One of our younger members almost always brings me acorns, presenting them to me with wonder and delight. Acorns are amazing. From this tiny seed grows a huge oak tree. Did you know that the average oak tree lives 600 years? 600 years! The tree that grows from this acorn could be around for the next 20 generations!! That’s children, grandchildren, and 18 generations of great-grandchildren. Roughly 4 times as long as Trinity has been a congregation already. With this tiny seed of knowledge, it comes as no surprise that in various cultures throughout history, acorns are symbols of life, growth, fertility, potential, and immortality.
Jesus is teaching with another vineyard parable, getting us thinking about vines and trees and roots. Living things that we humans tend, plant, nurture, harvest (hopefully bountifully). Oak trees spend about ⅓ of their life growing, the next ⅓ living, and the final ⅓ slowly dying. And when they are gone, they nurture future growth as they return spent organic matter to the earth from which they grew.
As beautiful and predictable as this cycle sounds, anyone who has tended a garden or animals knows that factors beyond human control can change everything. Drought that prevents grain from growing or maturing. A deep freeze that kills all the trees in the peach orchard. A blight that withers the grape rootstock. Avian flu or mad cow disease. Interwoven and organic relationships that can be devastating to life and livelihood. Just as they can also be mysteriously and marvelously nurturing.
All living things have seasons of life. People. Animals. Vineyards. Oak trees. Communities. All the seasons are necessary, and none are objectively wrong or bad. Seasons describe where we are in a process of growing, living, and dying or rebirth. As Christians, rebirth into new life is an explicit part of our orientation to a full and thriving life. We are rooted here and now because of the abundance of those who came before us, who planted and nurtured the roots that sustain our life. And we tend the roots and vines and trees so that they will bear fruit now and in the future.
The violence in the parable today presents unsettling images about how we treat those who disagree with us, or who make our safety or livelihood feel threatened. Jesus reflects back to us how humanity chooses greed over sharing, violence over generosity, anger over compassion.
Greed, jealousy, anger, fear - all very human responses, and all can lead to violence. We feel unseen or disrespected or unheard. We want MORE! We all harbor some violence in our heart, which comes out as anger when our deepest values are threatened. We have all had some choice words when someone cuts us off or stops short in front of us in traffic, or nearly hits us in a crosswalk. They threaten our safety. That feels like violence against us, and we may be tempted to react in kind.
Violence can be physical, and it can come out in the form of criticism, verbal attacks, shaming, silencing, shunning.
We break cycles of violence with compassion, humility, and grace. Jesus shows us, in his teachings and with his life, how to re-orient ourselves away from the greed and violence of the world. How to dig deep to find our roots in a love that will not forget or shame us, to recall our organic interconnection with all humanity and all life, to see and claim the beauty of each season of our lives.
We are stewarding all that has been handed to us to care for. Handed to us by God, by previous generations, by the yet unspoken hope of future generations.
When we give our wealth, wisdom, and works, we nurture roots, vines, and branches. Vines and branches like pastoral care, office volunteers, service projects, meeting and knowing our neighbors, Christian formation. All these branches and fruits - and so many more - grow from our rootedness in abundance.
Wealth nurtures our roots because without money we cannot repair the heating system, keep the lights and water on, or pay our staff and clergy.
Wisdom shares the unique knowledge and skills we each have, like how to create an inviting social media presence or maintain the website, how to welcome newcomers or coordinate ministry volunteers. When we give our time in service to one another and our neighbors in ministry, we offer our Works to nurture the roots and fruits of Trinity.
So far, we have shared two letters with you, one from me and one from Noel the Senior Warden. Today, and next week, every worshiping member of Trinity is invited to pick up your pledge packet from a vestry member as you leave worship.
Hold on to those pledge cards. Don’t fill them out yet. Over the next three weeks, you are invited to reflect and pray about your own rootedness in abundance and how your offering of wealth, wisdom, and works can support Trinity. On Sunday, October 29, we will gather in all our pledges, a testimony to God’s generosity to us.
Oak trees and vineyards have deep roots, planted and nurtured by generations past, that give us strength now to weather changes. Caring for the roots makes the tree, this community stronger now and deepen our resilience for the future. The vineyard, forest, world, church, kingdom, is all going to outlast all of us. Hopefully for at least 20 more generations to come.
Glory to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation in the church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen. [Eph. 3:20-21]
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