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Abundance
September 1, 2024

Abundance

Preacher:
Passage: Haggai 2:18-19, John 1:44-50

WELCOME
No matter who you are and where you are on your journey, I welcome you to gather and worship with us in community.

 

One of the central messages of the Christian faith that is most often overlooked is that Christ is present in an

Summaries of Previous Weeks

S01

Passage: Haggai 2:18-19

  1.        18  So take it to heart
  2.         from this day forward,
  3.         from the twenty-fourth day
  4.         of the ninth month.
  5.         Take it to heart from the day when
  6.         the foundation for the LORD’s
  7.         temple was laid.
  8.        19 Is the seed yet in the granary—
  9.         or the vine, the fig tree,
  10.         or the pomegranate—
  11.         or has the olive tree not borne fruit?
  12.         From this day forward, I will bless you.

Passage: John 1:44–50

  1.        44  Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.
  2.        45  Philip found Nathanael and said to him,
  3. “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets:
  4. Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.”
  5.        46  Nathanael responded,
  6. “Can anything from Nazareth be good?”
  7.         Philip said,
  8.         “Come and see.”
  9.        47  Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him,
  10. “Here is a genuine Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
  11.        48  Nathanael asked him,
  12. “How do you know me?”
  13.         Jesus answered,
  14. “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”
  15.        49  Nathanael replied,
  16. “Rabbi, you are God’s Son. You are the king of Israel.”
  17.        50  Jesus answered,
  18. “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?
  19. You will see greater things than these!

Pastoral Prayer

Inspired by Psalm 128

Abundant God, God of happiness and blessing! Berrymaking, merrymaking Lord of Life, who fills the vine with fruit and the orchards with plenty for many generations! You created this world full of strawberries, raspberries, puckering gooseberries, fat, round cherries and sweet, ripe figs. We seek your abundance, your peace, and your blessing.

 

(Optional, prayers of the people:

Hear our prayers, as we raise them to you….)

 

God of the first fruits, we have not valued the abundance of this earth as we should. We have paved over your meadows with asphalt. We forgot about the sacredness of berries and the goodness of your household of abundance. Replant us under the fig tree. Let us picnic in the berry patch. Let us learn anew to walk with you as a berry-stained people, happy in your Love.

Amen.

Introduction

[Just back from…]

Part way through backpacking Grand Teton trail, the person leading came to a sudden stop. She had spotted a wolverine about 50 yards away. We spent a while watching and taking pictures and finally started moving again. The wolverine was still out in the open. We hiked around an outcropping and, a fews minute later, two guys were sitting above the trail. A couple members of our group excitedly shared what we’d seen. The response we heard is “Wolverines are very rare. I don’t think you saw one.”

Ouch.

John

The two guys on the hill side are a bit like Nathaniel in our John passage.

Philip has been looking for someone special, something also unique and rare… and now he’s found it and experienced something he wants to share with others.

But, Nathaniel, has his own pushback. Can anything from Nazareth be good? His own I don’t think you saw. 

Can’t be.

Nathanael and Philip

Here’s where those two guys got even more interesting. They caught up with us not too long after and were very friendly. We were still talking about them, later in the trip. Were they the cynical doubters or a friendly group on the trail? Could we see something good in them in spite of how they had been difficult and insulting? How do we make assumption about people based on one impression? How do, like the two hikers on the hillside find ourselves being difficult or insulting, making people ask can anything good come from them?

Philip does something striking when faced with this doubt. He doesn’t join the argument. Instead, he says come see. If Philip had been in our shoes, he would have said, we spotted that wolverine a tenth of a mile back. Come see for yourself.

If this was a film, Jesus would have heard how rude Nathanael was and responded in kind. Instead It’s Jesus’ memory of Nathaniel sitting under a fig tree that Jesus cares about.

Where we, as a group of backpackers focused on how we’ve been treated, Philip and Jesus saw something more. And, for Jesus, it involves the fig tree.

Figs

Figs

Figs are important enough that that detail is still part of the story. It’s not I saw you sitting… or I saw you sitting under a tree, but I saw you sitting under a fig tree.

The fig was important in the middle east. Culturally, they carried special weight. One commentary pointed out that berries play a similar role here.

Berries and Boarshead

When Ingrid and I hike, she likes to stop and pick a few berries here and there from alongside the trail. She points others out. When people from other time zones look at pictures of our landscape, they usually don’t think of fruit so close you can reach out from the trail and pluck it. But, there’s abundance if you’re willing to look a little closer. Figs were a similar sign in the middle east. They came to symbolize abundance.

The Boars Head factory has been in the news. Many people think of places like that as the sources of food… and abundance. But, like looking at pictures of our landscape, and assuming what’s not there, we miss the abundance that is all around us.

Strangelands

Haggai’s people may have experienced this problem. They’ve returned home, they’ve re-set the cornerstone and they are rebuilding community. But, they’re welcoming each other home to a land they themselves are not from. Returning home meant leaving the place that they grew up in… and Haggai has to remind them that abundance is still coming.

He connect this promise of abundance with the rebuilding of temple and community. Cooperation and community play an important role in sharing abundance –of all kinds.

Salt Pills and Filtered Water

One of the people on our backpacking trip came without electrolights or salt pills. Several days in we found this out when he started getting dizzy. Several of the rest of us shared salt pills and electrolight gummies with him.

Another response would have been for each of us to live out of scarcity and look at what we were carrying as all that we had. To hoard it, To use even more of what was around so that we would get our share.

Because we didn’t do that, because we recognized abundance, by the end of the trip, everyone in the party had come to rely on something someone else had brought… and everyone contributed something they had brought to the rest of the group.

But, it went beyond that. With a five day backpacking trip, it’s practically impossible to carry enough water for the whole trip. We all relied on water we filtered daily out of a stream. When storms broke, we took shelter under trees. And others and creation depended upon us. For instance, they ask everyone to hike 200 feet from any water source and dig a hole to poop in…. to not contaminate the streams. Recognizing abundance is not just about taking but also about giving.

To make it through the backcountry, it took more than what we carried on our backs, it took approaching the world as a place of abundance, a place where we depended on each other and the creation around us. We are part of web of relationships. Strangely, when it seemed like we had the least –a pack of stuff on our backs– we were still able, together, to find abundance to supply all our needs.

Conclusion

It’s easy to think that meeting our own needs depends on our own ingenuity, that we can accumulate and hoard enough that we’ll have what we need even when there’s not enough for others. It’s the view that says  Wolverines are very rare. I don’t think you saw one that says Nothing good comes of Navareth. It’s the view that often focus es on scarcity and see the worst. And, in doing so misses the chance to see the truly rare –a wolverine, Christ among us– that misses abundance around us. Even when you’re living out of a pack on your back,  abundance can be found. Fig trees –and berries– friends with salt tabs and electrolight gummies, streams to draw water from are an abundance. Where will you find abundance around you this week. Where will you recognize it in your back yard. Where will you practice it with others and with creation around you.

 

Communion Liturgy

The God of abundance be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up the gift of your hearts.

We lift them up to our God.

Let us give thanks to the bringer of all good things.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

O God, out of nothingness you gave us this world and all that is in it. With your breath, your words, and your tenderness, you brought this place into being so that it might sing. When there was nothing to know and nothing to see, you knew your intentions for creation and you saw what could be. Out of the depths of your heart you brought forth life, from the smallest of creatures to the expansiveness of the stars. You brought forth everything that brings us joy and goodness,

each piece of creation a gift of your very self.

And so, with all your creation, and all the company of the heavens, we sing your praises, and join the song of truth that never ends:

Holy, holy, holy

God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory,

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Present from before time existed, Christ co-created goodness with you. We celebrate Christ’s nurturance of your beloved creation as he holds all things together. When the appointed time dawned, Christ became like us, nurtured in the waters you brought forth in his mother’s womb. Baptized by John and anointed with your Spirit, he carried out divine ministry in and among the people you love so dearly.

Recognizing fisherfolks, tax collectors, the outcasts and the marginalized everywhere, Jesus chose to see the goodness and potential in humanity rather than reasons for condemnation. From fig trees to the birds of the air, he taught lessons and truths, drawing on that creation he holds together with you.

When he sat with his friends and loved ones, he shared from the fruits of creation. He took bread made of grain that sprouted from the dirt and said, “Take, eat. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” When the supper was over, he took wine made from grapes off the vine, which also grew from the dirt and said, “Drink this, all of you. This is the blood of the New Covenant, which will be poured out for repair and reconciliation.”

And so, in remembrance of these your gracious and holy acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves with singing and jubilation, as we proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.

Animating Spirit, guide of our souls and our lives, be present in these gifts of the earth. Draw us in and empower us to be agents of care and compassion in this world we have been given. Make us ever aware of our place among the family of this world. Fill us up with your grace and pour it out on us like a gushing waterfall, that we may be ever present in this world the way it is needed. From earth to sky and everything in between, may we offer ourselves as a gift back to the world and to our Creator, that justice and liberation for all may be realized and recognized. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all this expansive and beautiful world.

Now, with the confidence of citizens of a world created and sustained by God, let us pray in the way of Christ:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

Prayer After Receiving

O God, through this mysterious meal,

you have reminded us that like the grain,

we are scattered, we are buried,

and we rise again in your unconditional love.

Like the juice of the vine, we flow, we ferment,

and we rejoice in your expectation of abundant life

for us and for all creation.

Send us now as ambassadors of your love,

and repairers of the breach.

Send us as light and shade

through service and through praise.

Amen.

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