Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo + October 28, 2024
Commitment Sunday for Rooted in Community Week 4 - Branching Out in Generosity
As we conclude our Rooted in Community worship series, Pastor Hector invites the congregation to reflect on the cycles of life that we observe in nature. Just as leaves fall and fruits decompose, only to give rise to new growth, so too are we called to a rhythm of receiving and releasing. By offering our gifts back to God, we participate in the ongoing renewal of the church, allowing the seeds of God's love to take root and flourish in the world around us.
Sermon Transcript
From automatically generated captions, and lightly edited for readability by AI chatbots
Okay, David. Talking about promises, can you promise me not to look at my notes before you preach the young worshippers' message? Because now I don't have anything to say. [Laughter]
Again, it's amazing how the Holy Spirit works, because there is always certainly. We don't talk much about the specifics of the message, but in the end it seems like we prepare everything, and I think it's just the Holy Spirit helping us to hear the message. So, grace to you and peace from God the Father, God the Mother, and Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our sibling, our Savior, our friend. And we said, 'Amen.'
Really, I don't know what to say now. Well, the first thing I would like to ask you is, on this Reformation Sunday, if you have a chance to look at the booklet or in your bulletin - it doesn't have page numbers, I believe - oh, yeah, it has page numbers, but if you look on page six, I believe it's page five of your bulletin, right after the hymn of the day, you have the picture, the picture that is here on top, on the front page of your booklet. But I invite you just to take a moment and to look at 'Rooted in Community' and to look at that picture and to reflect on the things that we have been talking about for the past four weeks. Just take a moment and think: what has crossed to your mind? Where are some realizations through this journey? What is the spirit telling you? And what does it mean to be a congregation that is rooted in community?
Anyone who would like to say one or two words, what does it mean? What does this tell you? What comes to your mind when you hear 'Rooted in Community'? We're in this together. Say one more.
There are that interconnectedness of all people, right? The history of connections of the ministry of Trinity Lutheran Church and schools in this community, and how the spirit has been working through the many people who have been here and the people who are here now, and the people who will be part of this congregation - people who we do not know, but I believe that people that God already has in God's heart to join this community to continue to advance the reign of God in this place.
Reformation, I think, was about a call for the church to be rooted in the community. At some point, the church started losing the touch to be in touch with the reality of the world and the lives of people, and the church started to be somewhere out there, where only those who were the elite and those on the power and of the knowledge were the church. Reformation was the call of the spirit to bring back the church to this place, to be rooted in the community.
One of the things that Martin Luther did in order to connect with the community was...what do you remember? The scripture that nobody could read, he translated the scripture in the vernacular so that people will be able to listen to their message in their language and to let the spirit work through those words and through those stories, to discover together how the church is rooted in the community. And as it was said earlier, that we are all in this together and that we are connected as the body of Christ.
"Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit," abide in my love, says the Lord Jesus Christ. As David said, we return to where we started - the ground where life germinates, but also where life ends. Last Sunday, I said that the tree is, in the end, a seed that leaves out to scatter. The sacred purpose for which it was created is to live up to the full potential that was in need, and that full potential, as David said, is to bring much fruit.
We talk about the branches and the structure, the stability, the way that trees reproduce themselves, but also the way that trees connect with the environment in which they are through the leaves, through the branches. The leaves and the fruits can be and bring life, shelter, shape a life for the tree when the leaves exchange the CO2 to exchange it for oxygen and the moisture in the air, and to provide the strength that the leaves need, that the tree needs, so that leaves and fruits can also grow. But not only grow - that tree, those leaves and fruits will also die, knowing that more will come back.
You and I are called to be the extensions of God's love and justice, generosity and forgiveness, not to create our injustice, but to allow the justice of God, in God's generosity and love, to flow through us as trees. How well? Jesus says, 'One way that you can do it is by abiding in me, abiding in my love.' And the word 'abide' in the Greek means to remain, to endure, to go along with, to stay - a reminder of the profound and intimate connection of God with each one of us, but also a reminder of the gift of faith that has been given to us and the intersection with our daily life.
Daily life that has to do with the challenges that we face every day, with the opportunities that we face every day, with the encounters that we have every day with people of God that reminds us who we are and also bring blessing to us. The intersection of faith and life that tells us about the resources that God has placed in our hands for us to release them and to bring life into the community, including our financial well-being and the fulfillment in our lives, so that you and I may experience complete joy when we receive, but also when we release, with open hands and with open hearts.
You remember that every Sunday, we remind ourselves as a congregation that we are extensions of Jesus' welcome, healing, and transformation. It is not our own effort, it is not only about us or just a desire - it is because that's who we are and for what we have been created to be: extensions of God's grace. Branches take the fruits beyond the tree; trees do not keep the fruit and the leaves to themselves. Branches extend and take the fruit far away from the tree, so that what happens when the tree, when the fruits fall from the branches of the tree - they grow, and new trees see.
What happens sometimes, we believe that the gifts that God has given us are ours, and we keep them to ourselves, and we keep them and hold them only for ourselves, and we forget that we need to extend it, and that's the only way for the gift, the fruit, to produce more trees, with their branches extend the arms so that the fruit can create more community, more trees around them. And only when they are in community, they are able to work together to support one another.
The roots that you see here in this booklet or on your bulletin is what tells me about what it means to be rooted in community - interconnected and interdependent. Trees being trees, and the roots in the trees bring stability to the ground. That's what happens when we deforest - right, the mountains? When trees die and the roots die, they are not able to hold the ground together anymore, and when the storms come, everything is washed away.
St. Paul says, 'You must give according to what you have - you have inwardly decided, not sadly or reluctantly, but God loves a giver who gives cheerfully." In the book I was reading, called 'Free of Charge' by Miroslav Volf, he says this, which is interesting: 'Faith is an expression of the fact that we exist so that the infinite God can dwell in us and work through us for the well-being of the whole creation.'
For the well-being of the whole creation. Leaves fall from the tree and they are blown away by the wind. Fruits fall to the ground and they decompose, and they remind us that it requires humbleness for us to release what God has given us or put in our hands in order to bring life. It requires humbleness, letting go of fear and trusting that others will come, even when we die, to continue the work that God has been doing. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit. And to me, that is part of the Reformation.
I am a bad gardener, and you know that. I can kill plants even before I touch them. When I see people working in the garden and they start pulling the branches, I just feel like, 'Oh, my goodness, how can you do that? You will kill the plant!' They were so pretty. Yeah, they look pretty, but I realize that the pruning is necessary, and it's done with love, because we want that plant to continue to grow, to ensure the sustainability of the plant and the fruitfulness of the plant. Yes, there is pain, yes there is suffering, but in the end, we believe that we abide in the love of God. We are not in this journey together.
What are the things that we pray for God to prune from our lives, to be able to see the love and the abiding presence in each one of us, to be the trees and the branches and the fruits that bring life to this community? Some fruits may be small, like this real apple, just very tiny. Some are bigger and juicier and tastier. Some leaves are very small, some leaves are very big. These are the leaves that I collected as I got to walk every day, and as we were reflecting on trees and leaves and fruits, this reminded me of how we are called to release and to let go.
Leaves get dry, fruit may be decomposed on the ground. Some are small, some are big. Doesn't matter in the end. Every fruit and every leaf has a purpose in a cycle that reminds us of our daily life, our daily death, and our daily new life again. Miroslav Volf says, 'To give to God is to take from God's right hand and put that very thing back into God's left hand.' And what this tells me is that everything that we have and everything that we are, we receive it by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Nothing is ours. We are the channels of God's grace and mercy.
We have been walking this journey together for four weeks, my dear siblings in Christ. We have been walking together through, remember, that we are interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent. That this community is not built around individual accomplishments, choices, or rights. This community called Church, Trinity Lutheran Church and schools, is not my enterprise. It is not to build something that I like, and I come because is what I want, and if something changes, then I won't come anymore. This church is the orchard of God that has been called to bring fruit and to be rooted in this community, to be an agent of transformation and healing - a people who are not fearful anymore because we are free in the love and grace of God, a people who is willing to extend their arms to open hands and to release and let go everything that prevents us from being who we were called to be.
We have promised to be that, and God has promised to be with us, and we have committed also to be that and to help each other to live out and to live up to that promise. Rooted in community is to live intentionally a generous life, naturally so. What fruits are we bringing today? Around you in the pews, you will find these little hearts that I invite you to find and to take them with you as we are coming to the conclusion of these four weeks.
As you can see, the completion of the tree out in the Advent, that reminds us of all the ministries that, as John said, have been brought through the years of life and ministry of this congregation. We remember that you and I now are the seeds that are scattered, and as Vian told me, these are the fingerprints of God in each one of us. That you and I are the fruit, the fruits and the seed, the tree and the orchard that you and I are called to extend our arms and to continue to bring the seeds of God's grace, mercy, reconciliation, beauty, and joy that only the spirit can bring.
That yes, there will be days of drought, there will be days of flooding, there will be days of wind, there will be days when things go well, but in the end, we are rooted and abiding in the love of Jesus to be the seeds and the fruits that bring the message of God to this place. In the past few weeks, you have received your commitment cards, and in thinking of how to be leaves and seeds, as I said in my letter that I sent you, I had to also to remember the commitment that I made when I joined this ministry, and I had to decide if I want to be an instrument or I want to be an obstacle for the ministry of God in this place.
It took me a while to fill out my card. It's going to bring some changes in my family and how we are going, going to commit to the church. Yes, totally, absolutely. We need to reprioritize my life, and how the resources that God has placed in my hand can be taken from the right hand of God, right to place them in the left hand of God, so that God continue spreading the seeds.
Leaves are gone and fallen. As I don't throw the apple, because that will be hot, but I invite you now to take your cards - if you brought your cards, if you are participating online, I invite that maybe you can do it online or you have your phones, and it's easy for you to do it on your phone - let's just take a moment and hold our cards and give thanks to God for the blessing that God has given us, that no matter how small our fruits, our leaves may be, in the end, they have a purpose, and that purpose is visible, palpable, and a reason to celebrate as the church continues to reform and to grow and to reflect God's love and mercy through his ministry.
You also receive an envelope. You can place your card inside the envelope and in prayer as God to help us to abide in the love of Jesus and in this promise that we make, to also ask for the courage to hold each other accountable to the promise that we are making. There will be, in a moment, we will be singing together the hymn of the day, and during the hymn of the day, we are going to place our commitment cards in this basket. If you are in your seat, and you would like for someone to help you, just raise your envelope of your card, and the host, a guiding host, will take your card and bring it here to the basket. But I invite you that as we listen to the lyrics of the hymn, as we sing, maybe in our hearts, that we pray that this commitment is also an opportunity to make our joy complete in the love and in the mercy of God. Let's pray and sing, or let's pray in singing.
Comments