This Wednesday: Modern Worship Collective @ 7 pm (Dinner @ 6!)

Dear Kris,

Springtime is a season when we focus on growth. We’re well into a new year, and we worry about whether we’re on track with our yearly plans. We notice things getting green outdoors and we think maybe we need to do our part in being productive.

But what if that’s not where we are, spiritually? What if we still feel tiredness deep within ourselves? What if we’re so filled with fear and grief about the things we see around us – because of the things we’ve experienced – that we just don’t feel ready to grow and put forth new things? What then?

Even though Lent might make us feel like we need to be producing good spiritual fruit, we can still be like fruitless fig trees. We might frustrate ourselves or others because we feel like our branches are barren. So, this Sunday we’re going to look at a story where Jesus urges us to be patient with fig trees. And we’ll think about how Lent can be a time for caring for these kinds of trees too.

With hope,

Hardy

Please join us immediately following the Sunday service for our Coffee Hour (in-person in Trinity Court or online via Zoom).

bit.ly/SVPCCoffeeHour

Theme for Sunday

“Like unwelcome company, concealed stories disconcert stock stories, challenging their smug complacency and assumed normality by insisting on a different accounting of experience. Through alternative renderings of the lived experience… concealed stories present a more encompassing view of reality, one that exposes the partiality and self-interest in stock stories. Concealed stories challenge stock stories by offering different accounts of and explanations for social relations.”

Lee Ann Bell, Storytelling for Social Justice

Questions for Reflection

• Has there ever been a season when you felt stuck or unproductive? What happened? How did it feel?

• What helped you during this season? Were there people or things that were able to move you through it and into a season of new growth?

Luke 13:6-9

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”