(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Tending Roses”, originally shared on May 17, 2021. It was the 116th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
New cases of the coronavirus are decreasing
rapidly. Breakouts among the vaccinated have occurred but those who have tested
positive either have no symptoms or the symptoms are very minor. There was a
breakout in the New York Yankees baseball organization this past week; 8 people
tested positive, 7 showed no symptoms and one had minor symptoms and is feeling
better already. Vaccines have successfully prevented more serious illness and
death. The CDC has said that masks are
probably not necessary for the fully vaccinated, but we in California are being
more conservative, which is kind of ironic for California. We are requiring
them indoors for the time being. And, what we have been doing is working. Our
efforts have come to flower.
It could be said that roses are mentioned many times in the Bible, and
it could also be said that they are mentioned hardly at all.
The challenge for translators is in figuring out what plant is being
referred to in the original languages. For example, the NRSV uses the word
crocus in Isaiah 35:1, “The wilderness and
the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the
crocus it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory
of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall
see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.”
But that word could also be translated as “rose”.
When Solomon says in Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 1, “I am a
rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.”, some scholars and botanists say it
could also have been a kind of tulip, or narcissus, or a kind of hibiscus, or
crocus, or saffron. Other mentions of rose in the Old Testament could also be
translated as oleander, some kind of bulb plant, or even plants of the lily
family.
What I do know is that the plants in the middle of our backyard are
roses. We’ve planted them, and we have tended them.
The first secretary at the church I served in San Dimas was a wonderful
gardener. She told me that roses like “warm heads and cold feet” and that’s the
principle by which I have tended them.
I cut them back after the likely last danger of frost has passed, and I
feed them, usually with an organic rose food.
We are tended much like that. We receive the radiance not of the sun
(s-u-n) but of the Son (S-o-n), the light of the world. We are nourished by the
Holy Spirit, the streams of living water described in both the Old and New
Testaments of the Bible. We are pruned sometimes as we open up to God’s removal
of those things that defy God in our lives and the sin that separates us from
God and from one another. We repent and turn away from them and receive
forgiveness, and we are fed by the sacraments and by the voice of God in God’s
Word through the Bible that opens us up to receive the gift of faith through
the Holy Spirit.
God is the master gardener and knows what we need before we know what we
need. We are the plant. God is the gardener. We bear roses to God’s glory.
I think that’s why many churches have flowers near their altar that come
from a flower shop or from people’s home gardens. They bring the natural world,
the world of God’s creation, into our place of worship, where we give thanks
for that Creation and for the Creator. They are a symbol of joy and of the
beauty God has given us within.
But I think that they illustrate a greater reason. They are a reminder
to be humble. They are a reminder that we are wholly dependent on God.
When flowers are brought into the sanctuary to decorate the church, they
are dead.
Allow me to illustrate. Imagine I cut a rose from the bushes in our
backyard. Those roses are in the first bloom. They are beautiful and alive
because they have been created and tended. Their growth is enabled by the sun.
They have been planted, fed, cut-back, and watered.
Once they have been cut, however, none of those processes will bring
them back to life. They may look good for a while, and we can take steps to
prolong their appearance, but they are dead.
In the same way, we have been made Christians by God’s work through the
cross. We are alive in the Holy Spirit, God’s ongoing personal presence for
good in the world. Nothing can take us out of God’s hand. We are like vines and
branches. As long as we abide in a living relationship with the one true living
God, we are alive forever.
We can cut ourselves off from God, from the source of our beauty, our
food, our streams of living water.
We’ll look good for a while. We can prolong our appearance artificially
for a while.
But we’re spiritually dead.
Peter writes, including a quote from Psalm 103:15-18, in his
first letter, the first chapter, beginning at the 22nd verse:
*1 Peter 1:22-25
That word is the word that gives life.
Are you spiritually dry? Do you feel like you have the appearance of
something but have given up on its power?
Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew, the 5th chapter
beginning at the 25th verse:
Southern California has a Rose Bowl, a Rose Parade, and the roses of the
Huntington Gardens and thousands of parks and back yards. All of them are tended
by people who seek roses.
This is the time to let God open your heart and renew it as we are
entering the New Normal, to let God tend our interior selves, our living
relationship with the living God, to nourish and shape us with streams of
living water, the Holy Spirit at work within us. To repent and to be open to
God to tending us like roses and shaping us into people God can use.
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