Memorial United Methodist Church

These reflections are for use during the week of March 7-13 and are based on scriptures of March 7.

       Gardening 101
Then he (Jesus) told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” Luke 13:6-9

This is a parable in which the Gardener Christ pleads with God to not give up on God’s people. This is evidence of God’s extraordinary grace in waiting for our repentance. Kae Evensen

There are many who testify to a “before and after” in their lives. God’s grace chased them until their lives blossomed with peace, justice, hope, caring, and humility. In Jesus’ story of the fig tree, the gardener offers to put fertilizer (natural fertilizer!) around the barren tree. Growth comes because the gardener works at it. Wesley believed that God finds ways to nurture and mature us into the fullness of love. These means of grace (Scripture, prayer, worship, fasting, Lord’s Supper, holy conferencing, acts of mercy) become ways by which God nourishes us toward fruitful living: full love of God and full love of neighbor. The Wesley Study Bible

Garden of Grace, your gifts abound,
the sacred signs are all around,
the whole of earth is holy ground.
We learn, from all of life expressing,
how to grow in sowing seeds of blessing.   Miriam Therese Winter

The patience God shows with us as we make one mistake after another, as we ignore His call and forget His love, we are called to give to one another. Who needs your patient love right now? Joan Chittister

Probably our journey of forgiveness will be impossible unless we realize we cannot do it alone. We are not the source of our healing. Truly the kingdom of God is within us as Jesus told us. But that kingdom is God’s presence, and we need God’s help to experience that inner glory. As with any deep healing and release, the empowered mercy of God within and around us is ours to claim. We must face the facts: we are vulnerable (woundable); we have been hurt; we need to name our hurt and our deep needs as clearly and fully as we can. Little can change until we have faced where we actually are. Flora Slosson Wuellner

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk;
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see;
Yet rise it shall – the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.    Christina Rossetti