Readings and Reflection for the Week Beginning 13 June
(the 2nd Week of Trinity)
Penitential
Rite (Prayer to Say Sorry)
Father, you fill your world with good
things to help us grow,
but we forget to give full thanks.
Lord,
have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Jesus, you guide us to the good
things we need,
but we in all kinds of pride choose
our own path.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Spirit, you refresh us so that we can
start again,
but we try to use you, sticking to
our harmful ways.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Bible
Readings
First Reading: Ezekiel 17:22-24
Gospel Reading: Mark 4:26-34
Reflection
You heard – I hope you heard – a fair bit about trees in both those readings.
Ezekiel speaks of a little spring, a tiny twig, from the top of a cedar tree.
God Godself plants it, until it
becomes a noble cedar.
Cedars are big. How big is this one?
So big that “under it every kind of bird will live”.
Every kind of bird will live under
it.
That is big.
From twig to big.
From a little green fleck of a thing,
to flourishing upon flourishing upon
flourishing.
Jesus in Mark speaks of a mustard seed.
Miniscule; famously miniscule.
Even smaller than the smallest sprig
or twig.
And what happens? It becomes the
greatest of all shrubs,
“so
[big] that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade”.
And here we are, in spring-becoming-summer. We can get a feel for this.
How God has so ordered things that
God’s creatures, plants and animals, will always grow, and flourish, and multiply, and flourish more, if only they are left to it.
There is encouragement for us all
here. We are made to flourish. I
mean that seriously. We – you – are a health-seeking
animal; you are a flourishing-seeking
animal. When you flourish like a great tree spreading towards the sky, you
are doing what you are called to do.
Flourishing here doesn’t mean a life full of comfort, success, acclaim, ease,
or riches (they may or may not be around). It means that sense that you can
have, that you are making the most of
the real-life stuff you find yourself in the middle of.
A good prayerful exercise can be
asking yourself (and taking time to answer): “Given that things are like this,
how, even now, can I flourish?”
Now, what is a tree?
If I asked you to draw a tree, I am
pretty certain you’d all draw, well, a trunk, some branches and some leaves.
But, here’s the thing: for people who know about trees and work with trees (and
that may be you, and if so I am sorry for being so basic) people who work with
trees will say - that is not a tree. That is just the surface bit of a tree. Most of the tree (so I have learned) is
underground. Most of a tree is its systems of roots and the fungi and other organisms which work with the roots.
The leaves and the twigs are like the hair on your head (if you’re lucky enough
to have hair on your head). The trunk is a bit like a head. The torso and all
the rest is under the earth - that is the roots.
Roots. You don’t have literal roots.
But I invite you to imagine that you
have spiritual roots. Really imagine
that now. Close your eyes, if it helps (it may well). Make sure you are sitting
comfortably, with your feet flat on
the ground (so no crossed-legs), a comfortable distance apart. Imagine – or
realise – that you have spiritual roots going down from the souls of your feet.
They go through your shoes,
through the carpet of this chapel,
and through the foundations.
They go into God’s good earth.
They go deeper into God’s good earth.
They go yet deeper into God’s good earth.
When God made the heavens and the
earth, he saw that it was all Very Good.
The earth is good. It is soil that makes life.
So feel your roots going down into
the soil, the life-giving soil.
We are not done yet.
Your roots branch off.
Your roots have their own roots. You
are root upon root.
You are well rooted in God’s good earth.
You are better rooted than you ever
realised.
Feel the roots, the good roots,
extending into the good earth.
The roots go down. They go down
deeper. Deeper.
Through your roots, you are being
fed.
You don’t need to go looking for
spiritual food.
Your roots – you – are being fed, by God’s good pleasure.
**
We are not like a tree, in that we
can move around, and, normally, we are called to move around. But we are like a
tree, in that we have roots, roots which go down. I am going to say that they go down into God.
We are not only connected to God when
we try to connect with God, to say sorry or ask for help. We are connected to God by the sheer fact of being who we are. And
knowing that is a large part of allowing ourselves to flourish, flourish like a
mighty Cedar of Lebanon.
My brothers, in these early days of
our gathering together for worship, after such a long enforced fast, let us
start by being grateful, giving full
thanks, for all the ways we have been - and are - and will be - connected.
We are connected by being brothers
and sisters in Christ.
We are connected by having our roots
in God.
Not because we are special (or not
especially special).
But because God has willed it so.
My brothers, may you flourish like a
noble tree,
here, now, and in the days to come.
Amen.
Intercessions
(Prayers for the World and All Our Needs)
God, our roots are in you, and you
give us health.
Bless and be with those who bear the
burden of leadership in our Churches,
among them Bishops Graham and Alan,
that they speak and act in truth and
gentleness
and lead your whole people to
flourishing.
God in your mercy, hear our
prayer.
God, our roots are in you, and you
give us health.
Bless and be with those who bear
leadership in the world.
Guide our government, those meeting
as and with the so-called G7,
that the human family may know peace
and justice,
and the whole of creation be
preserved, sustained, cared for and enjoyed.
Bathe all peacemakers in your love,
and challenge all warmakers by the
radical nature of that love.
God in your mercy, hear our
prayer.
God, our roots are in you, and you
give us health.
Bless and be with all those who live,
work and visit this place.
May this establishment be a place of
real stability, growth, and change.
Be close to all here who are in fear
or perplexity,
or caught up in gangs or drugs or
debt,
to give them liberty even while here.
God in your mercy, hear our
prayer.
God, our roots are in you, and you
give us health.
Bless all those who are sick, in
body, mind, or spirit,
or know pain or dislocation of any
kind.
Be with them as the healer you are.
We ask your blessing on those on our own
hearts and minds at this time,
those we name now silently in our
hearts…
God in your mercy, hear our
prayer.
God, our roots are in you, and you
give us health.
Bless and be with all who have shaped
us and who have died,
all who have died recently, or who
will die today,
especially those who will die
alone, unprepared, in agony, in war
or at their own hand.
Draw them further into your heavenly
light,
among them those we name now in the
silence of our hearts.
God in your mercy, hear our
prayer.
God, our roots are in you, and you
give us health.
Bless and be with us, as we seek anew
to be your disciples.
Show us what we need to know about
our rootedness in you.
God in your mercy, hear our prayer.
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