1/2/22 “The Blossom of Promise” by Nancy E. Petty
John 1:1-9, 14-16
Happy New Year! Karla and I will often say to one another: “There is no place I’d rather be right now than right here, and no one I’d rather be with than with you.” On this first Sunday of 2022, I can honestly say to you: “There is no place I’d rather be right now than right here with you, and no other people I’d rather be with than with you, my Pullen family.” You are an amazing people making a significant difference in the world with your generous acts of doing justice, loving compassion and walking humbly and gently with Love.
In these last two unprecedented and wildly uncertain years of a global pandemic you have steadied the Pullen boat in some very turbulent waters by caring for one another and total strangers. In 2021 you showed up for worship, you carried on the work of our councils and committees, you ministered to those coming to our church and those in your workplaces who needed help. When there were so many things to distract us, you stayed focused on our 137 year mission of proclaiming a social gospel to the world, and you gave of your resources with extraordinary generosity to make sure Pullen’s witness in the world continues to be a light that the darkness does not and cannot overcome.
We are not a church that has ever been overly focused on money. Some would say that is one of our strengths in a prosperity gospel world. Others, maybe finance committee members, would like for us to pay just a little more attention, especially this time of year, to our finances. I will say that in these uncertain times, when so many folks are struggling – when there are 140 million poor and low-income people living in these United States – you have responded to the needs of those here at home and in faraway places with amazing generosity. On Thursday of this past week, we, the people of Pullen had given $1,172,218 to carry out the mission and vision of our church – a mission and vision that proclaims a radical justice-love. And because many of our programs have not been able to do the things they had hoped, we ended 2021 with a $50,000+ surplus. We are still a long ways from pledging our 2022 budget and the Finance Committee might stage a revolt against me when I make this next challenge. Still, I want to challenge us to not have to use the surplus from 2021 to make up a shortfall for 2022. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could use the 2021 surplus for projects that would support the 140 million poor and low-income people in our community as well as transgender and LGBTQ youth who are struggling to find the support they need to live their most authentic lives?
Why am I calling attention to the issue of the LGBTQ youth? On December 26, the day after Christmas day, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned that the pandemic has had dire mental health impacts on American youth.
In Dr. Murthy’s advisory, it is noted: “Before the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health struggles were the leading cause of disability in young people, with up to one in five children ages 3 to 17 in the U.S. having a mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 2009 and 2019, the percentage of high school students who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness increased by 40%, to more than one in three students.
Between 2007 and 2018, suicide rates among American youth ages 10 to 24 increased from 6.8 to 10.7 per 100,000, and early estimates from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics suggest more than 6,600 people in the same age group died by suicide in 2020. Early clinical data from the CDC shows that in early 2021, emergency department visits in the U.S. for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to the same time period in early 2019.”
In his advisory, Murthy also noted that the pandemic’s negative impacts most heavily affect marginalized youth, such as disabled children, kids of color, LGBTQ youth, children who are either homeless or in low-income households, kids in rural areas, youth in immigrant households and children stuck in the juvenile justice system. Pandemic-related safety measures that reduced in-person interactions has also made it more difficult to recognize signs of child abuse, mental health concerns and other challenges.
Imagine how that $50,000 plus could make a difference in the lives of those individuals. We can do this. We can pledge our 2022 budget and use our 2021 surplus to continue making a difference in the lives of those struggling most in our community and world.
The Blossom of Promise. Back in early October, the staff gathered for our annual Advent/Christmas planning retreat. In small groups we read each of the lectionary texts for Advent and Christmas and then came back together as one group and discussed the themes we heard in our scriptures. Emerging from various texts and our lively conversation was the theme: Fulfilling Promises. The more we talked the more it felt like a hopeful and intriguing theme: fulfilling promises. Some texts laid out promises while others spoke to how promises get fulfilled. The prophet Jeremiah talked about “fulfilling the promise” of justice and righteous. There was Zechariah’s prayer in Luke that promised mercy. Images and metaphors throughout the Advent and Christmas texts reflected this idea of fulfilling promises: the refiner’s fire, sun, moon, stars, sea, raving waves, clouds, and fig trees sprouting leaves. Intriguing and hopeful. Two hours and thirty minutes in, we had a theme. It was settled. Fulfilling Promises would be Pullen’s 2021 Advent and Christmas theme.
I think a couple of the staff thought, oh good, we are finished. But lo, I raised the worship planning question that always hangs over Advent and Christmas: How will we demonstrate this theme? What visuals, symbols, rituals will bring our theme to life? For a good solid five minutes we sat in silence with blank looks on our faces occasionally glancing at one another as if to say with our eyes, “Can’t you please come up with something? And fast.” Out of the silence and awkward glances came the idea of planting bulbs and watching them, hopefully, grow over time: the fulfillment of a promise that from the earth/dirt something beautiful and living will and can emerge. Blossoms of Promise.
Quickly the idea of planting paper whites and amaryllis bulbs was introduced. How hard could that be? Plant some bulbs, sit them on the communion table and wait and watch for them to grow. Simple. Well, let me share with you the problems with that plan. First, bulbs need sunlight and there is absolutely no direct sunlight on this altar table! Second, bulbs need to be watered and tended to. Who would make sure that happened, especially with fewer people in the building these days? It became obvious that each week after worship, if we wanted to fulfill the promise, the pots that the bulbs were planted in would need to be moved from the sanctuary to the worship resource room where they could get light. And each week, mid-week, someone would need to water them. I added those tasks to my weekly “to-do” list. No big deal. After about the second week, I notice that the bulbs were not progressing as I thought they should, and it definitely didn’t seem that we would be seeing any amaryllis blooms by the Christmas. So I went to google to inquire about the care of paper whites and amaryllis. It was confirmed that they needed sunlight and water. But in addition they needed warmth. Guess what? The worship resource room is not heated. As a matter of fact, it gets quite cold in there. So now, I would need to take the plants to my office after each worship, balance them on my “not-so-wide” window sills, leave my heat on, hope for the best and pray daily for the promise to be fulfilled. And remember to do all this with daily and weekly distractions.
To my great delight, the very next Sunday (the 3rd Sunday of Advent), the paper whites had bloomed and there was a tight blossom on one of the Amaryllis’ that showed great promise of opening. And by the fourth Sunday of Advent one of the blooms on one of the Amaryllis’ had opened. Our theme was coming to life. By Christmas Eve, the second Amaryllis had two blooms that had opened is a great display of fulfilled promises. The darkness had not overcome the light.
Sometimes we dream of and make promises and then wait and watch for them to be fulfilled. Sometimes we even take a first step to fulfill the promise: we buy the bulbs and plant them. But we often forget that fulfilling promises takes care and a lot of work. And more than that, fulfilling promises isn’t just about making a plan and then implementing that plan. After all, our theme wasn’t “Implementing a Good Plan on a Promise” it was Fulfilling Promises! When we commit to fulfilling promises, we commit to doing whatever it takes, and that means observing closely, making adjustments as needed, and doing that as many times as it takes to get the job done. It means being in intimate relationship with our promises. It means faith, since we don’t get to know exactly what the future holds. And according to John’s Christmas story, it means being witnesses to the light.
I have been thinking about the promises that generations of Pullenites have been making and fulfilling. The promise to make God’s all-inclusive love the foundation of our vision and mission. The promise to be a church that is not afraid to ask the hard questions of our faith. The promise to support one another to live our most authentic life. The promise to be a church that welcomes those marginalized by society and the institutional church with the message that we are all God’s beloved and everyone has a place at God’s table. The promise to be a church that prioritizes right relationship over right belief. The promise to engage in relationship and dialogue with other faiths trusting that all faiths teach us something about the sacred. The promise to proclaim a faith that is relevant to the times, and to be prophetic in that proclamation.
Fulfilling these promises generation after generation has required care, intentionality and a lot of hard work. And I am amazed when I look back over the history of our church at the beauty of the blossoms these promises have put forth. Those of us who are Pullen Church today are rooted in the fertile soil cultivated and tended by those who came before us. Our growth is toward that same light and warmth that comes to us from a loving God. Our blossoms are a fulfillment of their promises. As we live into 2022, may we, this generation of Pullenites, have the desire and the will, the resilience, and the courage to do the work that is required and necessary now for future generations of Pullenites. To keep working the soil, and planting bulbs in the dark that will blossom in the times in which they will live.
