📖 Today’s Scripture
Luke 13:6-9 (Parable of the fig tree)
6 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. 7 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?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”
🎶 Today’s Music
Spotify Playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ePoemUhqDW8XpuacikngY?si=c868d4f6611c4883
Today’s music combines so many different variations of growth and rest - especially the concept of patience. We hope you’re able to contemplate what it means to rest and grow through today’s music selections.
💬 Today’s Words for Worship
We are so honored to have three artists from our own Creator’s Space (which is open to all and meets monthly) share their work with us today. These pieces were inspired by today’s Scripture and theme.
Artist: Artemis Kinzie
Call to worship
Worship is a place to rest.
We breathe deeply here.
We still our aching bones.
We sit in the quiet.
We surround ourselves with music.
Worship is a place to rest.
Worship is a place to grow.
We listen for God’s word.
We invite it to challenge us.
We lean in with curiosity.
We ask questions.
Worship is a place to grow.
So come into this space.
Come rest and grow here.
For where two or more are gathered,
God is always there.
Let us worship our gracious God.
Artist: Val Laymon
Call to confession
Friends, we carve out time for confession in worship because it is not enough to hear about God’s grace once. We need that reminder again, and again, and again.
So join me in speaking the truth of our lives, and join me in receiving God’s grace again.
Prayer of confession
Holy God,
There are days when we fail to rest.
We stretch ourselves too thin. We say “yes” to every invitation.
We run a million miles a minute. We ignore your command to rest.
There are also days when we fail to act.
We wait for someone else. We take the easy road.
We find excuses and justify our inaction.
God, forgive our imbalance.
Remind us that birds rest, and they also fly.
Show us how to do the same. Amen.
Words of forgiveness
Family of faith, I have good news! Our God does not keep score. Our God does not hold grudges. Our God does not assume the worst about us. No, our God offers grace, and endless second chances, and boundless love. So join me in proclaiming the good news of the gospel:
God’s grace is deeper than the ocean. God’s love is wider than the sky.
We are seen. We are claimed. We are forgiven.
May this realization change and inspire us.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Artist: John Ditchen
Prayer for illumination
Creator God,
Your Word is like soil,
something we can root ourselves in.
Your Word is like the sun,
big enough to touch everything with its warmth.
And your Word is like a gardener,
a love that prunes and encourages,
waters and delights,
seeds and tends.
So as we turn to your text today,
warm our bones,
tend to our broken pieces,
and show us how to grow.
With hope we pray,
Amen.
Affirmation of faith
We believe in a God who loves and tends to us like a gardener.
We believe that like the trees,
some seasons are for growth,
and some seasons are for rest.
Some days require pruning,
and some require planting.
Fortunately, we believe that our green-thumbed God
sees us and cultivates the sweetest fruit.
So may we plant roots,
reach for the sky,
grow where we can,
and rest when we need,
for we believe there is holiness in the pruning and
in the planting. And we do not grow alone.
Thanks be to God,
amen.
📺 Today’s Videos
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete. —By Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian” - Ross Gay
“Wild Geese” – Mary Oliver read by Helena Bonham Carter
💬 Today’s Sermon
Links:
“For When Resting Feels Like Too Great a Risk,” by Cole Arthur Riley,
a prayer adapted from her book, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human. Posted on Instagram @blackliturgies, October 22, 2023.
🎨 Today’s Visio Divina
Fig Leafing
by Hannah Garrity
Inspired by Luke 13:6-9
Paper lace and watercolor
At our church retreat a few months ago, we offered a session on eco-spirituality. Our
instructor led an exercise that focused our attention on a single, natural object. I selected a wilted flower. We were to draw it, then tell its narrative. We were to refer to it as a “one.” This one. We were to affirm the one and be affirmed by the one.
That exercise resonates with me here as I revisit the parable of the fig tree. In this circular image, two figures lean in over the tree; their heads are full of ideas for fruiting, their bodies are full of dead fig leaf patterns.5 Their ideas and dreams have not born fruit. They converse about how to cultivate growth. Then one pushes back against the other and creates tension, discord. From that tension comes an opening, letting the fig tree have its time and space to thrive.
In this paper lace piece, the fig tree is full of life, representing its potential when given the time and space to grow. As I wonder about God’s presence here in the parable, I see that the God figure could be the fig tree. “Let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it,”6 the vineyard keeper replies. As I breathe into the gift of another day, where do I see potential in need of my honor, my care, and the space and time to grow?
Or perhaps the God figure here is in the space between them all, between the three. The fig
tree, this one, begins its leafing in the in-between.