With Gratitude

Rev. Arnie, our guest minister on Thanksgiving Sunday told a story

about thanksgiving in New England, when the Pilgrims first arrived in North America. Their first winter was very hard with cold and storms and not enough to eat. Legend has it that some days each person received only five kernels of corn as their ration of food. The next year, after a good harvest. The Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving with five kernels of corn, to remind them of five things they were grateful for. It is the legend of the five kernels of corn.
The minister asked what we would name as our five gratitudes. So, for this blog, I thought I'd share my list.

• The harvest. If you've read this blog much, you know I glory in the abundance of the garden and the orchard.        

 Give thanks to the God of Creation for all He has done.    

• The people at SPPC who shared their harvest to decorate our thanksgiving table. Any produce not reclaimed will go to the Food Bank, so we have shared in many ways. 

Give thanks to the Holy Spirit who moves people's hearts to do good things.

• The people at SPPC who take care of our property, keeping it tidy and inviting for all who come. This week, we had the lines in the parking lot repainted, so the lot is safer and more inviting. 

Give thanks to Jesus for teaching us to be servants.

• A broken fig tree. It reminded me of the parable of the fig tree. Give thanks to God for His Word, our guide and our creed.
  
• Faithful members of the congregation who shared their celebrations within our fellowship. Lois just celebrated her 90th birthday. She couldn't come to SPPC, so SPPC went to her.

 Give thanks to Jesus who turned water into wine so that friends and family might enjoy fellowship.

Five is a rather poor number when it comes to listing our gratitudes. Some time ago the Bible Study class studied Ann Voskamp's devotional "One Thousand Gifts." When I started writing them down, 1000 seemed like an unattainable number, but within the year, I'd reached the goal. Five barely scratches the surface.

Happy Thanksgiving. I challenge you to make a list of five gratitudes, then keep going, until you have a hundred, or five hundred or a thousand. God is so good to us, we'll never reach the end.

The Fig Tree

                                                                                 

by Alice Valdal



     There's a fig tree on the grounds of SPPC.   
     I grew up in a colder climate than Victoria's so I find the presence of a fig tree amazing all by itself, but as a reminder of Christian life, it is even more wonderful.    As a farm girl, I get the agrarian metaphors in the Bible,-- seed cast on good soil or poor, sheep and shepherds, the lily of the field, the mustard seed -- all of these conjure up real, physical images for me, but the fig tree has always been a mystery, an exotic from a foreign land.  But here it is, growing happily just off the parking lot of my church.

        So, I looked it up. 
        Fig trees require well-drained and fertile soil. 
 Now that sounds like a parable all by itself. 
       They need to be protected from cold winter winds. 
 Don't we all experience seasons of faith when we need a little protection from the cold and wind of unbelief? 
        Fig trees need adequate room to grow and respond well to a little fertilizer.  
 The church provides that space for believers to grow, to deepen their faith and to develop their skills.  We all benefit from the enriching experience of fellowship.
         Fig trees don't require much care, but some judicious pruning will improve the crop.  
Ouch.  Who wants to be pruned?  Yet it is necessary in our Christian journey that we examine our lives and discard the elements that draw us away from God.
        Well treated, a fig tree produces an abundance of fruit.  
Now that's more like it.  Nurtured in the soil of the church, we can all yield a rich harvest for Christ.
       No wonder the Bible is rife with references to the fig tree, its very nature cries out for parable and metaphor.   In the Old Testament, verse after verse uses the image of "everyone sitting under his own fig tree" to denote a time of plenty and peace. By contrast, times of strife and war and famine are described as the fig tree dried up and withered, or cut down or shattered.

       The Gospels of Matthew and Mark both recount the tale of Jesus cursing a fig tree because it bore no fruit. Again, in the Gospel of Luke Jesus tells a parable of a fig tree, to show the Master's disappointment when his tree is barren. 
          From Deuteronomy where the Lord promises His people "a land of wheat and barley, vines and fig trees," to John's vision in Revelations  where "the stars in the sky fell to earth,as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind," the fig tree is used to preach and to prophecy, to teach and to discipline.  
          How appropriate that our church has a fig tree.