will see them blooming around the new tree, and probably in some other places. Who knows how many there will be by next year?!
Who knows what God will do with us, either? Or how much we will grow, or where and how our gifts will blossom?
We’ll have to wait and see. But I know this: the future belongs to God. And we belong to God.
God is good!
All the time!
All the time
God is good!
* “The Poetry of Sheep” by
Peter W. Marty, in The Christian Century,
September 9, 2008.