Dearly Beloved,
What a beautiful celebration we had this last Sunday -- celebrating the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church, welcoming eleven new members (!!) and our love for this congregation. If you missed it, be sure to watch the love letters from our staff Staci (minute 25:40), Nikki (38:15) and myself (51:00) HERE.
This week, we move into our summer season and the theme of Growing in God's Love. Images of gardens and crops, tending, growing and harvesting fill our scriptures. Of course, the Hebrew people were farmers, people who tilled the land, who sowed, tended and reaped. They would have innately understood gardening and growing metaphors, for these drew from their everyday experiences.
While not all of us grew up on farms or are actively involved in tending plants, many of us do still have gardens or at least house plants. We, like the writers of our scriptures, will draw on the metaphors of gardening, tending, and growing to reflect on what it means to follow Christ in love.
As we delve into this theme, I invite you to reflect on your own life. Do you garden or farm? Be it crops, veggies, fruit, flowers or houseplants! Do you tend gardens or children or pets? Do you cultivate relationship, community or beauty? What seeds are you planting in the world around you or what seeds have been planted in your life that may be germinating and taking root?
This Sunday, we will hear from Isaiah 55 in which the prophet likens God's word to rain and snow, which fall from the sky and water the world, allowing plants, trees and flowers to grow. The prophet writes (verse 10-11b): Just as the rain and the snow come down from the sky and don’t return there without watering the earth, making it conceive and yield plants and providing seed to the sower and food to the eater, so is my word that comes from my mouth; it does not return to me empty."
How is God's word watering your soul? Or God's love? Or Christ's grace? What is sprouting? Perhaps even budding? Blooming? Or flowering?
I look forward to holding these questions with all of you and celebrating with joy all that God is doing in and through us!
Love and peace,
Thandiwe
