Two Gardens, One Message

Community United Methodist Church grounds include two "gardens" - the Centennial Garden and the Jerusalem Cross Garden.

The one celebrates the very nature of our Trinitarian God, one in three, three in one, who invites us to choose life by joining the trinitarian dance of love (perichoresis). The other roots life in the ordinary - a vegetable garden from which comes, symbolically, our daily bread. But the latter points too to the truth that people "shall not live by bread alone" in reminding us of the importance of being fed by God through regular Christian acts of discipleship.

1. The Centennial Garden of Community United Methodist Church, established in 2007 and still evolving, celebrates 100 years of ministry in Leavenworth, Washington. The three huge, glacial boulders anchor the garden and our congregations' faith in the "Trinity-mapped country in which [Christians] know and believe in and serve God: The Father and creation, the Son and history, and the Spirit and community" (Eugene Peterson). We are invited, as we take a seat on the two wooden benches, to experience God as the ground of our being - that still today God cares and wants to sustain both our personal lives and the life of all creation by living in relationship with us.

2. The Jerusalem Cross Garden invites members to participate in God's rhythm and receive Gods' gift of place. Rhythm: Seasons come and seasons go - spring, summer, autumn, winter- giving us our daily food. And gardening connects us tangibly to this divine rhythm of creation that helps to feed us. On the other hand, the weekly day of rest, part of God's rhythm too, feeds our soul by anchoring us in the fertile soil of God's nurturing love. Place: The gift of place reminds us that we are placed in this particular part of Gods' garden, the Wenatchee River Valley. It is here that we are called to tend the garden and all that is in it, people and all created things.

Spring 2009

Spring has arrived in the Pacific Northwest, and our annual Seedtime Sunday blessing of the Jerusalem Cross garden, consolidates this Easter time of resurrection by launching us into the planting season.

Gathering in the garden after worship on Seedtime Sunday we prayed a prayer of planting - At this time, dear Lord, we plant these seeds and seedlings that You have given us. Bless them, and watch over them, and bring them to the full growth and rich harvest that You wish to bless us with. Amen.

Already the four little crosses have been planted with four varieties of perennial herbs to remind us how acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice flavor our lives. The winter wheat, planted in the fall, has already sprouted in one of the quadrants. Maybe it will provide enough wheat for one loaf of communion bread on our Autumn Leaf Harvest Sunday. Into the composted soil, increasingly alive with earthworms after four growing seasons, once the snows have disappeared from Wedge Mountain, we'll companion plant various seeds and seedlings. And Jerusalem Cross Gardening will have begun again...with the promise of good food...for body and soul.