A Tale of Two Trees

A Reading from 1st Kings, the 19th Chapter

Elijah went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. 

He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

I want to tell you about two trees.  The first is the Broom Tree.  Elijah was a prophet and he had been through the wringer.  He was on the run from Jezebel, the queen of Israel, who wanted to kill him and so he ran... right out into the wilderness, sat down under a Broom Tree and asked to DIE.  He was DONE!  Before I went on vacation the K6 met.  

(The K6 is a group of five Episcopal Churches and one Lutheran Church in the Augusta, Maine area searching for ways to join together to do ministry in a changing environment.  Out of that group, St. Mark's and Prince of Peace joined together in January in the Prince of Peace facility sharing worship and clergy leadership.  Also out of the K6, a joint children's ministry called Mustard Seeds developed.  Now two additional churches are looking into joining the experiment sharing worship, one facility and clergy.)  

Before that meeting, St. Matthews and St. Barnabas were in “Broom Tree” mode.  They were DONE!  They were ready to just die.  We all know what sitting under the “Broom Tree” feels like... we’ve all been there.  But something changed.  Like Elijah, they had seen a new path and were ready to stand up and get on with God’s calling for them.  The thing is, what God was calling them to involves US!

Do you remember middle school?  The first person you wanted to ask out, or the first person you wanted to ask you out?  That pimply, voice cracking, note passing completely awkward time in your life?  That meeting... before I went on vacation... felt like that.  Them wanting US to ask THEM to a dance, but not knowing how and us wondering if it was OK to ask and wondering if they would really say yes.  So I emailed our vestry and council and told them we needed to meet as soon as I got back from vacation.  

This Monday we met and it became clear that we needed to first clarify where Prince of Peace and St. Mark’s were in THEIR relationship, before we began to think about inviting anyone new to this dance, SO the Prince of Peace council stood up... literally... and told St. Mark’s Vestry they wanted St. Mark’s to stay past the end of the year... to stay indefinitely into a shared, crazy, unknown, future and then St. Mark’s Vestry stood up... literally and said they wanted to stay indefinitely into a shared, crazy, unknown, future as well.  So, how about it?  What about you?  Your leadership says they want to go into the future together!  Are you ready to keep going indefinitely into a shared, crazy, unknown, future? STAND UP!  

That’s what I thought (what I hoped), but it’s good to see.  It’s good to see Jesus’s prayer that we might be ONE being answered in our midst and that brings me to the OTHER tree I want to tell you about today... the Mustard Tree.  The parable of the Mustard Seed is that the Kingdom of God is like a tiny seed that grows into the greatest of trees, it’s branches providing shade... a place... a home for EVERY bird.  I asked my mom to make this banner for us on my vacation because I believe this is who we’ve become together.  We aren’t Broom Tree people anymore... two separate congregations tired and broken and OVER IT.  Together, in the past seven months we’ve grown into Mustard Tree people! 

That Mustard Tree has room for ALL the birds and on Tuesday the K6 met and then St. Matt’s and St. Barnabas’s leadership met with me and Father David on Wednesday and it looks like they REALLY DO want to go to the dance with us.  It sounds like they really want to come sit in the Mustard Tree with us!  Which is WONDERFUL... and overwhelming.  AMAZING and frightening.  I think we’ve become Mustard Tree people… open, welcoming and ALIVE... but I didn’t know there would be a test so soon!  Are we really ready to share our branches with more birds?  

On Monday the council and vestry said together, “how could we NOT make space.”  Their thought (and I think it’s a good one) was that we should invite them to come over informally for the rest of the year and then together, in the next few months, work out a livable structure for the coming year that we’d build together and all vote on at our annual meetings.

Two more birds in the tree means we can’t just do things like we’ve done this year so far.  Trying to run four churches under one roof would be an unwieldy mess and it wouldn’t help my hair situation either!  We’ll need to find equitable ways to share expenses for this shared facility and staff.  We’d need to find ways to share governance and make day to day decisions.  We’ll need to care for a new group of people mourning the loss of what was and we’ll need to care for ourselves as the new “normal” we've been building over the past seven months gets stirred up again.     

Elijah sat under the Broom Tree asking God to leave him alone... telling God, “NO MORE,” but like Mick Jagger says, “you can’t always get what you want!” and God didn’t leave him alone.  God told him, "If you try sometime, you might find, you get what you need."  God gave him what he needed, and then he got on with what God was asking him to do.  God knows we’ve already done a lot.  We’ve already seen and weathered lots of change and facing more might tempt us to find another Broom Tree.  But God's promise is that angels will feed us, GOD WILL BE WITH US, and we’ll get what we need to make room in the Mustard Tree.  Amen.