People collect many things and I am always curious as to why people collect the things they do. Personally, I collect words. I am fascinated with words. I love words. For nearly 40 years since my ordination, I have been collecting them – quotes, stories, articles, anecdotes and poems. I have thousands upon thousands of them and they are filed for easy retrieval.

As I was thinking about our current sermon series, “Journeying with Christ” and this week’s focus of Jesus’ saying, “I am the vine” – I found a poem by a dear ministerial colleague written a number of years ago. I hope you’ll consider this poem a pump primer for this coming Sunday’s sermon – allowing your own thoughts to percolate between now and then.

“Making It in an Unmade World”

“I am the vine…
you are the branches.”
John 15:5

Everybody’s
into making it…
for though we start
from scratch
there’s a lifetime
to be torn
from the maw
of meaninglessness.

Some say
you’re on your own
with
grab-for-the-gusto
energy
the needed ingredient
for rendering a lifetime
into bubbling brilliance
and you-earned-it satisfaction.

And yet…
there is another voice
which speaks of connectivity,
and if we were to grow
and in the unfolding
bear fruit,
which is the fecund token
of some lavish investment
in our being.
“Abide in me”,
he said one day,
for in this unmade world
a deeper making
can be felt,
as love is born
and shared
by that Creator God
who knows our frame
and in the loving
destines us for joy!

Rev. Dr. Richard L. Stanger

As we are “Journeying with Christ” this Lenten season, may our spirits connect with one another and the One we seek to follow – the One who is the true vine, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Connectedness,

Rev. Dr. David D. Young
Senior Minister