Third Sunday of Easter

For several months now, when the congregation council meets, we begin with a time of prayer and conversation around questions focused on “living every day as disciples” [of Jesus] in and through our ministry here at Ascension.

Most recently, we were talking about the joy of new life and what that looks like in our congregation. Next Sunday, we will celebrate a baptism of one of our children and in June, the baby for whom we’ve been praying is due. Certainly young children and baptisms are welcome signs of new life, but they are not the only place where we see new life taking root:

• We are building a little free pantry that will provide our neighbors the personal care items that SNAP and EBT don’t cover; 
• We are establishing a public prayer garden between the church and the columbarium to provide a quiet place for reflection and meditation; 
• We are confirming four of our middle school students on Pentecost in June, honoring the promises we made at their baptisms to support them and pray for them; 
• and we are paying attention to what it means to live wholly and well in all the different areas of our lives, whether it’s financial, physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual matters.

God is birthing new things in our midst and in our lives.

In the epistle today the author speaks of what is being born anew in us when we receive the inheritance of faith and God’s love – that inheritance that we heard described last week as “imperishable, undefiled and unfading.”

Today, we hear again the word “imperishable” only this time it is describing not God’s love for us, but the nature of what is planted in us by God.

Do you remember the parable of the sower that shows up in both Luke 8 and Mark 4?

The sower goes out to sow, intending to plant in a particular place, but the seed falls in other places, too. Often we hear this parable as a charge to the church,
but I tend to think, instead,
that God, who is always the actor, is the sower, and we are more likely the ground. There are parts of us that are all of the things described in the parable — trampled, rocky, thorny and good — but the seed of the Good News is still sown into each one of us.

In the portion of the letter we read today, the comparison is made between the perishable seed and the imperishable seed, and the author affirms that what is planted in us is the latter – the imperishable seed.

Perishable seeds are like the most transient of spring flowers, the brightly colored annuals that fade and die.

But imperishable seed is like the seed from morning glories that falls off and lands on the ground, blooming again even more boldly the next season.

As the recipients of this imperishable seed, the living and transformational Word of God, sometimes we feel well-watered – confident of God’s care – and other times we feel parched and dry – separated somehow from God’s presence.

Remember though that God is the one who’s active here:

Regardless of our condition, God’s Word is at work in us and we are born anew, just as God is at work in our congregation and community, making all things new and stirring up new life in our ministries and lives.

Let us pray…
Holy God,
Help us discern what is perishable in our lives that it will not distract us.
Open our hearts to receive your imperishable love, and life-giving Word.
May your Holy Spirit direct us toward the new life that you are stirring among us.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior we pray.
Amen.