In 2021, as we began to emerge from the chaos of pandemic life, we as a congregation and the elders at the time engaged in a process of thinking, planning, dreaming, and discerning.
Out of that process came two statements: a statement of our mission, our answer to the question “why are we here?”, and a statement of call, our answer to “how do we do that?”
Today, and for the next two weeks, we’ll be taking a deep dive into what this mission and call really says about us as a church. Because I recognize that on the surface, most of this doesn’t seem that new or exciting. But there is so much richness and depth to be found here, and I don’t want us to miss it.
Rooted in Christ’s love, Parkwood Presbyterian Church seeks to grow in love for God and neighbor.
This love is the work of our hearts, to care and be cared for;
of our souls, to know and be known;
of our minds, to learn and to teach;
of our strength, to do justice and sow hope.
As we turn to Scripture, listen closely for the ways our mission statement mirrors this prayer from the apostle Paul.
Scripture: Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
Rooted. That’s how our mission statement begins. Rooted like the tall pine trees in our church logo, whose root systems can be twice as wide and at least as deep as the tree is tall. Rooted like the trees on our banners – the mustard seed that grew into a shelter for the birds of the air.
But we, as God’s people, are not rooted just anywhere. We are, exactly as Paul prayed, rooted in the love of Christ Jesus.
We are not rooted in fear of judgement, or cautious optimism about the future of humanity, or even in the confidence that we could somehow plow through and make it on our own. Everything we do, everything we are, everything we hope to be comes directly from the love of Jesus.
I want us to pause for a moment and think about how revolutionary an idea that is right now.
It shouldn’t be. The idea that a person, let alone an entire church, would try to base ALL of its words and actions and hopes on the unfaltering love of God in Christ should not be surprising.
But here we are. We’re less than a month out from another national election with many variations of the Christian story on display, and I think a lot of us are just white-knuckling it to the finish line.
We have the opportunity, and I truly believe that this is part of our call, to be a different kind of Christian voice in our world – precisely because we root ourselves not in God’s hatred for sin or our own self-righteous judgment, but in the love of God that has conquered sin and death through Christ. That’s where our faith begins and ends.
This is what Paul means when he prays: “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”
Every day, we are sinking our roots deeper into this love.
By making this phrase part of our mission statement, we remind ourselves that this is the place where we come to remember who we are and whose we are. We are God’s beloved children, created by love and for love.
We need to be reminded of this because unfortunately, that is not the story we hear in every place, from every person. There are a MILLION voices out there trying to tell us what defines us, who we are, what we need, what we should be hoping for in this life.
But when we’re together, here, as Parkwood Presbyterian Church, everything we do is designed to help us know God’s love for ourselves and our neighbors more and more deeply. Potlucks give us a chance to feed each other, to laugh together, to ask questions and know one another more. Our prayer of confession each Sunday gives us an opportunity to name where we’ve fallen short and receive the grace of God again and again and again. Small groups and committees bring God’s people together over something we love, sharpening our God-given talents and putting those gifts to good use. Music transforms and uplifts us, giving us a chance to say with instruments and voices what words fail to capture.
This, too, was Paul’s prayer for the Church: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Wider, higher, deeper love. That is why we’re here.
This is where we come to hear God’s story, told over and over and over again, so that our own stories can be told and re-told as part of that big story of love, healing, and hope.
There’s a new book out by one of my seminary professors, Dr. Chuck DeGroat, that describes this process of re-narrating our lives and our faith in light of God’s love. It’s called Healing What’s Within: coming home to yourself—and to God—when you’re wounded, weary, and wandering.
In it, he tells the story of his own upbringing, where he learned the stories of the Bible in Sunday School with flannelgraph storyboards. I want to read you part of his story of learning God’s love as he explored the story of the fall in Genesis 3.
From Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself – and to God – When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering:
The Bible may begin in connection, just like your story and mine, but the tides quickly turn; by the third chapter, rupture manifests in shame and exile a profound disconnection. The full account of Genesis 3 is too brutal to fit into that flannel. graph faith; Adam and Eve may be filled with shame and hid. den behind fig leaves according to the ancient story, but on the flannel board they’re posing with smiles on their faces, a snake grinning nearby.
What’s more, I was taught that Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree and going into hiding was the central story of how everything went wrong in the world, even what was wrong with me to the core. And God’s anger proves it.
Where are you? God asks, fuming from the ears.
Who told you? God demands to know, finger pointed at Adam and Eve.
Have you eaten from the tree? God compels them to answer, forcing them—and us-from the Garden forever.
The heading at the top of that third chapter of Scripture- “The Fall.”
Indeed, we return to the story time and again because it resonates so deeply with what’s within us, with our story, even who we suppose God is. It’s a story that begins in intimate union and communion but too quickly turns to shame and alienation.
It’s a story of disconnection from ourselves, disconnection from each other, disconnection from our bodies, disconnection from God. The serpent’s lie inflicts a wound, shattering trust and manifesting in a frantic search for a self-remedy in the fruit of the tree. This primal wound—this traumatic estrangement— continues to whisper within us the awful lie that God can’t be trusted, that we’re on our own, that our only hope is in grasping for the fruit, the enticing elixir that will quell the ache.’ Yet as a longtime pastor and therapist—one who knows too well how such trauma can pervade a life-I’ve learned to read the story in Genesis 3 through à different lens. Yes, it’s a story that reveals how we cope in ways that self-protect and sabotage. Yes, it’s a story that reveals how we experience profound disconnection— with each other, with God, even with ourselves. Flannel boards can’t cover up the facts.
But what if it is also a better story than we’ve been told, a story that shows us how we can acknowledge what’s happened to us while also compassionately healing the wounds left behind? What if God’s response to us is, in fact, kinder than we imagined?
Even as Adam and Eve are doused in shame, riddled with anxiety, and hidden behind fig leaves, God shows up in compassion and with curiosity, reconnecting even amidst the radical rupture, his voice a homing beacon. And the questions God poses hold the possibility for healing what’s within us, for us to become ourselves again.
Where are you? God asks with heartache, longing to find us.
Who told you? God asks with compassion, curiously pursuing the story.
Have you eaten from the tree? God asks with gentleness, tenderly bringing our eyes to where we’ve chosen to cope—to numb, to soothe, to avoid —instead of abiding in his care and compassion.
Indeed, that’s a much better story—a more hopeful story than the flannel boards ever revealed. If we dared to read it this way, perhaps we’d reimagine a better heading than “The Fall” at the top of the chapter-“God Longs for Us Even When Were Lost.” Or perhaps more simply, “Found.”
This transformation is both an individual journey and a communal one. We each have to walk the walk, and no one can do this work for you – but we cannot do it alone.
What does growing into love look like in real time, you ask?
It’s the work of our hearts, caring for one another and being cared for. It’s the writing cards and making phone calls and hugging your loved ones and checking on that neighbor.
It’s the work of our souls, learning the ins and outs of our own hearts and minds, growing in empathy, learning how to regulate our emotions, and figuring out how to know and love another person, with all of their complexities.
It’s the work of our minds, working out our theology, understanding what we believe and what we don’t, learning new ways to encounter God, learning new things about creation, and passing on the knowledge and wisdom we have.
It’s the work of our strength – the courage to do what’s right even when it’s unpopular, to call injustice what it is, to encourage others in their work, to scatter and nurture the seeds of the world God is calling us to build.
We’ll get to that more next week.
For now, let us sing together of God’s loving faithfulness, which never changes, never fails, never gives up.
