Sermon 4th Sunday after the Epiphany
At the beginning of creation, God put everything into perfect balance, each part of creation connected to the whole, and everything supporting and supported by everything else. God made conditions ideal for all of creation to grow and to thrive. We all live within a great web of life.
But depending on conditions within the web, growing and thriving may be compromised.
I want to tell you about the African violet I got from a friend.
Periodically, I find that one of its leaves has dropped. If I just left it where it fell, the leaf would die. But if I place that African violet leaf in water, it will start to root. And if I leave it in the water long enough, the one leaf will get more leaves.
But for this leaf to thrive and to grow into a plant, I need to plant the leaf with its new roots and leaves in some dirt, because water, by itself, doesn’t have everything this plant needs to grow and thrive.
So here’s a plant that I grew from one leaf. You can see that putting the roots in dirt meant that the plant could grow.
But dirt is not all the plant needs. At first, as the plant put out new leaves, the leaves grew long and scraggly and were more yellow than green.
What do you think my plants lacked?
They lacked light!
So then I got a grow light.
With enough light, the leaves became green, and then, to my surprise, my new African violets bloomed!
So with the right soil, enough water and enough light, these African violets are growing and thriving.
God made each one of us with the hope that we will grow and thrive, for after all, we are part of God’s creation. We are like the leaves that fall from my African violet. Without the essential things we need to live and grow, we just wither away. But when we have all we need, we too can grow and thrive and live in a thriving community with one another, in the human web of life.