Sunday's Reading     Mark 3:20-35

I'm building a Jerusalem Cross raised-bed at home, the fourth such bed I've been a part of constructing. My prayer is that it will help me personally do some "gardening... of soil and soul" each day so that I can wake up every morning to a life of "FRIENDSHIP - with God, with other people, and with all creation" (Daniel Erlander).

Sure, once the Jerusalem Cross raised-bed is build and planted, I'll harvest healthy, organic veggies on which to feast and thrive. But this raised bed, in the shape of a Jerusalem cross, will remind me that the Master Gardener, God, wants to feed my soul too through a life not only of faith, but of action as well.

The Jerusalem Cross symbol, so tarnished historically by the Christian Church's failure to understand and live Jesus' message, reminds us Wesleyan Christians that one of the four acts we're to do regularly is the act of compassion.

Jesus in the Gospel reading this Sunday does multiple acts of compassion by healing many people. And the "Sunday School teachers," as Clarence Jordan, the writer of The Cotton Patch Gospel call the scribes (read "religious authorities"), in response spread a rumor that Jesus was able to do this because "he had an unclean spirit" (Mark 3:30).

What? Jesus? An unclean spirit? What gives?

Eugene Peterson records Jesus' sobering response this way.  “... if you persist in your slanders against God’s Holy Spirit, you are repudiating the very One who forgives, ..." (Mark 3:29).

The implication here is the last thing we want to do is separate ourselves from being in relationship with the One in whom we find fullness of life by resisting, if not opposing, the good the Spirit is doing in and through Jesus.

The acts of compassion Jesus did are sure signs that Jesus was of God. How important it is today for us not only to do acts of compassion regularly, but also to recognizes in the acts of compassion by others the Spirit at work building the kin(g)dom.

Pentecost. Colored Green, not Red, at Covenant this Year?

Next Sunday's Readings
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Anton Rublev's icon, the Holy
Trinity, painted in the 1400's, is
the "embodiment of spiritual
unity, peace, harmony, mutual
love and humility." 

It's always been red! So why would we even
contemplate coloring Pentecost Sunday (May 20) green this year at Covenant?

Well, perhaps for three exciting reasons that have everything to do with Covenant's vision of ministry for the next 36 years (2017 - 2053).

1. The Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit 

Not the prettiest of paintings this painting of the Holy Trinity on the left. But then we learn it's not meant to be pretty. Rather, it's designed to share deep insight into the nature of God as we learn to pray with it.

Notice the Spirit's cloak is colored green as a sign of endless creativity, the color of the chloroplast that turns light into life-giving plants which green all creation. Notice too how the Spirit points to a rectangle beneath the chalice, God's personal invitation to each of us to take our place, to join the circle of God's love, therein to experience union with the living God.

2. Blessing of green Seedlings and Seeds  

Pentecost red. Covenant continues to tell the Story,
"shining the Christ-light into the darkness" from our  towers.

You are invited! If you plan to plant a raised bed, patio container or a humble window sill garden this year, please do join in. Bring a sampling of seeds and/or a green seedling with you to worship on Pentecost Sunday. We will invite you to place these alongside a bowl of water around the altar before they are blessed, praying...

O God, "bless these seeds, pregnant with life. They show us the Easter mystery of new life coming from death and burial. May they burst forth soon with verdant growth from earth, rain and sun." 

This will be a wonderful way of celebrating growth in the Spirit at the start of the gardening season as all creation greens up. We will also mark the start of Eden Community Gardens in thanksgiving for the hard work of Covenant's Guild of Gardeners.

The Jerusalem Cross, used to Guide
Methodists "in making disciples of Jesus
Christ for the transformation of the world."

3. The Greening of Souls  

Building on the strength of the other small groups at Covenant, four new ones have been launched. The purpose of these Covenant Discipleship Groups is the Jerusalem-cross-gardening-of-souls, or, "in simple humility, [to] let our gardener, God, landscape [us] with the Word, making a [green] salvation-garden of [our] lives" (James 1:21) (MSG).

The groups meet weekly or bi-weekly to contemplate the Scripture reading for the coming Sunday. They explore it with head and heart, inviting the Word to re-shape who each person is and how they live. The hour-and-a-half ends with a time of "watching over one another in love," being accountable for the four acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice as symbolized by the four little crosses of the Jerusalem cross. This portion is designed to mutually encourage participants  "to love and good works."

Conclusion

This Pentecost Sunday promises to be unique. We will hear the Pentecost story read in multiple languages and experience again the red fire of the Spirit creatively working to "green" both souls and gardens alike, that God's kin(g)dom might come "on earth as it is in heaven." 

Please do join us.

Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening our Way into Covenant's Future

Sunday Readings
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Wherever I've been sent to serve in Eastern Washington, I longed to join other members of the congregations I served in doing some Jerusalem-cross-gardening-of-soil-and-soul. It seems like my own soul, and the vibrancy of the congregation, depended on it.

The Jerusalem Cross Garden at Leavenworth United Methodist

I did it at Leavenworth Methodist, then at Manito Methodist in Spokane, then in rural Wilbur on Hwy. 2 with the Lutherans and Presbyterians. Now I'm serving at Covenant Methodist, Spokane's FROG church, and in response to someone else's request it's beginning again. And I am thrilled.  We meet at 7 a.m. on Wednesday mornings for some Jerusalem-cross-gardening-of-the-soul.

We are learning together how to Fully-Rely-On-God (F.R.O.G.). This means we meet weekly for "Christian conversation" over coffee. We read the Gospel for the coming Sunday three times and talk about it. Nothing fancy. We just explore what God might be saying to us through scripture. Often times God touches our hearts through these insights shared by us ordinary folk. And it feels good to learn from each other how God really has "moved into the neighborhood" to work wholeness, healing and life.

The Jerusalem Cross Garden at Wilbur, surrounded by a circle

Todays reading was about Jesus calling Peter and Andrew, James and John.
    “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” 
We chuckled at the way Eugene Peterson put it. And we struggled with how God might be calling each one of us to become "new kinds of fishermen" who valued men and women at least as much as perch and bass.

Finally we check in. How have we done? Does anybody have anything to share about "walking the talk" this past week? Has anybody "witnessed to Jesus Christ in the world through acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice" and feel comfortable sharing?

With that, the soul part of Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening-of-soil-and-soul is done. We end in prayer for one another and our wives and children, for Covenant and for the world. Then we leave to take the love of Christ Jesus with us into our daily lives. And the work of the pilot Covenant Discipleship Group at Covenant Methodist is finished for another week.

I have a dream of many such Covenant Discipleship Groups. There's nothing better than Christians who are intentionally discipling each other to "make (new) disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world."

And perhaps somewhere on Covenant's campus, one day soon, I'll be permitted to install a real Jerusalem Cross Garden, so that, along with our emerging Eden Community Garden, the Jerusalem-Cross-Gardening-of-Soil might help us "hear the footsteps of the Lord God walking in the garden" (Genesis 3:8) and be inspired by what is holy to work towards Eden's return, "on earth as it is in heaven" (creation care).

A Moonscape into Eden

Daily Reading.......................Sunday Reading
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The Word, ever creating and recreating, had something to say about a barren, empty lot beside the Community Presbyterian Church in Wilbur, Washington recently.


Jerusalem Cross

I'll transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
a place filled with exuberance and laughter,
thankful voices and melodic songs.
                                        - Isaiah 51:3, The Message

And so it has begun!

As winter approaches, a raised bed, in the shape of a Jerusalem Cross, is being installed. Come next Spring there will be a Jerusalem-Cross-gardening "of soil" in this place. And we pray the harvest will be plentiful.



Jerusalem Cross Garden at Leavenworth

But before next Spring arrives, through the remainder of Fall and all through Winter,  a different kind of Jerusalem-Cross-gardening will take place - Jerusalem-Cross-gardening "of soul." This means that weekly we will engage the Word in small groups. And we will share how we have witnessed to Jesus Christ in the world by engaging in acts of devotion, worship, compassion and justice (symbolized by the four little crosses in the Jerusalem Cross) under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Together, through our sharing of our stories, we'll mutually encourage each other in this adventure of faith.
Watching over each other in Christian love, God will bring about the harvest of change that will freshen our lives and inspire our living.

Monday's first meeting was a promising start. It feels good to be back in regular "Christian conversation" and making new Christian friends.

Lives Landscaped by the Gardener

Daily Reading.......................Sunday Reading
Visitor or Manito Member
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In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life. (James 1: 21. The Message)

There couldn't be a more appropriate scripture for describing the intent of having the Jerusalem Cross Garden in our church grounds.

God is the gardener of our souls. God landscapes our hearts and lives as we daily, weekly, engage the Word. And in this regular touching of, and being touched by, the living Word, we find ourselves changed by Gods' love, wanting our lives more and more to be the salvation-garden from which an abundance of Godly goodness is shared with others.

So acts of devotion and acts of worship spill over into acts of compassion and justice - the four Christian acts symbolized by the four little crosses in the Jerusalem Cross - and God's will is done in our lives causing the world to tremble.

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Risen to Re-establish Eden

Lectionary Reading.................Daily Reading

The Jerusalem Cross Gardening blog has been silent for months now. Winter has taken its' toll! The soil of the garden has long lain dormant. No green inspiration has been there to inspire fresh entries, even though the "gardens" of our souls were regularly tended in our small groups by the Master Gardener, who, John reminds us again this Easter, appears as risen Lord (John 21) to restore the souls of men and women, and the soil of a re-established Eden.

And so Easter has arrived once more. High holy day that it is, again
the Easter banners were hung in the place of honor in the sanctuary. "Alleluia," "He is Risen!" The Christ candle burns liturgically again, sign that the risen Lord lives within our hearts to shape "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church" (Nicene Creed).

With Easter has come Spring, in glorious synchronicity. The light and song of new life does a two-step across our surrounding landscape with the warmth and life of the risen Savior.

Now the planting begins! Soon Spring wheat, seeded in the Cross of Compassion, having experienced a Good Friday-type death, will reach for the sun, green shoots en route to yielding a rich harvest of amber grain. Over the Great 50 Days we will watch each of the 80 seeds - dropped in the offering plate during Lent as a sign of our commitment to die that we might blossom - grow, and measure in our lives Gods' gift of Easter in the resurrection-living it affects.

Are we selflessly and joyously reaching upwards for the Son, en route outwards to yield an abundant harvest for God? The promise of the Kingdom inspires. Eden awaits.

A Video Vision of Ministry at Leavenworth UMC

Lectionary Reading..................................Daily Reading

Late last year we had surprise visitors to our church. A filming crew from the Conference office arrived to capture on video what God might be doing amongst us United Methodists here in our beautiful valley.

Listen http://vimeo.com/pnwumc and guage for yourselves if the preacher got it right.