The Garden a Year Later

A sermon by Rev. Roberta Finkelstein

South Church Unitarian Universalist

Sunday June 10, 2007

A little over a year ago I introduced myself to South Church with a sermon called “Watching the Garden Grow.” I used the metaphor of the garden to let you know that I wanted to spend my first year in ministry with you in observer mode – listening to you, watching you, getting to know both the people and the systems so I could understand how my style of ministry could best serve South Church . I want to repeat a little bit of what I said then, because it is still true, then tell you what I’ve learned after a year of watching this garden grow.

I had chosen the gardening metaphor because of something I learned form my mother - a truth every gardener knows. “You have to live with a garden for an entire year before you can really become the gardener,” she said. That is the only way to know the full potential of the garden; to learn the secrets that are yielded up each in their own time. If you don’t wait the full year, you may miss the most glorious offering of a particular plot. You may plow under or spade through a treasure, over-plant and strangle something delicate that is struggling to establish itself. 

          I assured you that this year of watching the garden grow would not be passive or lazy. You would still get your money’s worth out of me. Watching the garden grow is not like ‘watching the grass grow” though I do recommend that from time to time. It is an active, appreciative approach to gardening. As you watch your new garden grow, you are always ready to offer support in the way of water, food, mulch, weeding, and staking. This watching is to make sure that you fully understand what you have in your garden before you make any major additions or deletions.

          Now my mother was a far more dedicated gardener than I am. She looked at every patch of dirt as potential, and more often than not she succeeded in turning pockets of neglect into spaces of stunning beauty. Her approach was both simple and firm. Either grow or get out of the way! She used to talk to her houseplants as she watered them. She’d say, “Now, this is it for the week. Anybody who needs to be watered more than once a week doesn’t cut it in this house.” And they all grew. My mother must have known May Sarton’s mother, she too knew and taught the truth that "we must be hard to move among the tender with an open hand, and to stay sensitive up to the end, to pay with some toughness for a gentle world.”

I haven’t been able to develop quite that level of firmness with my plants; I sometimes break down and give the weak ones a mid-week drink. But I have learned, from my mother and many other teachers, how to create an environment in which living things flourish. My mother taught me that the job of the gardener is to issue an invitation to grow and to flourish. She was a tough love gardener, but the living things that came in contact with her all were blessed with the impression that there was something good and beautiful inside of them that was being invited out towards the light.

          In order to successfully issue this invitation, you have to trust the basic impulse of all living things to grow towards the light. Then you have to make sure they have an adequate opportunity. You need patience; every plant grows toward the light in its own time. You need a deep and abiding faith in the basic nature of things. And you have to be willing to be disappointed, surprised, and absolutely delighted. And that, I said a year ago, is a perfect job description for ministry!

          So here we are a year later. I have enjoyed this year so very much. Barry and I are feeling settled into our new house and our new community. I don’t get lost in Portsmouth any more. Our dog Pepper has learned his new boundaries, and defends them fiercely. We said good-bye to our two elderly cats – one left us from our house early in the spring, the other, just this week, from Danny’s apartment in NY. We have two new and adorable kittens to distract us. The weather is too weird for words.  And I do love this ministry, this opportunity to grow the garden together.

          One consideration in this garden growing business is that you can’t tell things that are ready to bloom to wait a year until the new gardener catches up. That is why, back in September, the Ministry for Earth and Green Sanctuary programs came into being. The people who created these programs came to the new church year last fall with a passion and energy that simply could not be deferred. Nor should it have been. And that brings me to Lesson #1 from my year of garden watching. When you see an opportunity for ministry – seize it. Please don’t wait for the minister. Unitarian Universalism is a faith that is based on the idea of both the priesthood and prophethood of all believers. Not just the ordained, not just the paid staff. You are the church and it’s ministry. Bring me along.

          Lesson #2.  We do our best work with the church we are – not the church we think we are or the one we used to be or the one we wish we could be. South Church , on June 10, 2007 , is a great church, with a fine collection of members. I consider my congregation to be the people who show up. So we have a congregation of somewhere around 400 people – people who pledge, volunteer, participate, worship, work, and enjoy fellowship together. If you’re here, I’m your minister. And if you come, I will be your minister. The leadership of South Church is determined to plan and implement programs based on the church that we know ourselves to be.

          And that brings me to Lesson #3. Act your size. Not your age, but your size. Last year I had the distinct impression that South Church was hobbled by two strangely intertwined and seemingly incongruent issues. One the myth that this is a large church, the other the absence of sufficient infrastructure for even a small church. In fact, we are a mid-size church and we need to act like one. That is why the board has moved, even in this year of watching rather than changing the garden, to implement a Council Structure. For a mid-size church like ours, ministry is delivered through the programs of the congregation. One ordained minister can effectively function in a church this size if there are sufficient programs in place to meet the needs of the membership. My job then becomes one of coaching, supporting, and supplementing the ministries that all of you participate in. The first Council Evening was, for me, one of the highlights of this first year. To see so many of you there, eager to learn and to find ways to work together effectively and support each other – well, it made me so glad to be there with you!

          The fifth and final lesson I’m taking from this year: South Church is deeply rooted in a long and proud history. We need to know that history, and to learn the right lessons from it. We need to celebrate and build on the strengths bequeathed to us, to recover from the losses, forgive each other for the lapses, and then look forward into a long and proud future. There is so much to look forward to. Already the Board, the Nominating Committee, the Stewardship Development Committee are at work insuring that South Church will have the structures, the leaders, and the funds needed to continue to thrive. Already the Music Committee is beginning inquiries in to how to bring the South Church choir back to life. Already the Adult Spiritual Enrichment Committee is planning a range of offerings for the fall semester. Already the Council structure has given some of the scattered and disconnected affinity groups a home at the heart of our congregation.

A new usher corps will be in place by the end of the summer, and the seeds of a Membership Committee have been planted. You have all been invited by the board to engage in a conversation around what it would mean for us to gather for worship in one service. What a rich time of possibilities.

Spring, I said a year ago, is a time when even the least faithful gardeners among us look around and see the potential beauty awaiting our efforts. The spring demands that we get our hands a little bit dirty, get close enough to the garden to smell the wet earth, or, at the very least, stop and admire the handiwork of the true gardeners among us. It is springtime, once again, here at South Church . We have made a decision to be in ministry together. We are still in the stage where we engage in imagining the potential. And we know that to bring that potential to fruition, we are all going to have to get your hands dirty.

May we all learn the lessons that the garden will teach us: that with a little bit of intentionality, regularity, and depth, and with a great deal of patience, we too can be ‘what it is that knows how to grow.’ It is my fond hope that we will continue, throughout all the years of our mutual ministry, to be engaged with each other in the wonderful process of watching our garden grow and imagining the possibilities together.