The Totally Tubular Spirit of God

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


. . . and then Peter goes on to describe the gift of God that has been given to the world in the ministry of Jesus . . . and of his devastating death through the evil of the cross . . . and of his glorious resurrection and ascension just days before the festival of Pentecost . . . and of the promise . . . of the gift of the guidance of the Spirit of God . . . that will be with them always . . . even to the end of the age. And, if we read the Scriptures carefully, through any stage of youth or old age or womanhood or manhood or slavery or freedom. The Spirit poured out on us all who are already one covenant community of the great diversity of humanity . . . united in the gift of God’s grace that can never be undone. That can only forever be truly sung in alleluia after alleluia. Which is what, I would suggest, Pentecost is all about.

This Pentecost Spirit that is poured out on every one of us is, as far as I am concerned, the greatest blessing of God that there is. It gives us the courage to pray without ceasing. It leads us to thrive beyond any vision we can possibly imagine. It says absolutely nothing can ever hold you back!

Including, of course, for Peter. Who . . . if you really think about it . . . receives the ultimate gift of the grace of the Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday . . .

And I am guessing Peter is thinking about it. I am guessing Peter has been thinking over and over and over again in these past fifty days . . . about how he denied his teacher over and over and over again . . . on that “holy” Thursday seven weeks ago . . . giving in to fear . . . and denying the very one on whom he knew for sure God’s Spirit had already been poured out. The one who had surely been anointed to “bring good news to the poor . . . recovery of sight to the blind . . . release to the captives . . . and liberty to the oppressed.” Surely Peter has been thinking in these past fifty days in agonizing detail about how he denied Jesus in his hour of greatest need.

And yet here we are . . . fifty days later . . . at the Festival of Pentecost . . . with the denier named Peter who by all rights should so easily be paralyzed by deep pangs of guilt instead becoming so profoundly filled with the poured out Spirit of the Living God that his fear has turned into triumph . . . and his guilt has turned into conviction . . . and the power of his preaching has transformed the hearts and minds of three thousand souls on this Pentecost morning . . . and the early church has been born . . . as God’s beloved children from all across the known world can hear the prophetic call of Christ . . . in whatever language it takes to speak to their spirits . . . to turn their hearts and minds away from the deep violence that . . . let’s face it . . . dwells in every one of us . . . and to receive instead the gift of the Holy Spirit through their baptism in Christ’s name. And to know in their bones that they are already one covenant community in the Spirit of the living God . . . that includes the great diversity of humanity . . . and the gift of grace that can never be undone . . . that can only be always and forever truly sung . . . in alleluia after alleluia . . . which is what Pentecost is all about . . . which is that there really is a sweet, sweet spirit in this place. And I know that it’s the Spirit of our God

Which is what we are singing two thousand years later . . . here at Madison Square . . . in whatever language we can find to anyone with ears to hear . . . that the same power of the Spirit of God that propelled that fickle disciple named Peter to a proud proclamation of the gospel can equally propel any one of us from a spirit of fear into a spirit of triumph . . . from a spirit of despair into a spirit of joy . . . from a spirit of violence into a spirit of reconciliation . . . from a spirit of mis-understanding across all our different ways of mis-communicating into a profound and prophetic peace that passes all understanding. This is the alleluia we are singing on this Pentecost Sunday here at Madison Square . . . because there really is a “sweet, sweet Spirit in this place . . . and we know that it’s the Spirit of our God.”

Of course, I don’t really need to tell you this. Just about everyone I have known to walk through the doors of this church has spoken of the Spirit of God that we all have experienced soaring through this sanctuary . . . on this particular Sunday through a great big red plastic tube . . . which I have delightfully dubbed “the totally tubular Spirit of God.” And even with the playful poking fun of this “whooshing” and “whirring” with our kids . . . did we not also experience it as powerful beyond the telling of it? This energy . . . this enthusiasm . . . this dwelling in the holy, holy, holy that has no real words to describe it. Except that all will be well . . . and all shall be well . . . and every manner of thing shall be well . . . in the words of that great 14th century mystic theologian, Julian of Norwich. Who, like Peter . . . and like so many of us . . . knew what it was to suffer . . . and to come out on the other side with a profoundly renewed trust in the guidance of the Spirit of God.
This is, I will confess, why Pentecost is my truly favorite Christian holiday. Even more than Lent. Even more than Easter. Way more than Christmas. I chose to be ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament on Pentecost Sunday because I believe so profoundly in that healing journey of faith borne witness in the transformation of Peter . . . through the trauma and grief and despair and guilt that was surely his cross to bear . . . and all the other disciples, too . . . is one that we as 21st Century Christians can parallel through the liturgical seasons of Lent and Easter and . . . finally . . . Pentecost.

Here is what I mean by that: we all . . . every one of us . . . if we are human . . . carry a cross that has somehow become ours to bear. For some of us it is violence we have inflicted . . . or endured. For some of us it is the guilt we simply cannot let go. For some of us it is a grief we think we truly cannot bear. And there is, it seems to me, an inevitable feeling of victimization that comes with whatever cross is ours. In Lent we have the liturgical invitation to bring the full weight of that suffering into the compassionate, crucified heart of God and let our crying carry us through the pain. It is the earliest stage of healing.

Then Easter, as I see it, is about survival. It is that sudden burst of adrenaline that shoots out from the pain and flat out refuses to give up. It is the sheer, raw determination not to let the crucifixion win. That insists on moving from victim to survivor . . . and claiming the spiritual and psychological transformation that comes with simply having made it through, with having overcome.

But the journey does not end on Easter. As I have said over and over again, Easter is a Season, not just a Sunday. It takes time to come to terms with survival. To be absolutely sure we really did make it. To stare down the demons of fear and isolation and victimization . . . and . . . like Peter . . . to come to know deep in our bones that God’s grace really is sufficient to cover all of our sins . . . and all of our suffering . . . and all of our fear. And that we no longer have to lay victim to despair or violence or even systematic oppression. And we don’t even have to be “survivors” anymore. Because we are finally ready to open our hearts to the great rush of the wind of the Spirit. Calming and free. Where we are fully healed. By the Spirit of the Living God. Who has given every one of us a second chance to thrive.
This is the great gift of the Spirit of God for every one of us on this Pentecost Sunday . . . and why it is my very favorite Christian holiday. Pentecost is the promise that whatever pain we have endured . . . whatever cross has been ours to bear . . . whatever guilt has kept us in chains . . . whatever law has pushed us down . . . can really truly be overcome . . . and we can really truly thrive together . . . as the Spirit-led people of God we have always been created to be.

It is true for every one of us. Every one of us. And it is even more true for this congregation. The Spirit of Pentecost was given to a community, after all . . . so that the people of the world might truly listen and speak and understand and know . . . within every part of them . . . that God had bound up their wounds . . . and given them a mission . . . and ushered in a whole new life . . . for all of them together.

Surely this is the gift for Madison Square Presbyterian Church . . . on this Pentecost Sunday two thousand years later . . . with a mission study that is now complete . . . and a set of vision and values and priorities to implement . . . and a Pastor Nominating Committee ready to be elected . . . and the survival of the church that is secure . . . and the “thriving into the future” that really can begin today.

Surely there is a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place on this particular Pentecost Sunday . . . and wherever we are . . . and whoever we are . . . the totally tubular Spirit of God, ushered in by the fabulous children and youth of Madison Square will no doubt take every one of us . . . and this congregation with it . . . to places beyond our greatest imagination . . . as one covenant community of the great diversity of humanity . . . already united in the great gift of grace that can never be undone. That can only forever be truly and completely sung . . . in alleluia after alleluia.

Which is what, I would suggest, Pentecost is all about.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Do you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?

Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?

Will you fulfill your ministry in obedience to Jesus Christ under the authority of Scripture, and be continually guided by our confessions?

Will you be governed by our church’s polity, and will you abide by its discipline? Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them, subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?

Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?

Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church?

Will you pray for and seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?

Will you be a faithful teaching elder, proclaiming the good news in Word and Sacrament, teaching faith and caring for people? Will you be active in government and discipline, serving in the councils of the church; and in your ministry will you try to show the love and justice of Jesus Christ?

Carried Away

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Ascension Sunday

Acts 1:1-11
Luke 24:44-53


And they were continually in the temple blessing God. Even as Jesus really was leaving them. For good this time. And they really would now have to figure out how to do their ministry without him.

In the Protestant Church we forget this, I have found. Just as we forget that Easter is a season and not just a Sunday. That, according to the Book of Acts—which tradition says is the second book in a two volume narrative by the author of Luke’s Gospel—the risen Christ appears to the disciples for a full forty days after the resurrection, and not just that one that has an Easter bunny attached to it.

For forty days, the risen Christ teaches and heals a community that has been truly plunged into crisis after the chaos of the crucifixion. For forty days he binds that beloved community back together again around a common vision and values and a clear set of priorities. To the point that when he finally does leave them—for real this time—they are so carried away with the blessing of God and of one another, and they are so carried away with his promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide them in his absence, that they barely even notice he has gone.

Forty days is, of course, in biblical numerology simply a number that signifies completion. It means the risen Christ takes as long as it takes to get the job done. The ancient Hebrews, we recall, wander in the wilderness for forty years before entering the land of promise and plenty. Jesus spends forty days in the desert in preparation for his own ministry of proclaiming the kingdom in the face of Roman occupation. And here the risen Christ spends another forty days among his closest companions to re-form them as an Easter community that bears witness to the power of God to make good from even the worst a community can endure. And to move on.

The forty days of the season of Easter simply means that they—and we—take the time they need to get ready for what is coming next. To let go of the life to which we can no longer return in order to embrace the life that is yet to come. Which is exactly what a period of interim ministry is all about. Which is exactly what we have been doing together here at Madison Square. Which has been about trusting the healing grace of God in the midst of crisis. Letting go of what can no longer be the life of this community. And preparing to embrace the life that is yet to come.

The good news is that the “blessing” is truly upon us! Here we are on “Ascension Sunday” celebrating in our Scriptures that the risen Christ—who surely ministered among this community even two thousand years later through a time of crisis that now seems so very long ago—is flying away to that home on God’s celestial shore. With a promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide us in his absence.

The healing is complete. And the disciples who love him so very much are blessing him. As he is blessing them. And they are rushing back to downtown Jerusalem with great joy. And they are continually in the temple blessing God . . .

. . . just as we are continually coming home here to Madison Square Presbyterian Church, to bless God and to be blessed by God over and over and over again. Because throughout this symbolic forty days of interim ministry we have spent so far together in the healing grace of the risen Christ, what we have found is that this congregation really is “the home for worship, nurture, education and social justice in downtown San Antonio” . . . “grounded in the core values of inclusion and diversity, while bearing witness to the unconditional love of God.”

And there really is “no place like home.”

Your Transition Steering Committee—having labored for what I am sure has felt more like forty years than just four months—has discerned with your guidance the next steps for Madison Square’s mission: unveiling today a clear vision for this congregation to rally around, with a common set of convictions and creative challenges, with common-sense priorities for mission and ministry, and a final request for you to offer one more piece of feedback on pastoral priorities in the months and years to come.

And Ascension Sunday is the perfect time to get carried away with it all!

I heartily endorse the fruits of their labor and hope you will find your own hopes and dreams for Madison Square articulated here. The Transition Steering Committee is blessing God and God is blessing us as they bring this report to you for your feedback and approval.

And while I do not wish to “steal their thunder” in the report they will share with you at the end of this service of worship, I do want to offer two key reflections that I hope will help place this report in the context of the “interim period” we have been engaged in together.

The first reflection is simply to remind us how we got here and to clarify where I expect we will continue to go in the remainder of our time together as your Pastor Nominating Committee begins seeking an installed pastor. When I arrived among you, nearly nine months ago, I saw a community of faith that, like those earliest disciples, had survived a series of losses and crises more painful than any congregation should ever have to endure. And in the Spirit of the risen Christ, I wanted to help you thrive again, to trust again, to live in joy again. What we have accomplished together in these past nine months is truly a testament to the power of the risen Christ to heal the world. I am astounded beyond words that “we have come this far by faith.”

Much of the interim journey has been “behind the scenes,” particularly with stabilizing the administrative foundation at Madison Square. Engaging in what I would lovingly call some basic “Spring Cleaning” that will allow your new pastor to come into an environment that has let go of the old and is moving toward embracing the new. The other piece of the interim journey so far has been the much more public “season of self-assessment” we have engaged in together for the past several months, culminating in the report that is before you today. The good news is that on the whole, Madison Square is incredibly united around a common set of values and commitments and hopes for the future. While those values and commitments and hopes might be expressed somewhat differently across the congregation, the truth is you are remarkably clear about who you are and who you want to be.

The more challenging news is that is that it will be extremely important for Madison Square to be honest about your size and the expectations you have for yourselves and for your coming installed pastor in relationship to your size. The common refrain we heard throughout the Focus Group process was the desire to increase programming and mission outreach here at Madison Square. There is a sense that Madison Square used to “do” more, for adults, for children, for mission, and that it is important to get back to doing those things. Or to get “forward” to doing even more things that have never been done before!

This is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. My caution, though, is to remember that “slow and steady” really does win the race. And to be honest about your current capacity for growth in programming and outreach. The worshiping community at Madison Square has stabilized in the past nine months to include approximately 115 people. Every one of those one hundred fifteen people is FABULOUS!!!! And I mean FABULOUS!!!

But 115 people will get burned out if you expect of yourselves the same kind of programming that normally accompanies a worshiping community of 150 people. So it will be important in the months ahead to clarify the highest programming priorities and to build on the base of the fabulous community that is currently present, and give thanks to God for the great many gifts of programming and mission outreach that are already at work here at Madison Square.

Of course the other great desire coming out of the Focus Groups is to increase membership. And this, too, is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. But here again it will be extremely important to stay grounded in the vision of Madison Square as a community of faith seeking to offer a “home to the home-less” (in all of the ways a person might be home-less), rather than to fall into the mentality of a small business seeking growth for its own profit or gain. I will say more about this when the time comes for the Transition Team to present its report. Let me just say here that even Jesus did not ask his disciples to become a worldwide phenomenon in the year after his Ascension. What he did was offer them hope, help them heal, bind them together, promise them the gift of the Spirit, and trust them to follow where the Spirit led.

This, in the end, is what God is really asking of Madison Square. Your mission, as has already been expressed long before you entered the so-called “interim period” is “in all things, to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God.” To be clear about who you are and what you want, yes. But always and finally to trust the Spirit to lead you to where you never thought you could go. That is what your Transition Team has done. That is what your Focus Groups have done. That is what we will all do together, as we continue this amazing interim journey we are on. And the Spirit is coming next Sunday!

Until then, the vision is before you. The values and commitments and creative tensions are before you. The priorities of the congregation and our immediate tasks in the coming year are before you. And you are now invited to respond.

And I hope you, too, will get “carried away” by the grace of it all.

May we be grateful for the blessing . . .

Amen.

Spiritual Friendship in a Facebook World

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Sermon May 13, 2012

John 15:9-17

“I do not call you servants any longer,” Jesus says in our Gospel lesson for today. “But I have called you friends.”

                                                   

And of course my mind goes immediately to Facebook.

For the uninitiated among us, Facebook is a multi-billion dollar online social networking tool—about to be traded publicly—with which you, too, may “friend” an unlimited number of the eight hundred thirty five million other people on the planet who also use Facebook. And join in the frenetic craze to keep in touch with those you say you love the most through news feeds, status updates, photo galleries, political posts and counter-political-posts.

In two seconds flat with the click of a mouse on the wall of your “friend,” you may “like” everything from the mundane report that your nephew got his hair cut this morning to the reminder that your former high school sweetheart’s new wife’s birthday just happens to coincide with Mother’s Day to the groundbreaking news that our nation’s highest elected public official has finally come out of the closet in support of marriage equality. Himself, of course, the child of a marriage that would also have been illegal in the state of Texas at the time of his birth. With Scriptural citations also abounding in support of such blatantly prejudicial “family values.”

If you are like me, you might “like” such groundbreaking news so much that you would update your own status report to say something like, “It’s about time.” Or “Alleluia!” Or “May the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) follow suit at General Assembly this July.” And then see where your Facebook friends follow.

Some of them will undoubtedly “like” your “like.” And they may even go so far as to comment on your “like.” Or re-post your “like.” Or comment on their re-post of your “like” that they “like”-d. Of course we may not want to admit it, but there maybe might be a few Facebook friends who don’t like the “like.” Who mutter to their mouse, “there she goes again on one of her liberal crusades.” Which would be true except that marriage and family have always been fairly conservative values, even though the expression of those values has evolved over time and across cultures and even in the trajectory of the biblical witness.

So if your Facebook friends are truly your friends, they will know that your heart is good and your intentions are pastoral, and they will simply ignore the Facebook “like” that they don’t like, because the friendship matters more than the conflict. And then they will go on about their on-line business.

But then, of course, there are those Facebook friends who are really more like “on-line acquaintances.” Or really just people we feel guilty for not “friend”ing in the first place. I mean, let’s be honest, if you weren’t actually friends in high school, but they “friend” you on Facebook twenty years later, are they really now your actual friend? I doubt it.

These so-called Facebook friends might scathingly “un-like” the “like” that you really do “like.” Or even sabotage the “like.” Or if they really truly don’t like the “like” or your comment on the “like” or the fact that you saw fit to remove their blatantly un-like-able comment on your “like,” well they might just (and I gasp) “un-friend” you for your comment on the “like” they didn’t “like”! Or you might “un-friend” them. Even though you were never really “friends” in the first place!

Whew! This is what we have become in the Facebook friendship world. Which is not, I hasten to add, what I think Jesus had in mind when he called us his friends and asked us to befriend one another. To love one another as he has loved us.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Facebook. I think it is a great tool for staying connected in a transient society. And I have even used it to find a job on more than one occasion. But I am also slightly worried about what all this “friend”-ing and “like”-ing and “un-friend”-ing and “un-like”-ing might have to reveal about the fracturing fundamentals of human connection and divine intervention we expect to experience in the basic sociological and theological phenomenon we call human friendship.

The fact is that we, as a species, are social animals. From the beginning God saw that it was not good for us to be alone. We were created to live in relationship, which is how I interpret those earliest chapters of Genesis that our marriage equality opponents use to deny this covenant relationship for same-gender loving couples. We were created to live in relationship.

And yet we have become lonelier as a species than we have ever been in modern memory. According to a 2010 AARP survey, thirty five percent of adults older than forty five are chronically lonely, as compared with roughly twenty percent a decade ago. And according to research quoted in an article by Stephen Marche in May’s Atlantic Monthly, sixty million Americans are “unhappy with their lives because of loneliness.”

We have fewer close confidants than we used to. Twenty five percent of us say we literally have no one to talk with about our deepest fears and hopes. Twenty percent of us say we have only one such friend. For an astounding total of forty five percent who are one person away from complete and utter isolation. Even though we may have six hundred ninety-three friends on Facebook.

And this loneliness is profoundly hazardous to our health. When we are lonely, we are less likely to exercise, more likely to eat to the point of obesity, less likely to survive a serious operation, more forgetful, less able to deal with stress, and more likely to need the care of a nursing home at an earlier age than our less lonely counterparts. Studies by John Cacioppo at the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago reveal that loneliness literally affects our DNA, altering the way our genes are expressed in our white blood cells!

In another age a sermon on friendship might sound frivolous for a pastor and a congregation so fundamentally focused on mission beyond our walls. But in the age of Facebook, honest-to-God spiritual friendship is an issue of survival. And I mean that literally.

At Madison Square you know what it is to be “welcomed home” by the God who created us to be spiritual friends in the age of Facebook. But I would suggestion this community has some decisions to make about how you are going to move forward in a new era as friends of God and friends of one another. Because the truth is that real friendship, true friendship, spiritual friendship of reciprocal love with genuine space for the other to live into the fullness of who God created them to be, the kind that Jesus called for in his farewell address to his disciples . . . well, it is just plain messy.

When we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may be forced to confront those parts of each other that we really may not ever “like.” Not ever. And when we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may find thoughts and words and actions rising from our own minds and hearts and bodies that embarrass us, that shatter the myth of “spiritual centeredness” we would all like to hold of ourselves in this house of our God.

When we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church—and not just Facebook friends—we may have to learn over and over and over again the meaning of forgiveness and trust and love. And we may be forced to change our minds—and our public positions—on social matters of seemingly great controversy. Because we, like our president—or our children—now have true friends who are gay . . . or homeless . . . or undocumented . . . or in need of the full spectrum of reproductive health services. And we can no longer pretend that our friends are not human, made in the image of God.

And when we are actually really real friends with one another in this very human community called the church--and not just Facebook friends--we may have to believe the divine image dwells also in those with whom we have very painful disagreements on these matters of great controversy. And we may have to trust that someway, somehow, the love of God is enough to save us all. 

In his book called Anam Cara, about spiritual friendship from the perspective of Celtic spirituality, John O’Donahue writes that “one of the deepest longings of the human soul is to be seen.” Not only in an online profile carefully crafted to promote a public image of perfection but in every nook and cranny of the secret soul-life within us that holds our deepest promise and our deepest shame. And when we finally, faithfully, freely connect with another person in the fully messy human reality of our lives in honest and open spiritual friendship—with the gift of the grace of God as our 4G network—our souls really can begin to flow together in beauty and light loving one another as we really are and not who we “virtually” are.

I think this is what Jesus meant when he asked us to be friends with one another. To lay down those parts of our lives that seem to have such great importance but really do not. In order to make time to be someone’s friend. And in the process maybe save their life. Or at least their very human spirit.

Here at Madison Square you rightly pride yourselves for prizing spiritual friendship above superficiality. This is, truly, an open and welcoming community of faith bearing witness to the universal and unconditional love of God. It is written in your DNA.

But I would suggest it is time to ramp it up a bit, especially as the report of your Transition Team comes before you next and as you prepare yourselves next month to elect a Pastor Nominating Committee that will seek your next installed pastor. You have said a great many goodbyes and hellos in just the short time I have served you as your interim pastor. Many have been wonderful. Many have been painful. But you are a new community now. And now is the time to re-commit this new community to the grace of rebuilding and repairing the friendships that may have been muddled throughout this transition. Or to look around this sanctuary and pick out someone you do not know and go out of your way to invite that person to dinner, or lunch, or Starbucks. Or to take a risk of sitting in a different pew next week that will place you worshiping beside a complete stranger, and watch the love of God bind you together in ways you never imagined. Or to approach the coffee hour fellowship after worship as an every Sunday communion in the spirit of soul friendship. Especially today as you “welcome home” the newest member of this family in faith. And to really . . . truly . . . mean it.

You are my friends, Jesus says. I have chosen to see the depths of your soul in all of its glory and all of its grit. And “I am giving you these commands,” Jesus says, “so that you may love one another” in return.

And so we will. And so we must.

Because it is the only way to save the world.

I pray it may be so. Amen.

Branching Out

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Sermon May 7, 2012

John 15:1-8

“I am the vine,” Jesus says. “You are the branches.”

A sermon on this subject should be probably preached by someone who is a good gardener.

I am not a good gardener.

For most of my life I have rushed in great haste with a few extra dollars through whatever nursery just happened to be around the corner. I would grab whatever looked nice with no clue what to do with it.

The one thing I did know is that plants need water. So I watered them. At first. And then I would forget. For weeks sometimes. And then of course they would wilt to the point they had surely already died and I could no longer ignore them. And in a fit of massive guilt I would rush in with the water pail to drown them back to life.

It was a meditation on death and resurrection. But then I found out that over-watering is just as bad as under-watering. So it became a meditation on my inadequacies as a gardener. What’s a preacher-girl-on-the-go going to do with a grapevine?

I’ve decided we should use this vine as an actual meditation. A disciplined demand to focus on the moment, an invitation for us to let go of the anxiety of what is to come: the do I have enough money list, or the “who am I mad at today” list; or the “what guilt is consuming me today” list; or even just the grocery list. To take the precious time out of a sea of passing time to embrace the “eternal now” of this one grapevine here on our communion table, its lifeblood flowing through our cultivating, collaborating hands. What might we learn if we notice . . . pay attention . . . wonder . . ? With the vine. With the Jesus who says he is the “real vine.” With the God who is the Gardener.

That is our invitation . . .

So let’s look at the grapevine. It has been rooted in the earth, just like us. It has been nourished by the mist, just like us. It has been breathing in and breathing out the very Spirit of God, just like us. It is our mirror image. This vine that we tend at the table breathes in our exhale (carbon monoxide), and breathes out our inhale (oxygen), in a mutually interactive Spirit-filled gift of reciprocity. We literally cannot live without each other. When we see ourselves as the gardener, we have to admit we depend on the grapevine. Literally. Just as much as the Grapevine depends on the Gardener.

If God is our Gardener, does that mean God depends on us as much as we depend on God . . ?

I’m guessing the first century followers of Jesus did not know the periodic table of elements and the relationship between oxygen and carbon dioxide. But they did know that the livelihood of the gardener depended on the fruitfulness of the grapevine. They did know that the biblical prophets spoke of God’s people as a vineyard tended by a God who needed them to bear fruit. And they did know that a grape could not grow separately from a branch on the vine. That a Gardening God needed good grapes. That, in their own way, they too could not live without each other. Literally.

Have you considered how very much God needs you? How does this knowledge impact your faith? What does God need from you? What do you need from God? What does God need from this congregation? What does Madison Square need from God?

The first century followers of Jesus also knew that a good gardener of grapevines had to work awfully hard to grow good grapes. It was a long-term investment. For the first few years, the vines were not even allowed to bear fruit. Their branches were drastically cut back, leaving the plant to look almost dead. The vine needed a chance to mature in order to bear the best fruit possible when the time was finally right. The branches had to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . year after year thinking they were ready bloom. But the gardener made them wait until they were really ready.

What part of you feels you are ready to bear fruit . . . what part of you is longing to bear fruit . . . but is on hold until the Gardener God decides you are ready? What part of you may feel as if it has been cut back too far . . . what part of you is just biding its time until it is ready to bloom? What about for Madison Square?

In fact, the pruning of the branches on the grapevine was one of the most labor-intensive tasks for the first century gardener of the grapevine. If a branch did not bear fruit, the gardener would remove that branch from the vine. Even if a branch did bear fruit, the gardener would prune it back, because pruning the branches somehow produced even more fruit. And so, at some point, every single branch was pruned. The pruning of branches in a vineyard was about cleansing, healing, transforming, cultivating new life. It was not a judgment per se, although it may sound that way to us. It was just good gardening.

What part of you is no longer bearing fruit and needs to be pruned? What part of you is still bearing fruit but should make way for new life to grow?

Pruning is still a scary experience. It does not seem to end well for the branches that are pruned. “Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned,” Jesus says. Ouch. Do we really want this?

But fire, if we think about it . . . is also a gift from God . . . a burning flame of the Holy Spirit . . . a transforming grace, not a bitter end. The ashes from the pruning become the fertilizer for the field . . . and the cycle of growth continues . . . because with God, as with gardening . . . nothing is ever wasted.

What is there to fear in the fire? It, too, is a gift of grace, even if it may not feel so in the moment. What is God asking you to relinquish to the transforming flame of the Spirit? How about for Madison Square? An interim period is a special time “set apart” to invite the pruning grace of God into the garden of a congregation. It may feel as if the most precious, the most fruit-bearing branches are lopped off just at their most abundant. We may wonder if the Gardener has lost her mind . . . or at least his sense of timing . . . In what ways is the Gardener inviting the Madison Square garden to trust the cycles of the seasons . . . the pruning . . . the burning . . . the new growth yet to come?

“Abide in me,” Jesus says, “As I abide in you.” And what does it mean to “abide”? It’s about dwelling in that place of grace. It’s about staying put there. It’s about enduring whatever comes because you are completely and thoroughly attached to the vine. It’s about steadfast constancy . . . never giving up . . . never giving in . . . clinging to the vine when you have nothing else to cling to . . . and trusting the vine to continue clinging to you.

How do you need the vine of love to abide with you . . . to cling to you . . . to nourish you? How are you clinging to this vine? We may think our “job” in the vineyard of God is to “bear fruit”? But fruitfulness, according to Jesus, is the result of doing our job. Our job is to abide in the love of God. Then the fruit will come!

The Gardener is glorified . . . the Gardener is grateful . . . when the branches of the grapevine bear generous fruit. The grapes are, in many ways, the entire purpose of the garden. The best grapes come from branches that are growing closest to the central vine . . . they have a higher concentration of nutrients. It’s about staying connected to the source . . . but letting that source use your gifts to the fullest extent possible. The branches, the vine, and the Gardener do all the work . . . the grapes are the fruit of their labor of love . . .

Perhaps you are one of those branches that really is ready to bear fruit. In mission . . . in stewardship . . . in music or art . . . in ministry with our children and youth . . . in caring for the community. If you could bear just one kind of fruit on the other side of this pruning . . . what would that fruit be?

“I am the real vine,” Jesus says. “You are the branches. God is the Gardener.” We are one community, abiding in love, bearing fruit for mission. Yes, there will be pruning . . . but you have already been pruned by the message I have spoken. Yes, there will be burning . . . but you have already been on fire with the grace of my love . . . so now let there be fruit-bearing . . . that the world may know the Gardener . . . one good grape at a time . . .

Because that is who you are . . . Amen . . .