Deep and wide

Daily Devotion - March 31

I will send a brief message each day while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I'm thinking today about the Body of Christ - that community that transcends all human boundaries- including time and space- connecting us with those gone before and those all over the world.  I'm thinking about how we are planted and tended to by God, how we care for each other, how vast and unending this connection is. We are all in this life with and for each other. 

The photo above is of the space we use for prayers in our zoom worship services. Instead of our prayer candles in sand, we're repurposing an Advent (with Lent extension!) "wreath." Next to it is our church Peace Plant.  
This plant was given to me as an ordination and goodbye gift by First Presbyterian Church in South St. Paul in 2006.  When I joined up with LNPC to be your pastor in 2008, this plant was a sad small, half-dead version of itself that had long since stopped blooming. I myself was tired and tapped out and needing inspiration, and LNPC was, at the moment, a tamped-down and withdrawn version of itself.  
As we began to envision what God might want to do with us as a congregation, the session (board of elders) and I, repotted the plant together. We removed it from its small container, and found it was terribly root bound. We gently pulled apart the roots, and decorated this large pot, (much too large for it at the time!). We placed stones in the bottom, gave it fresh soil full of nutrients, and watered it generously.
We let the process be a metaphor for tending the life the congregation, finding a new container for what God might want to do in and through us. 
In the 12 years since then, this thing has grown like gangbusters. Every time someone moves away to another state, leaves us for another congregation, goes off to college, or moves into assisted living, we dig up a piece of the plant and send it along with them.  I believe there are over 16 pieces of this plant now in various homes around the country. We are in this life with and for each other.

A couple of years ago, the plant was moved out of the office into the Gathering Room in our church building, so the job of watering it fell not just to a few of us, but to all of us, and to anyone else who shares that space, and so many groups now do.
And now, the plant is sitting in my family room, along with our prayer candles, and the communion chalice on my mantle, and it's being watered and tended to at home, as are all of us.

Last year before Lent, I reached out to my friend Malcolm Gordon, a musician in New Zealand who helped lead a conference Andy and I had spoken at a couple years before, to see if he had a good song we could use for Lent. I told him our theme was "grace" and the grace of God that meets us in all things, especially, we were talking about in Lent, in absence.  Malcolm sent us the perfect song, "Attend to the Ground," which we sang throughout Lent. We've turned to that song again this Lent, and during this time of unknown, this song has been sustaining us each week.
When Erin reached out today to give a donation to Malcolm to thank him again for the song, she discovered on his blog that he wrote that song when we requested it.  
The song goes like this:

Receive what cannot be claimed
Fall into what cannot be scaled
Breathe in what cannot be seen
Awake to what cannot be dreamed

Attend to the ground beneath your feet
Attend to the colors underneath
For God is here and now in love
My friend, trust that will be enough

The idea for the song came from a Lenten practice he had done a few years previously, where he went without shoes for the 40 days of Lent (which can be done in New Zealand, not Minnesota!), and how it helped him pay attention to God in new ways.  Our request prompted this song as his response, and this song from then is again feeding us now.  

We are all in this life with and for each other.

In a few minutes I will get on a zoom call with your elders. Our monthly session meeting has become a weekly meeting while we are all physically apart.  We will pray for the congregation, and check in about how all of you are doing.  But also, this time, we will "examine for membership" three new members: Rachel, Bill, and Erica.  These folks are wanting to put down roots in this little community, with you specific people, to seek God together and help one another participate in the life of God.  We are all in this life with and for each other.

The Church goes way beyond any boundaries we can invent or perceive.  Everywhere are people who've lives are coopted by love, directed by love, guided by love.  We get to belong to each other, because we all belong to God.  In Christ, our roots run deep and our branches reach wide. By the Spirit, even though we are apart, we are One. And we are all in this life with and for each other.
May you rest in that reality today.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

This week, we are reading through the Gospel of John.  In my house, it is at the dinner table. Maybe for you, it will be when you wake up, or before bed, or over lunch.  It can be read in about 20 minutes a day, or by reading three chapters each day.  If this is your approach, today, we are reading Chapters 7-9.

Perhaps tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pray this prayer together, and so join our hearts:

O God of life, all of life and of each life,
we lay our lives before you.
We give our lives to you,
from whom nothing is hidden.
You are before us, God, you are behind,
you are around us, God, you are within.

O God of life,
you know the secret thoughts of every year.
We bring the faith that is in us, and the doubt.
We bring the joy that is in us, and the sorrow.

O God of life, you are in the light and in the darkness.
We bring the knowledge that is in us, and the ignorance.
We bring the hope that is in us, and the despair.

O God of life, O generous Spirit,
Renew us with your life,
tonight, tomorrow, and always.
Amen.

(From Iona Prayerbook)