Month: April 2024

Gardening.

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John 15:1-8

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunesto make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and becomemy disciples. 

This church is full of gardeners…I’ve loved pulling up to the church and seeing folks like the Tepe’s working in the church’s gardens!   

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about nature and our care for it…maybe because Earth Day was on Monday…or because I’ve been doing some much needed yard work this week.

Debbie, my spouse, also loves to garden.  We have a small garden bed next to our house, as well as flower gardens around the house (which we try to keep our dogs out of!).  I remember a few years ago, when I came back from my run, Debbie was working in the garden with a young neighbor friend of ours, Aniya.  This young girl simply loved getting her hands dirty and being with Debbie.  

It’s safe to say, that gardens are great metaphors and images.  

In our passage this morning, the imagery of God as a master gardener speaks to us as a beautiful metaphor. God has given us life and cultivates us to be the best versions of ourselves, beautiful creations. God even plants himself into humanity. Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. Jesus is often called the “seed” of humanity, and that seed grows or works its way throughout humanity, producing much good and beauty in each of us. 

The metaphor of Jesus being the vine, the connection, the bridge if you will between humanity and God…really, is in Jesus’ entire being. Jesus is the “word” that’s been given to us as mentioned in this passage, the expression of God. The one that we are called to follow. The one who’s vine we are the branches. 

The master gardener prunes, works on us, takes away the things that make us dead. Sometimes that pruning, or the literal Greek in this text is “taking away”, can hurt. We don’t like it when we are told that we need to change, that we need to grow. We create habits for getting by that may get us through the day, or even years, but really aren’t healthy or helpful to others around us. We have pride, we have insecurities. 

That’s not only true of each of us, but it’s also true of us collectively as a community and as a church. When I read or hear some of the things on Next Door Finneytown, or talk to other faith leaders across our neighborhood and the city, or listen to business owners or civic leaders here in Westwood, I hear a lot. Sometimes, honestly, there can be some who play something like middle school politics, but it’s more “grown up”. I also see it within our churches and families. We often get into places relationally with each other that simply don’t move us or others forward towards growth. 

We need to be loved on by a master gardener, and cultivate a desire to be with the master gardener…and to be outside, with people, in this master Gardner’s garden…the world!   That love that the master gardener has for us also means pruning some of the things away that are not necessary in order for us to see within ourselves, others, the church, and our neighbors that true beauty that we are. 

There is also this part of the text that talks about the unproductive branches being thrown into the fire.  Now, this is an interesting thing…we actually had some “fire” if you will at our last pub theology talking about this in a way…God does not waste anything, God is in the business of redeeming and growing.  This is a metaphor that God will use the compost of our lives and refine it…and use it for the growing of other things.  People are not branches thrown into the fire, but our actions which do not produce good fruit are and used to grow other things that do produce fruit.  First century listeners would get that this part of the pruning process I’d imagine.

It’s been pretty obvious for us as a church, community, country, and world, that the pandemic, and the years since then, have been a time of pruning, even lament, yet it is producing growth.  This pruning if you will has been happening in my life.  I have felt the brokenness in my family life, church life, and community life.  My statement of late is that I am becoming nothing, which is something and everything.  But, it always starts with allowing things to be pruned, for me to let go.

How do we further cultivate this way of life where we can see the growth? By remaining in Christ, connected to the vine. This passage is an imperative in the Greek in verse 4. Jesus is stating emphatically to remain in him. Then he says that he will remain in us. This is not a cause and effect statement, or a transactional statement. Jesus is saying that he will remain in us, period. His presence with us is not conditional. He does say though to us, to remain in him. To be connected, to be willing to grow and be beautiful for yourself and for others. I also like the translation, “abide”.  We are to abide with Christ and Christ abides with us. 

If we remain in Jesus, if we follow the trajectory of his words and his life, we can see a radical inclusion of all of our stuff inside of us and outside of us. A radical inclusion that means that we are loved unconditionally, and those around us, no matter where they are in life, are also to be included. 

That can be messy. You have seen it in our relationships, and if you haven’t, you will someday!! I am a fairly solid and mostly competent pastor to Westwood First Presbyterian Church (most days), but I also make mistakes, and I certainly don’t have all of the answers. And, our church has made tons of mistakes over the century plus of our existence.  None of us have all of the answers, that’s why it’s imperative that we remain in Christ, and remain connected to him and conversely with each other, we can be pruned, we can own our mistakes and lean in on grace, and grow together into a beautiful part of the vineyard here in Cincinnati. 

And, we will bear much fruit in the process…we already have! Live into that, live into God, as God lives in you!!!

Good.

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John 10:10-18

10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes[a] it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

Sheep are interesting.  Several years ago, when our kids were real young, we went to the United Kingdom to visit dear friends of ours:  The Mathesons, Sextons, Gravelings, and the Kenny’s.  We were supposed to stay with Andy Matheson.  When he picked us up at the train stating in Tonbridge, UK, he informed us that his son’s family had decided at the last minute to come into town and that he made other arrangements for our family of four to stay at.  It was a friends’ house who was on vacation that week and agreed that we could stay there.  I was bummed, I was looking forward to late night conversations with Andy, but I said, that it sounded great.  What he did not share with us is that the house was not simply a house, but an English manor house with over 25 rooms, including like 7 bathrooms, overlooking the Penshurst Estate. The house overlooked fields of sheep.  The sheep would go from one field to the next throughout the day.  Our kids and our British friend’s kids made it a game to try and catch a sheep…they were unsuccessful.  

I tell you this because our passages this morning are about sheep and shepherds.  I read once that you cannot very easily approach sheep…they are sheepish if you will.  They aren’t easy to heard either, unless you are their shepherd.  Shepherds, especially in Jesus’ time, spent a lot of time with sheep.  Shepherds had a way of gathering sheep, by simply calling them out.  Sheep will follow the shepherd because they recognize the shepherd’s voice.  They trust that voice.

In this passage, we are sheep, you and I together.  It’s obviously a metaphor, but much like the beauty of the landscape at Penshurst, that English estate, we are live together in a beautiful world.  We also produce a lot of smelly and messiness.  Our relationships with each other are filled with craziness at times, we don’t always follow or lead each other well.  There are dangers around us, and sometimes there are other forces out there, thieves such as depression, loneliness, selfishness, pride, or addictions, or folks not being the best version of themselves, or fully understanding themselves or others that come in the middle of darkness as it says in John 10:10 that kill and destroy the lives that we were called to live.

There are also systems in this world that want to steal and destroy our lives…to make us less than human, to distrust, live in fear or anger.  These systems have voices, you hear them in media and from many so called leaders and persons who have power and/or wealth and want to protect their status.  That’s been true throughout history really.  But those voices of systems of the world diminish us.  

Yet, Jesus tells us that he has come to give us life.  When we slow down, or get caught up in recognition of good things around us and the origin of that goodness, we can recognize the voice of the true shepherd, the voice of Jesus who has entered in the fields of our lives, who walks with us and towards us…walking through the messiness to call us towards new fields, new adventures.  

We often recognize the voice of Jesus through others.  Maybe we literally hear words from Jesus through others such as a speaker, or maybe even a preacher.  Or maybe we recognize the voice of God through something we read, or a song we hear.  Maybe it’s listening to our neighbors as our church is doing.  Or, maybe it’s seeing someone else practice charity through actions or giving themselves away.

We know it when we see it and hear it though, especially as we train our eyes and ears to see and recognize the true shepherd.

Friends, we have said it before, we are living in a new place with church.  The old forms simply don’t work anymore.  The world is crying out for us, the church, to be an example of goodness, of the good shepherd, to be reflections of Jesus’ actions and to reflect and amplify the voice of the Shepherd who is calling us towards him, towards abundant life, towards being one flock.  This shepherd has laid down his life for us, yet in doing so, has overcome all of the messiness in our lives and is creating something new and beautiful as he leads us into new fields, filled with beauty and relationship.

So, let’s listen to the voice of the Shepherd, let’s love each other well, and let’s play in the fields of the neighborhood around this church, as well as the neighborhoods in which we live in Cincinnati, and the world.  Let’s work towards being the diverse, yet unified flock God’s marked us out to be…we can do this, we can believe in each other as my grandfather did with me and God does with us, trusting each other, loving each other, and growing in the ways that God intends in the process.

One.

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John 17:6-19

6 “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8 for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

Here we are at our Kirking of the Tartans!  Fun!  

My love for my Scottish heritage stems from my maternal grandfather, my PePa…he loved all things Scottish and signed me up for the American Clan Gregor society as a junior member when I was a kid.  I’m still a member to this day.  PePa never made it to Scotland, but his stories of our ancestors captured my imagination…especially Rob Roy!   

When I played bagpipes in our high school marching band, he would always come and listen and watch.  He’d take me to highland games in North Carolina and Tennessee.  And, when I became Presbyterian, breaking from my Baptist upbringing, he was so proud because Presbyterians came out of the Church of Scotland!  Every time I’ve been to Scotland, I think of my PePa and I think he’s experiencing it with me.

My PePa believed in me.  There was a deep unity between us.  And, even though he’s been dead for a couple of decades or more, I still feel connected to him.  I spent a lot of time with him, we worked on a lot of projects together at his house and on his land.  

Today’s text says a lot about trust and working together, of striving towards friendship unity.  It’s filled with Jesus’ last prayers found in the Gospel of John.  I believe it was important to him and has great meaning for us.  

Our passage in John has much to say about unity.  Our unity starts with an understanding that all is from God.  God has created everything.  God has made God’s dwelling in us, with us, and around us.  This God is ever expanding around us and as we grow beyond ourselves, we can then begin to understand that our call is to be disciples of Jesus, following God’s Spirit into the world around us, where God is already filling, or has filled with his Presence.  

Jesus is praying for us, his disciples, those of us willing to grow, to change, to be impacted by our relationship with Jesus and Jesus’ love for the other in John 17.  We are called to carry on Jesus’ mission to be God’s living Presence in this world.  

Verse 11 calls us to remember that Jesus’ name is placed upon us, that we are marked by Jesus.  Because of this, we do have unity, but we don’t always live in that unity.  We are not always one.  Yet, we yearn for this oneness, this unity.  We are hardwired for it.  

A few years back, Bono, the lead singer for the band u2 wrote these words:

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to 
Carry each other
Carry each other
One…life

One

We are not the same, we are created as beautifully diverse in thoughts, opinions, shapes, sizes, color, preferences, etc.  Yet, we can still be one.  We can still live in unity as we are marked by a God who lives in perfect unity.  Jesus is the word, the expression of God.  Jesus lived this out and calls us towards maturity in faith, not grumbling, gossiping, or complaining, but to the deeper stuff of understanding, trust, patience, peace, self-control rather than “others control”, and love.  We have to carry each other.  I have to carry you, and there will be a time when YOU have to carry me.  

And, as we have said, especially on this day of the Kirking of the Tartans, we are striving to be a  a multi-cultural congregation, one family of God, 

Friends, the folks in this community are noticing.  I’m listening, I’m hearing a lot.  So are others in our church.  We all want this church to be that place of diversity and unity and oneness loving the neighborhood well.  And, it is happening here in Westwood.  

Yet, we know that a church, any church or community or organization, can also not be places of unity.   It’s mostly not intentional, but we sometimes can’t seem to live in the unity that God’s given us. 

But, what I’m committed to and what I believe we are all committed to in this time and place.  We are moving towards a new story together, living in a new promise rooted in the nature of Jesus, in the nature of what God intended for us as the church, as his disciples.

Listen to the next few verses in John.

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

In this text, Jesus had just finished praying for his disciples and now he was praying for all of those who would believe in him because of his disciples’ message.  His prayer was for all of us, for each of us in this room.  He wants us to be so together, that we are one.  Jesus was giving us a great picture of his relationship with God the Father.  They were intimate, together, of the same essence or being, so unified that they were one.  Jesus was giving us that picture of the relationship of God within the Trinity.  This text says to us today  that the core of God’s being is relational and that Jesus is calling us into a deep and intimate relationship with this God.  In our Trinitarian understanding, God is constantly emptying into God’s Self and also filling up God’s Self…and, God includes humanity, us, in that cycle, that communion of the Trinity.  

Jesus prays his desire, his will, for us to be one so that the world may know that he was sent by God the Father.  By our being one with God and each other, the world may know and experience the love of God as they see our unity.  

When I was a kid in the 70’s, my dad (who was way more of Welsh ancestry than Scottish being a Jones…) was a volunteer youth director at our church, I remember hearing the youth group kids sing a song with the chorus, “they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love”.  

Friends, we have a God who loves us so much and has done everything to show us love, even becoming just like us.  Jesus breathed his Spirit upon us,  God gave us the power of God’s Spirit to unify us.  God’s power and love transforms us as it brings us into relationship with God, making us one with God and with each other.  This world needs to see that love, and they will through our unity, our oneness, our radical hospitality and inclusivity of all people regardless of nationality, skin color, sexual orientation, age, whatever.we are all made in the one and diverse image of God…  Yep, as I’ve said before, I’m stuck with you and you are stuck with me forever, and that’s a long time.  We might as well trust God and get on with letting him form our community, a community marked by grace and unity, a community known as the body of Christ, the church.  May we live into this prayer of Jesus of being one, just as he has demonstrated to us by being one with the Father and with us…with all of humanity!  

Breathe.

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John 20:19-31

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believethat Jesus is the Messiah,the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

I’m sure we have all heard the expression that something beautiful or scary or amazing to see can “take our breath away”.  We have probably also experienced moments in our lives when we’ve attempted something like riding a roller coaster at King’s Island, or jumping into a cold lake, or maybe experiencing the birth of a child where it “took our breath away”.

Perhaps we have also had moments in our lives filled with fear or anxiety, times where we feel like our breath has been taken away.

Or maybe we are like the writer of this song, “Breathe (2 AM)” that says:  

There’s a light at each end of this tunnel,
You shout ’cause you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out
And these mistakes you’ve made, you’ll just make them again

We maybe feel trapped in situations that we feel like we can’t get out of on our own.  We feel caught and out of breath and in need of a “light at the end of a tunnel” or maybe out lives are like being underwater and we need to get to the surface for some air, to breathe.  We get caught in these moments and wonder “what’s next?”  And, can we handle what’s next?  We need help, we want rescue, we need to breathe, we need to find life, true life.

Our text this morning has a lot to do with moments like this, moments in our lives when we need to breathe, breathing that brings life, and not just any life, but life as it was meant to be lived.

Right after Jesus’ death on a Roman cross and resurrection from the dead.  Jesus appears to his disciples.  As we mentioned last week, it’s not every day that you see someone raised from the dead, so I imagine they were a bit overwhelmed, in shock, and wondering what was going to happen next.  

The disciples are in a state of fear.  They were locked in a room, afraid of the same folks who had just crucified Jesus and fearful that they would be after them as well.  They were wondering if there was a light at the end of the tunnel of fear that they were experiencing, the uncertainty was overwhelming, not sure what to think about what’s going to happen next.  The room was shut, and probably the lives of those disciples were in a state of being shut down from fear. There was probably a war of emotions going on within them.

Into this room, this state of anxiety, Jesus appears and has the greeting “Peace to you”.    The word “peace” in this context is a common word, but in this context, it meant the world to the disciples.  They needed what Jesus was giving.  

They had to be overwhelmed in seeing Jesus, but Jesus’ physical presence was also comforting.  Our passage this morning says that they rejoiced and they were strengthened by having seen the Lord.  

Jesus gives a charge to those disciples, an imperative command.  Just as the Father had sent Jesus to the world, Jesus was now sending the disciples out from behind shut doors into a crazy world desperate for hope.

Then, something happens, Jesus breathed on them.  This word “breathe” in this passage is the same word used in Genesis 2:7 where God breathes life into humanity, giving us life.  Jesus is in effect saying that he is the Son of God, God in the flesh, giving life to the disciples.  Jesus was not only bringing peace to the disciples, but breathing life into them.  The verse goes on to say that Jesus gives another imperative, to receive the Holy Spirit.  Jesus was breathing the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, God’s presence on to the disciples.  The Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, the unifying power of God would bring the disciples together, giving them confidence and power to overcome the world.  

The disciples needed to breathe in the breath of God.  The breath of God that brings life and the power to forgive sin.  Verse 23 in this passage can seem troublesome at first, does it mean that we can forgive others’ sins?  No, it is an affirmation that as we receive the Holy Spirit and abide in Christ as Christ abides in us as stated in John 15:4, then the work of the Holy Spirit which brings the forgiveness bought by Jesus Christ’s actions on the cross, is exhibited through us.  It is the power of God at work within us as we recognize God through Jesus Christ.  

In verse 24 of this passage, we see that one of the 12 disciples, Thomas, wasn’t around to see Jesus the first time he appeared in that room.  8 days later though, they are hanging out and Jesus appears.  It’s interesting to note that these same disciples who had just been blessed by Jesus showing up and breathing on them are scared and locked up in that room again!  Yet, Jesus breaks through the walls again…gives them a peace blessing and then addresses Thomas.  Thomas wants more tangible evidence, so Jesus gives it to them.  Jesus doesn’t want to shame Thomas, this passage isn’t here to give reference to Thomas’ unbelief, but it’s here to give hope to those who haven’t seen.  The writer of this passage is giving a direct address to those reading in verse 31 that these things have been written for you…for us.

Friends, Westwood First, we may be living in fear, in anxiety.  We may have just witnessed Jesus’ very resurrection in our lives…we may even have lived our lives in expectation of God’s faithfulness to us.  Yet, here’s Jesus…appearing before us, walking through any barriers that we may be hiding behind.  Calling us out of the four walls we’ve enclosed ourselves in…giving us himself, breathing new life into us, and calling us towards a full life with him!   Thomas and the rest of the disciples were living in fear, in disappointment.  They were tired.  Yet Jesus came to them, and comes to us…he invites us to know his scars, to touch the pain that has been inflicted upon him…to believe that he is in God and God is here with us now.  Friends, as we see this Jesus, still with the scars, that can give us a deeper trust, a deeper sense of God’s “with us” and going through life with us.  

Jesus’ scars do not go away, neither do ours, yet, God is in the business of taking our scars, our wounds, and giving us a deeper life if we can slow down, breathe, and allow ourselves to heal and become the persons we’ve always wanted to be…image bearers of a God who is with us and in us in all of life’s throes.  That brings a deeper energy that moves us towards deeper places and into growth in more expansive ways!

May we live in Christ as Christ lives in us, remembering that we are one with all things and all people!