A Season of Growth

“(S)peaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.” -Ephesians 4:15-16

This imagery from the New Testament letter to the Ephesians presumes that the Christian life entails growth.  Faith is not a static or a resolved or finished thing - not for individuals, and not for the Christian community.  We are constantly being challenged and encouraged to grow, to stretch, to learn new things and try new things and be new things as we seek to “grow up” more and more into the “full stature of Christ”, as the letter says.

The color adorning our altar and lectern and vestments in this season after Pentecost, this “ordinary time” in the life of the Church, is green.  Growth is abundantly visible to us now as we enter these warm summer weeks and months - the bright green of the trees and bushes all around us.  We might consider this “long green season” as the season of growth in the Church.

We all have places in our lives where we can grow.  What are yours, I wonder?  Where is God inviting you or challenging you, nudging or even pushing you, to grow in this season of your life?  Perhaps this is worth thinking about, journaling about, praying about this summer…

Me?  I am no Biblical scholar.  But I love the Bible.  One might even say I’m a big nerd about the Bible - about its history and theology, its various literary complexities, its spiritual lessons.  That said, I know a lot more about and am much more comfortable with the New Testament than with the Old Testament (also called the Hebrew Bible).  In seminary I opted to take Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament) rather than Biblical Hebrew.  (This was maybe a wise choice once I realized how truly awful I am at languages!)  This summer - in this season of growth - I plan to grow in my understanding of the Old Testament, of the Scriptures which we have inherited from our Jewish forebears.   And you’re going to be dragged along on my journey with me! (Kidding, mostly.)

All joking aside, I think it is of real importance that we all be well versed in the Old Testament.  These were the Scriptures of Jesus and his first followers.  This was the Bible of the early Church until the canonization of the Christian New Testament (which took hundreds of years to be fully completed).  This library of folktale and myth, history and law, song and philosophy, wisdom and prophecy is foundational to Christian thinking and theology…saying nothing of Western civilization! And here in Glencoe, among our many Jewish neighbors, our honest engagement with these books is especially important.

The Revised Common Lectionary (the set of assigned readings which tell us what we read in church) offers two options for the “long green season” of Ordinary Time that begins in the summer.  One “track” of readings is based on the old Catholic lectionary which traces its origins to the Middle Ages and even antiquity…it links the Old Testament reading with the Gospel reading.   So that they share themes and imagery and ideas.  The other “track” of readings sets out to read much of the Old Testament “in course.”   Beginning in Genesis and moving through the books of the Hebrew Bible in order.  This is what we will be doing this summer.  My preaching will focus on the Old Testament lesson every Sunday from now until Advent in the hopes that we (and I!) might become more familiar with these texts - that we might engage with their lessons and their challenges.  That we might wrestle with them (to borrow an image from them) as Jacob wrestled with a mysterious figure beside the River Jabbok and was forever changed.

It’ll be a sort of parish-wide Bible study, every Sunday morning, making our way through the Hebrew Scriptures.  I warmly welcome you to join me as we grow together in our understanding and our faith here in this season of green and growing things.

Faithfully,

The Rev. Adam Spencer, Rector