Reflection for Thursday, March 6, 2008

Romans 11:11-24 reflection by Rev. Beth

"So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God."

God is kind and severe. This is how a life of faith can feel when I only experience God as my personal lord and savior and lose sight that most of the Bible is talking to the "you (plural)" and not just the singular me. One day is full of blessings, the next, random punishment. A faith journey can be such a pendulum swing when it is experienced alone.

Paul is a Jewish pharisee. He had respect and privilege among the Jewish people. He was blessed. But then he met the resurrected Jesus and he understood God in a new way. The thing was all his old friends didn't see it his way. He had to make new friends in the Gentiles. But he couldn't explain the rejection he felt from his old friends; the ones who first taught him about God and whom he knew God loved dearly. The more excited his new friends the Gentiles got about God and their new blessings, the more Paul understood his first family in his particular community of Jews. Whether you are born to faith or find it later, Paul felt it is all too easy to lose sight of God to pride. It is a much harder thing to keep living in awe--focused on God. Among his old community, Paul had lost that sense of awe, but he felt it again with the Gentiles. Still he worried about keeping awe alive.

He tries to explain this to the Gentiles with a metaphor out of everyday life--the tending to an olive tree. Sometimes, trees were pruned to keep the plant alive and other times branches were grafted back on to bring new life. Olive trees need pruning. Because the branches grow crosswise, they can create a thick canopy and block the sun from reaching the rest of the plant. This means some parts can get sun-burnt and others can wither from no sun. Olive trees also need grafting. Olive trees don't grow from seeds in the ground. Seedlings or other branches must be grafted back to an existing tree. This can bring new life to an old tree or even change the variety of olive growing there.

As a pastor, I can worry like Paul does here as old friends burn out on church and disappear for a while and as new friends come in with great zeal but no knowledge of the old friends and the olives we were growing. But I realize that the pruning and the grafting of the tree are not ultimately up to me. I admit that I worry about who has disappeared because they are experiencing severity and who is not coming because they've turned God's kindness into pride. Or vice versa, who is the fair weather church-goer and who is the devout despairer? Ultimately, I try to enjoy the fruit of the olive tree, which incidentally never bears fruit in the same place. I try to trust the Olive Grower with its pruning sheers and grafting thread. I try to remember that we are not singular seedlings, growing alone in a life of faith, but we are branches on a tree, experiencing together severity and kindness as we are pruned and grafted at different intervals. Although it feels imbalanced as an individual experience, we need pruning and grafting for our greater growth as we learn to live not alone and not by pride but together and in awe of the God who brings us there.