Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

The Worship of God · March 7, 2010

The Third Sunday of Lent

Litany and Confession

From Psalm 63

O God, you are our God, we seek you, our souls thirst for you;

   our bodies ache for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

We have looked upon your power and glory.

   Our lips will praise you and bless you as long as we live;

   We will lift up our hands and call on your name.

Our God, your steadfast love is better than life, so turn us toward your presence

      now.

   We have often not abided in your steadfast love,

   but caved in upon ourselves and the needs of our lesser selves.

   Lift us to the healing power of your presence and restore us.

God is merciful, abounding in steadfast love!

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Pastoral Prayer

Tim Carson

O Guiding Spirit, the truth, the life and the way:

We find our feet upon a path

     and you are the path

     always present

in our going out and our coming in

this day and forevermore.

     Awaken us to the truth

that you are road and destination both

beginning and ending

     and that every stop along the way

     is another resting place in you.

If we take the wings of the morning

     and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea

     you are the sea

     and even there your right hand holds us fast.

Where are you not, O mystery hidden from our eyes?

     Travel with us, sage companion

     and make us your home

even as we make you our own

     so when they ask us about the way ahead

     we can say with joy

that the road has been blessed

the crooked way made straight

                 the highway for our God,

                 the highway to our God,

                 the highway in our God.

So we pray the prayer given to us from our Lord, as we sing…

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen, Amen.

New Testament Lesson

Luke 13:6-9

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Message

One More Chance:

Another Mile Beyond the Bend

Jacob Thorne

When I was a young child, in my younger days, before pre-gray days, I have this memory of sitting on the cement steps of my grandmother’s farm. I was sitting right next to the hand pump for the well. We had pumped water into this children’s swimming pool. In this swimming pool were hundreds and hundreds of apples from the orchard. The day before, along with my grandmother, I went to the old family orchard – out behind the farmhouse – and as a four-year-old, it was my job to pick up the apples already on the ground and to pick the apples on the lowest-hanging branches, avoiding, of course, the wormiest ones. The next day, we had all these apples in the swimming pool. One by one, my grandmother would take each apple, and she would wash it and cut out the bad spots. Then we would put the apples through an old, ancient cider-mill. One by one, we would put the apples in, slowly turn the handle, and then, all of a sudden, you had the most amazing cider. I can still remember it. I can see all those apples and taste the cider. Taste and see!

That orchard had a long history on the farm. My grandfather’s grandfather had planted the trees. One summer, the orchard, for some reason – we don’t know why – caught on fire, and my grandfather was out of town. My grandmother, with nothing more than a potato sack, fought the flames herself. 

Over time, the orchard was slowly abandoned. The cider press sat in the barn and gathered dust. For 20 years, nothing was done. The orchard didn’t look like an orchard any more. Apple trees just stood there barren and fallow, not producing any fruit. 

Then three years ago, my Dad, who considers himself an organic farmer – with all of his books on what to do – had this wonderful idea that he was going to revitalize the orchard. Everybody is sitting around the kitchen table, talking, and having a good time, and he announces, “I’m going to prune the orchard trees, and we will have a great orchard festival next fall.” 

We like to humor my Dad, so we just said, “Sure. Have fun with that.”

He took his chainsaw, and he spent the entire day, according to him, methodically pruning the orchard. I didn’t think anything of it. Then, that spring, we were in the garden. The soil had been freshly turned up. I was planting onions. For some reason, I looked behind me, and I saw this giant, old apple tree, and all the apple trees next to. I looked again. You know what I saw. Right? There were blossoms on every single tree. My Dad had this smirk on his face. He didn’t say anything. But I thought to myself, how all winter long, I was just certain – convinced – those trees were dead or dying and no longer going to produce any fruit at all. That fall, however, we had a bumper crop of apples. And we have every year since.

Our text this morning is about new life. It is a text about “the nine lives” – new beginnings. On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus is talking and preaching. He stops to tell another parable, which he loved to tell. They made one think about different questions. This time, he tells the parable of the fig tree. The farmer wants to cut it down, but the gardener says, “No. Give me one more chance. Let me prune it and fertilize it, and I’ll see if it can produce new fruit.”

It is the same story as the apple tree in the orchard. The obvious teaching is that it is about second chances. It is no mistake that this text appears during the season of Lent. 

For months, maybe you like me, have been yearning for some warmer days. This weekend was simply amazing. Wonderful! The Bible is always using these images of new life and new beginnings to convey what the love of God is all about. It starts way back in the beginning, in the Old Testament. 

At one point, the prophet Ezekiel has a vision of a wide valley. The valley is filled with these dry, brittle, dead bones. When you read it, the story is not very romantic. However, if you think about it, it is especially easy to relate to during the season of Lent, because sometimes during winter or Lent, we all have a sense of inner dryness. 

We have the constant repetition of busy days and nights. We have nights of short sleep. We have discouraging experiences, maybe some long-lasting inner turmoil struggle. We can call this experience “The Dry Bones Experience.” It is a natural, human cycle and condition. We have unexpected problems at work, bodies that are worn out and ache with pain, extended illnesses, stressful relationships with those whom we love the most. All of this can lead us to the Valley of Lifelessness. When this happens, even the most joyful people begin to feel weary and fatigued. It is tempting just to stay where we are. It is tempting never to leave the valley. We can just move slowly along, not living life fully, feeling like we have just run out of gas.

Ezekiel describes this condition as being completely dry. And Jesus would have known the teachings of Ezekiel. So, it is only natural that Jesus picks up on these teachings, and he uses the image of a tree that can no longer bear fruit. Maybe we wouldn’t use the image of a fig tree. Maybe we wouldn’t use the image of a valley filled with dry bones. But we have similar ways of describing the same thing. “I feel so tired.” “I feel defeated.” “I feel worn out like I have run out of gas.”

At times, we are all like dead limbs. No matter how hard we try, it seems like nothing will hold us together. When this happens, it would be easy to ignore it, just to work harder. But what would happen, if instead, you took the time really to listen to the depths of your heart? What would happen if you cultivated and fertilized your spiritual life? What would you change? What would you trim? Where would you find the Spirit of the Living God inside of you? In this vision of the dry bones, Ezekiel speaks in God’s name. Ezekiel says, “Dry bones, I am now going to make you rise up, and you will live.” God commands Ezekiel to say, “Come from the four winds, Breath, and breathe into these bones,” and the Breath entered them. They came to life and stood up and walked around. The image of death is overpowered by the image of life.

As we journey through the Lenten season, we, too, embrace the image of death. But we also embrace the image of life, because Lent is the season that challenges us to let go of the baggage – the worries and anxieties that weigh us down. Lent is the time to see things in a new way. 

When Jesus refers to the fig tree, he is not talking just about new life and second chances. He is also referring to hope, to a new way of seeing, to seeing something new right away. Hope is the reminder of God’s presence in our world. It is the ability of a prophet, of a person connected deeply and intimately to God, to see life in something that is, otherwise, considered dead. Without hope, you cannot live even for one day.

I invite you now to close your eyes just for a moment. I invite you to envision something that you cannot see. What is it in your life that is holding a newer fruit back and maybe even choking you? Maybe weighing you down? What is it in your life that is holding you back from bearing the fruit that you know is within? Sometimes, in life, we need a proverbial chainsaw. 

As we continue down the road of our Lenten journey, we invite you, this morning, to find the small slip of paper that is in your worship bulletin, and to write on your piece of paper whatever it is that is holding you back. Then place that piece of paper in the Prayer Wall that is right outside the sanctuary doors and submit it to God. You can think of it as a prayer exercise, because sometimes the most painful prayers are the prayers we don’t want to let go of. We hold fast to the familiar even if it is uncomfortable. You might find yourself saying, “Well, it is just the way it is.” It is tempting to cling to the past instead of a new future. But if you say this, then you have given up on hope.

Henri Nouwen once said that detachment is letting loose of what is attractive. But there is a flip side. It also requires of letting go of what is repulsive, because you can become attached to dark forces. Before you know it, you can be somebody you don’t want to be. As you write your prayer and think about your prayer, let God help you be your own gardener. When you consider what needs to be pruned, you might think about your job, or your house, or your education, or your relationship with others, even your friends. Ask yourself, “Is this life giving? Does this raise me up emotionally? Do I feel fulfilled?”

If the answer is, “No,” then maybe it is time to make a change. Know that you can create a vision of hope, a vision of peace amidst conflict, of aching bones responding to treatment, of relationships that have been shattered and can become whole, of unexpected illnesses finding beauty in the fragility of life. During the season of Lent, if we choose to do so, we have the possibility to live very differently.

A few weeks ago, we discussed how the apostle Paul placed hope among the top three virtues, along with faith and love. If we decide to live life in a new way, then we say “No” to the negative and anxious thoughts that crowd our minds. We say, “Yes” to the One who created us. We remember once again the words of Paul, when he wrote to the church in Corinth, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. You see; everything has become new.”

We are called to believe that we are part of God’s creation. God is unleashed inside of you. We are called to receive and let go, to trust in the one who has created us.

It is so easy to move through life from one event after the other never stopping to pause. Just think about your daily planner. How many activities do you have crammed in it? However, the season of Lent is the time to focus on our own mortality. We are all terminal.

On Ash Wednesday, we have the sign of the cross put on our foreheads. It is a sign that from ashes we have come and to ashes we will return, because the truth is, death is more universal than life. Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.

The other day, I came across the book One Month to Live: Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life. It is written by Kerry and Chris Shook. In the beginning of the book, Kerry writes about his experience as a minister. He reflects on the fact that, as a minister, he has had the privilege to spend time with people as they enter into their imminent end of their life on this earth. While many of these individuals struggle and go through the different stages of grief, most of them make radical changes as a result of their terminal illness. They say what they really feel, and they do what they really want. They no longer think of themselves first, but first think of others. They let people know how much they love them, and how much they mean to them. They take risks they would never have taken before. They allow themselves to lay aside worries and to gratefully accept each new day. They gain clarity about their relationships with God, and their relationships with one another. 

Based on these observations, Kerry began to wonder, “Why can’t more of us live like we are dying? Isn’t that how we are supposed to live in the first place? Aren’t we called to discover what we are made for and how we can utilize our gifts in the limited amount of time that we are given?”

So, here is the challenge: We have exactly four weeks left until Easter Sunday. For these next four weeks, what if we were to take seriously the teachings of Jesus and to change now the way we live? If you knew you only had a short amount of time left to live, what would you do? Would you find joy in taking your children to school? Would you take long walks? Afternoon naps? Would you still watch the television? Would you worry about the trivial matters in life? Would you spend time praying? Would you take a vacation? Would you tell your family members you love them? 

Jesus says to us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing.”

Just as the gardener prunes the tree in order for it to become more productive, so we, too, must tend to our own minds. What will you change? What will you do in order to blossom? What will you do in order to invoke the words of Ezekiel, “Breathe, bones, breathe?”

The next time you pick up an apple, (and remember one a day is what you are supposed to eat; you shouldn’t give it up for Lent), you can taste the sweetness of the fruit. You can remember that God is good, and that you are good, and that we are called to bear fruit, and to live our lives fully.

Through Christ, we all say together… “Amen.” 

Benediction

The gardener is not finished. The story goes on. Our creation unfolds. This is the good news of the gospel.

So now, go forth in the peace and the love of the gospel knowing the hope of God forever. Amen.