(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Five Flowers, originally shared on March 11, 2021. It was the ninety-seventh video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
What are the five flowers of the Christian
life, and which one matters? We are now passing one year of a global pandemic.
What have we learned about what truly matters, what we can only “see” when we
look away from it, and what we can only “find” when do not seek it?
We’re at just about a year into the measures
taken by our government and by ourselves to lower the curve of illness,
hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus. We are also at just about a
year that Sally and I have been producing these videos, Living Water.
Our understanding of the disease has
improved, we know what simple things we can do personally to literally save
lives, we have reliable tests and better treatments, we have preventative vaccines,
and the curve is moving downward, but we still have a long way to go to get
everyone vaccinated, and not just in LA County. This is a worldwide pandemic,
and we can’t be safe until everyone is safe. That means global vaccination efforts
to defeat this disease.
And a lot has been lost, even for the most
fortunate, and a great deal more for so, including the most vulnerable. We have
lost loved ones, our mobility, our sense of security among other people,
education, health care, fitness, meaningful relationships, community, businesses,
jobs, and trust that people will act for the common good.
We are starting to emerge into a new normal.
It’s springtime, we’re getting some much-needed
rain in the LA area, and we’re seeing growth.
It’s time to plant things and watch them
grow. So, today, I want to talk about what I see as the five kind of flowers of
the Christian community, and how they help us understand both where we are now,
and what will be the most important components of the new normal we are growing
into.
The first flower is a cut flower.
Flowers grow and they get cut. I was talking one day with one of the members of
the church I served in San Dimas whose ancestors had come from Sweden. My
family and I had returned from a trip to Norway, where my ancestors were from. I
was sharing how I had been struck with how Norway was rich with oil money, but
that everyone was very unassuming and dressed very plainly. She said that in
Sweden they have a saying, “The tallest flower gets cut first.”
You don’t want to be a cut flower, because
when cut flowers are taken from their source of life, they die. They show their
beauty around for a while, and then they’re dead. In fact, they are dead as
soon as they are cut even though they look vibrant and alive.
A whole bunch of cut flowers will look
spectacular together. They used to decorate many of the worship spaces in our
church buildings, when we were using indoor space, but within a week they were
compost.
Christians and Christian congregations can
be the same. They look good, but if they are cut off from their source of life,
they are in fact dead and soon they will look dead.
The second is a flower bulb. Flower
bulbs look dead for a long time, but they can emerge and bloom into bright
and vibrant life. If cared for, they will continue to live. There will be
seasons of dormancy, seasons of growth, and seasons of a flowering, and they
will repeat their seasons. They will live. But eventually even they will die.
Some Christians and even whole churches are
like that. They go through a disaster or a season of spiritual drought, seem to
be dead, even invisible, but then they grow greens and burst into glorious
flower. They repeat the cycle over and over but, eventually they are played out,
there is no longer any life in them.
The third flower is a wildflower. Wildflowers
grow wherever the wind takes their seeds, and they find compatible conditions
for growth. They will grow in the right conditions. They don’t need a lot of
human attention. They just need the conditions that they like.
Some Christians, and even churches are like
that. They go where the wind blows, follow popular movements, cultural trends,
and they change until they find way of being that suits them. They don’t need
God, just religious language, and maybe a tradition.
The fourth flower is an artificial flower. Artificial
flowers look like real
flowers. Sometimes it can be hard to tell them apart, even up close, but they
are dead. There is no life in them. I remember reading a story about a
congregation that asked people to donate easter lilies for its annual
spectacular display to decorate the altar area and back wall for Easter Sunday.
The flowers remained for weeks and drew visitors. One year, a woman decided
that she wanted the lily shed had donated back to take to a shut-in. After the
church had cleared out, she crept up to the altar and discovered that most of
the lilies were fake! She confronted the pastor who said that years earlier,
the leadership had decided that it was not good stewardship to buy flowers and
through them away, that they could use the donated money for good causes, and
that artificial flowers were a better symbol of the resurrection anyway,
because they never died.
The thing is, though, is that they never
died because they were never alive.
Some Christians and even some whole
congregations are like that. Some have never been alive. They just look like
something real. It’s been said that you can’t burn out until you catch on fire.
Some have never been on fire with the fire of the Holy Spirit. They carry out
the traditions of the particular church, they don’t want new Christians and
wouldn’t know how to care for them if they came. They mainly want new members
who will pay the bills, do things the way they think will honor them, and keep
the church open long enough to conduct their funerals.
The fifth flower is a flower that is
still attached to its roots. Flowers that are still in the ground,
that have been cultivated and cared for to grow and reproduce wherever they are
planted. They are flowers that are real, that smell like flowers, look like
flowers, and are rooted and gather their own food and water to maintain life.
Some Christians, and even churches, are like
that. They are connected to the source of life, Jesus Christ, and the invite
others to life in a living relationship with the one true living God.
They are like the vine and branches
described by Jesus in the gospel of John, the 15th chapter, starting
at the 1st verse:
*John 15:1-11
Jesus is the source of all life but, at
least in this world, we will all die in the eyes of the world.
Even rooted flowers die.
Jesus spoke of a relationship, an abiding
connection, that will never die.
Jesus said, in the gospel of Luke, the 12th
chapter, starting at the 25th verse (it also appears in
Matthew 6:25-34):
*Luke 12:25-31
We are the lilies of the field. How do they
grow? They don’t do anything. They receive the gifts of God, and there is no
growth more spectacular.
Seeds, whether from a flower, or a
catalogue, or from a store, whether cared for or not do not mean eternal life;
they will all die.
Consider the lilies of the field
Consider who you are right now in your
baptism and faith. You didn’t do anything to earn them or to deserve them. They
are gifts from God.
Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, the 6th chapter, starting at the 3rd verse:
Everything that is living, dies. But though
we die, we still live, now and forever. That is the paradox of the Christian
life.
Do we want the things that we need in this
life? Stop worrying and trust that God will provide the means to receive the
things that we need for this life.
Do we want the life that truly is life? Be
connected to Life itself in a living relationship with the one true living God
in Jesus Christ. That is, faith.
Do we want eternal life? We die in God’s
gift of our Baptisms to everything that defies God.
We are the lilies of the field, and
our death is a past tense reality.
Whatever the circumstances around us, God is
there amid them calling us to live, to live with hope and to know the abundant
life in quality and quantity that Jesus came to give and to trust God to
provide the means to secure it. Always.
Where is our life if we all decay or die? We
have died with Christ and will share a resurrection like his. We will thrive
because of the Gift of God’s self, the living water, the personhood, the
presence, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
We are the lilies of the field, but by God’s grace we will live forever.
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