Call to worship
Come, let us give thanks to God!
We gather together to praise the One who strengthens the weak and hears the prayers of the forgotten.
Come, let us give thanks to Christ!
We gather together to tell of the One who calls us to serve those who are hungry and alone.
Come, let us give thanks to the Spirit!
We gather together to delight in the One who inspires us to love not only our family and friends, but the guest among us.
Come, let us give thanks to God!
We gather together to worship in our stories and prayers
Come, let us give thanks to Jesus the Christ!
We gather together to encourage acts of kindness and compassion
Come, let us give thanks to the Spirit!
We gather together to discover and learn and celebrate life.
Lighting the Candle
In our travels through Ordinary time we light this candle
The candle is lit
Its light symbolises that new life and light
is ever waiting to break through to enlighten our ways:
that new truth is ever waiting to break through to illumine our minds,
and that new love is ever waiting to break through to warm our hearts,
offering extra – Ordinary moments of possibility to us along our journey
May we be open to this light,
and to the rich possibilities that it brings us.
A moment to check in
The gospel reading
Mark 9:30-37
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
And the Acorn Allegory
As told by Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault in her book The Wisdom Way of Knowing:
Once upon a time, in a not-so-faraway land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree. Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy; and since they were midlife, baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called “Getting All You Can out of Your Shell.” There were wounded-ness ness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their original fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acornopathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.
One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped “out of the blue” by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And crouched beneath the oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing upward at the tree, he said, “We … are … that!”
Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: “So tell us, how would we become that tree?” “Well,” said he, pointing downward, “it has something to do with going into the ground … and cracking open the shell.” “Insane,” they responded. “Totally morbid! Why, then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore.”
I think the acorns in the story act very much like the disciples in the gospel when Jesus attempts to teach them about the way of the Kingdom of Heaven. The disciples haven’t grasped this teaching because they are convinced that they know and understand what is important, how to be good and what success looks like. Like the acorns, they don’t want to hear that the things they have spent so long building up and taking care of aren’t the things that are of true and lasting value.
The child is the very opposite of what the disciples value, and Jesus embracing the child is the equivalent of him pointing down to the ground and saying “it has something to do with cracking open the shell of status, of entitlement, of ‘being right'”. Jesus’ act reveals and embodies where God’s attention is, showing us the way of true discipleship and true growth.
But, like the disciples, we can easily find ourselves aligning our values with the norms of success in our culture. Many in the church have become accustomed to measuring “effective discipleship” by growth, and growth by numbers – by popularity and cash flow. This is probably at least in part because we have become accustomed to thinking of faith as a destination – once you believe the right things, you are destined for heaven.
But the journey of faith is actually a deepening cycle of growth, not a tidy line we cross by making a decision, and maintain with regular attendance at church and some good service evangelism.
As I think about my own journey of faith in light of the acorn allegory, I can identify several ‘cracking open’ experiences, and if I think about what happens after those, it seems to me that there are various stages of growth:
Sprouts – vigorous early growth, fuelled by enthusiasm from an encounter with Love
Straplings – building root systems, leggy growth, spindly, reaching for light, figuring out how things work…
Seasoned – established roots, filling out canopy, pliant growth, incorporating and accommodating challenges
Stumps – returning resources to the earth, providing shelter to young growth, supporting inner life
I don’t think these stages necessarily flow naturally into each other, though. It seems more like each one often requires another cracking open experience to propel us onwards. We get comfortable with what we know and reluctant to move out into the stretch zone again. We can resist our own evolving faith.
So as we move through this faith journey, it seems likely that we may become stuck for a time, or we may find that we embody many of these seasons at once. One who is actively establishing roots can also be offering shelter and supporting the unseen inner life.
When Jesus takes the child and embraces her, in this one act he questions every assumed value, every ‘norm’ of society, every cultural ‘given’. In doing this Jesus embodies how God is with us and how we are to be with each other and all of creation. And the bottom line is this: Welcome.
Welcome the truth that life is messy and we don’t know as much as we think we do. Welcome the truth that growth is untidy and often unpredictable and can come through unexpected and painful means.
Welcome the seasons and stages and embrace the awkwardness of learning to let go, to step into newness and most of all, welcome the awkwardness of learning to attend to the discounted ones, the ones on the edge and the outside – to the voiceless. And that includes the voiceless forests, oceans , deserts and tundra. Whatever and whoever we are overlooking or taking for granted – that’s where God is, that’s who God is with.
Reflecting Together
What struck you from the two stories or the reflection?
Who – or what – has helped you grow on the journey of faith? What has drawn (or pulled) you into the ‘stretch zone’ of growth and learning?
What are the practices that have helped you welcome change or the experiences that have made you cautious?
How do you see the congregation of St Peter’s evolving and growing in the coming years? Where is our ‘stretch zone’ for learning? How might we lean in to this?
Prayers of the People
Blessing
As we close our time together, may we embrace the challenges
of our lives, our world and these times…
As we prepare to move on into the day,
may we live lives of hope,
be nurturers of a vision of wholeness,
and serve as healers in a wounded world.
Grant us wisdom.
Grant us courage.
Grant us peace.
May God’s wisdom guide you wherever you walk in this world.
May God’s wisdom encourage you in your daily work.
May God’s wisdom work in you like yeast, and rise in you like hope!
May you taste and see God’s goodness
and may God’s wisdom be your delight
now, this day, and for evermore.
