Peter, who is almost 5 and in Prekindergarten this year, and I both chose Fridays as a day of Sabbath. As the girls finish the week at school and Steve completes his work week, Peter and I remember that God rested on the seventh day and commands us to do likewise on our Fridays together. We often spend this time in nature, read, take naps, and play. Peter loves when we get to explore! This week, we were exploring in the park. Loosing ourselves in God’s creation without any regard to time or urgency allows us to fully pay attention to where God is moving among us.
Did you know there are 121 state parks in Pennsylvania? Not including Gettysburg or Valley Forge, they are both National Parks. Neither does that hint at the municipal parks like Goddard or Penn Township. Locally, the options for walking, hiking, and exploring God’s creation are abundant! We love taking advantage of this.
(show slide) This week, our trek through Goddard Park led us past two trees whose roots depended fully on each other and intertwined. Spaced about 5 feet apart, the two trees most likely began separately and later their feeder and transport roots began to grow around one another as they sought more water, minerals, and stability. (show slide) Until the roots of the two trees produce something new. Together, they have created a set of steps for trail wanderers. The tangled set of roots achieve stability for trees and as well as the hiker. In fact, the root systems provide essential jobs for the trees. When trees are well rooted, they fix the tree firmly in the soil, provide water, minerals and manures. They store food, excrete waste, and support the lives of other plants. Roots are essential. (show slide) The roots of a tree go deep into the ground below what is visible to the casual hiker, and wider than the breadth of the trunk. What we see on the surface and in interaction between the two trees is only a part of the root system. About fifty percent of the root system is underground.(1)
Paul’s letter to Timothy starts out with the roots of faith in Paul’s life – the faith that he shares with those who shaped him in the faith. We share and pass on our faith in God to our ancestors with each other. Paul highlights Timothy’s grandmother Lois and his mom Eunice. Paul, who may feel like a name dropper to us, often calls out by name and praises church leaders in his letters. Today, we hear of his grandmother, Lois and mom, Eunice. They are the roots that keep Timothy grounded in his faith. As Timothy travels, it is his mom and his grandmom who keep his connected.
If Paul composed a letter to West Grove in a similar way, who would some of the people of faith in days gone by be? Paul’s letter to West Grove might remember Barb Anderson and Betty Siegfried, and Wayne Martz, and Wayne Achuff and others. Those to whom we collectively see our faith lives connected, as they taught us in Sunday school, mentored us in the kitchen, chatted over coffee, and led in their own ways. We sang together in worship, lifted our prayers, and saw God’s very hand move in the lives of our community. Our roots of faith grew a bit deeper and became nourished because of who they were.
For each of us, there are those who nourish our roots and with whom our roots combine. Those who have been Lois and Eunice to our Timothy. Whether or not, they are biological family, they become ecclesiastical family who nurture us as we are growing into the fullest of who we are called to be. Like the stairs of the intertwined roots, our lives become connected when we are rooted together in faith. Additionally, we are called to be Lois and Eunice to another generation of those who are seeking rooting in faith. Joining in the communion of faith means that there will always be those who you are rooted with and mentored under, and those who you are seeking you as mentor and to root alongside you.
How are we Lois and Eunice to those we are rooted to in faith?
Across each generation we, like Timothy, find our roots also keep us grounded in the faith. Our connections with one another fill and feed us. We share a common faith root, a taproot in Jesus, in whom we live and move and have our being. We share this connection with Christians all over the world. Through our connection in Jesus, we become connected to people of faith locally and globally. We go deep as we seek out the source of our being from Jesus.
We, who are rooted in Christ, must continue to be fed. A root system that is not fed – is dead. Roots without nourishment, they die. Our breadth and width of connection and relationship grows as we join together in communion with those around the world.
Scholar Walter Brueggemann reminds us of this vital connection with communion and out rootedness in God’s way: “I have come to think that the moment of giving the bread of Eucharist as gift is the quintessential center of the notion of Sabbath rest in Christian tradition. It is gift! We receive in gratitude. Imagine having a sacrament named “thanks”! We are on the receiving end, without accomplishment, achievement, or qualification. It is a gift, and we are grateful! That moment of gift is a peaceable alternative that many who are “weary and heavy-laden, cumbered with a load of care” receive gladly. The offer of free gift, faithful to Judaism, might let us learn enough to halt the dramatic anti-neighborliness to which our society is madly and uncritically committed”. (2)
As we come to an open table with those around the world today, we are reminded that all are welcome. All means all. All ages, all abilities, all races, all ethnicities, all that threatened to divide brings us together through Jesus. As we come to receive communion, we extend our hands to receive communion. The communion steward offers God’s grace as the bread and juice are given. God’s grace is always given to us – we do not need to take it! We, who are rooted in grace, remind ourselves of God’s abundant grace, even in the details of how we receive communion. We are grounded in practice of Communion, so that others may know Jesus through us.
As the disciples gathered with Jesus for his last meal, Jesus transfigured the Passover gathering into a Eucharistic setting establishing communion, giving them roots to him and with one another. Our roots go deep as we share the same sacrament of holy communion with all who have gone before us, as well as those who gather around the world. On this world communion Sunday, my prayer for the church, our local church, here at West Grove, our denomination as she discern her way forward, and the big C church, is that our roots might be like the trees Peter and I saw at Goddard – growing in depth, being nourished in connection with one another and our taproot, Jesus, expanding in breadth in across fullness of God call us to be, and becoming fully engaged and entangled with one another – rooted in faith, so deeply that we created something new out of the synergy being rooted together.
This is the Gospel, the good news of our Lord, Jesus Christ, thanks be to God, Amen.
(1) https://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/2006/apr/4-28-06GardenColumn.htm
(2) Brueggemann, Walter. Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now. 2014.
New Testament Lesson: 2 Timothy 1:1-14
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
To Timothy, my beloved child:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
New Testament Lesson: Galatians 3:23-29
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
Meditations For Your Week
Sunday, October 6 ~ Saturday, October 12
Sunday: “ I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day” 2 Timothy 1: 3. As we celebrate World Communion Sunday, give thanks to God for a world who seeks God. Pray for the wholeness of the world to know God more.
Monday: Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.” 2 Timothy 1:4. Consider that people of faith bring joy to one another. Surround yourself with those who bring joy. Be joy-filled for others.
Tuesday: “ I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.” 2 Timothy 1:5. Who has passed on the faith to you? Have you thanked them recently?
Wednesday: “For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.” 1 Timothy 1:6. Pray for all those who experience the call of God, ordained ministry, lay ministry. Pray that they might not be discourage, but encouraged through prayer.
Thursday: “for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7. How will we move these as our future that is filled, not with a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power, love and self-discipline?
Friday: “for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” Galatians 3:26. How did you come to know about faith in Jesus? How will you share your faith?
Saturday: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:37. Pray that as you are clothed with Christ, you might mentor others just coming to know Christ.