By the Rev. Dr. Pamela Dolan
Rooted in faith, growing in hope, reaching out in love.
By now, these three phrases should feel pretty familiar. Over the last few weeks we have had wonderful reflections from three different parishioners about this theme as it connects to our fall pledge season, and in a few minutes our Senior Warden will wrap it all up with his own reflections on stewardship and the importance of offering financial support to the parish.
Maybe you’ve never really stopped to think about where a theme like this one comes from, but it’s been my experience that things stick a little better when we know the backstory behind them, so I thought I’d share a bit about that.
It all started about a year ago with Morning Prayer and a little doodling. The Psalm appointed that day was Psalm 1 and, as usual, I was struck by the image at the center of that Psalm: People who love God are said to be “like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in due season and their leaves do not wither.” I began doodling a tree, one of the few things I can draw without completely embarrassing myself, and soon I was labeling the three parts of the tree with the three theological virtues: I wrote the word “faith” next to the roots, “hope” next to the trunk, and “love” next to the branches and leaves. Then it seemed natural to connect each virtue with a verb, an action word that reminded me of who we are as a church—and just like that, we had “rooted in faith, growing in hope, reaching out in love.”
One of the great things about being part of a church community is that no good idea ever develops in isolation. Although I had this sort of vision that came to me of a three-point statement and the corresponding parts of a tree, I wasn’t really sure what to do with it from there. Gabe Avila helped me begin to sketch a logo that we might create from it, something with a tree in its center. His graphic design talent is fantastic, of course, but it wasn’t until the stewardship committee got into brainstorming mode that they came up with the idea of using our lychgate and redwood trees as the main image in the design. This is such a distinctive, identifiable part of our campus, and such a point of connection between the parish and the neighborhood, that it just clicked into place right away.
It only occurred to me this week that this process of creation mirrored the three parts of the theme itself. It was rooted in the faith—Morning Prayer is a key element of our faith tradition’s prayer practices, and the Psalms are one of the most ancient and enduring of our Scriptural resources. It grew in hope, embodied in our community of believers who worked together to come up with something better than any one of us individually could have achieved. And it is now being used to reach out in love to all of you, asking for your love to come back to the parish in the form of financial support. As usual, I am astonished and delighted by the mysterious and playful ways that God gets things done!
Our speakers have done a great job of talking about the three key words of faith, hope, and love. Diana Glick, Chair of Social Justice and Outreach, reminded us that we have many ways that we reach out in love, including through our Matthew 25 grants and other concrete acts of service throughout our community. Kathleen Dolan, a member of our youth group, spoke about the importance of holding onto hope, a hope inspired by the miracle of our very existence. And Carla Harris, chair of the Altar Guild, eloquently described how her faith is rooted in prayer, worship, and other spiritual practices.
For the rest of my time this morning, I’d like to back up a bit and think about the image of a tree once again—a tree that is asked to bear all the metaphorical weight of standing in for the people of God, for people who put their trust in God and delight in following God’s ways. Roots, stem, and branches are all necessary parts of the living organism. Without branches that reach out toward the sun, photosynthesis doesn’t happen. Without roots that are firmly planted in good soil, a tree has no way to tap into the nutrition and water it needs. And the trunk connects the two, serving as both a pathway for communication and structural support as the tree grows into its full potential.
You can probably already see how this metaphor extends to our church. We’re rooted in our faith, a faith expressed beautifully in worship, a faith nourished by the water of Baptism and the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, a faith fed by the rich heritage of stories and songs that we call our own, all of it giving us strength for the journey. Faith is the reason for us to be here, to be a church. Faith, like good soil, is not inert—it is alive, it is rich, and it is sometimes messy. When we grapple with our faith it can be an epic struggle. We might come away from the struggle with a limp, or with dirt under our nails, but we will not come away unchanged.
We are a church that is growing in hope, meaning both that our hope is a source of growth and that we want to be a community that helps hope grow and expand within our members. The hope we seek to embody here reminds us that abundance is more real than scarcity and that life, not death, will have the final say—and we know that this hope is so much more than optimism or wishful thinking because we have seen it made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ. Hope is what makes it possible for us to keep showing up and being the church, even in the midst of pandemic, disruption, and decline. We don’t wait for growth to happen in order to give us hope; rather, hope is the prerequisite for growth. Hope whispers in our ear that with God all things are possible, and encourages us to keep moving forward together, trusting that the path will appear.
Love, meanwhile, propels us beyond ourselves. That is why, in my mind, it is connected with branches. Branches and leaves are such visible, tangible parts of a tree to us. They provide shade for us to enjoy and food and shelter for birds and other creatures. They are also, at least in deciduous trees, an example of the self-offering nature of love. When leaves fall to the ground, they help the soil retain moisture and being the process of decomposing that eventually makes more soil.
Love, in the Christian context, is not a feeling but a verb. Our love extends to those inside the church as well as to many people we may never meet. The saints were people renowned for their love, love that they put into action. Their actions were rooted in faith and they encourage the growth of hope in all of us. That is what makes them saints. And it is what can make all of us saints, too.
Today we remember and celebrate those who have gone before us. Doing so not only honors them, it also helps us think about those who are to come after us, reminding us that we are all part of something much bigger than ourselves. Together, we are indeed like trees planted by streams of water, yielding the good fruit of faith, hope, and love.
