Bloom Where You are Planted

Sermon Preached at Germantown Mennonite Church on January 22, 2017

(Sunday after the Trump Inauguration)

Texts: I Corinthians 1: 10-18; Matthew 4: 12-23

“Bloom where you are planted”–That was a phrase I remember my grandfather saying more than a few times.  I remember it was something my mom started to say more, when I was a teenager.  Both my mom and grandfather had this little saying written on a scrap of paper and posted in their cars.  And then, later, my mom had little lapel buttons made for both of them to wear.  

I always thought it was a sweet little saying–one that implied a sense of contentment with one’s surroundings.  As a teenager, it gave me a sense of appreciation for my family stories and desire to be close to each other, and support each other.

But I’ve been thinking about that saying lately again.  Bloom where you are planted–it isn’t just a feel good lapel button motto. This is not a saying about staying where you are, or refusing to get out of your current circumstances, this motto is about tackling what’s in front of us.  It’s about being made for this moment and this time, and being diligent and humble in what we’ve been called to do.

This saying is especially powerful when I think about who my grandfather was.  He was always the smartest man in the room, though he would never say so or act that way.  He was reliable, stubborn, and had a way of finding a solution or a fix to problems you didn’t even know existed–these solutions often involved plumber putty or wood glue.  As a child of the great depression, he made the most of every scrap of wood or metal he found.  He made the most of every opportunity to teach me a new skill–like woodworking or boating or gardening.  It was important to him that he passed on what he knew. He wasn’t an important man, by our standards.  He didn’t make a lot of money.  He was a working class guy whose wealthy family lost it all in the depression, and he made the most of where he landed.  

Bloom where you are planted is powerful to me when I think about my mom.  She adopted this motto in her own life, just a few years before being diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I’m convinced now that this motto got her through some difficult times in her treatment and as she faced her own mortality.  She was not one to shrink from her circumstances, and she faced her diagnosis with openness, honesty, and courage.  I can honestly say that I never saw her more alive than when I saw her reckoning with her mortality during too many radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

Here’s the thing about this motto–Bloom Where You’re Planted–it doesn’t mean don’t go anywhere.  It means make the most of where you are.  It doesn’t mean that you shy away from risk.  It means grow and bloom in whatever circumstances you find yourself in.  

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The public ministry of Jesus begins in the gospel of Matthew with Jesus learning–after his baptism and time in the wilderness–that John the Baptist, his cousin and mentor, had been arrested.  It is unlike the beginning of the book of Luke where Jesus began his ministry with a reading and mic drop in the temple, followed by an attempted assassination on his life.  The book of Matthew, on the other hand, is focused on storytelling using different methods–Matthew is specifically interested in place.

In Matthew’s telling of the story, as soon as Jesus heard of the arrest of his cousin, he withdrew to the Galilee.  It sounds a little bit like a fearful retreat, like the news of John’s arrest had wounded Jesus’ spirit, and he needed to rest.  But, I invite you to look more closely at this.  Jesus withdrew to the Galilee, which means: after hearing that his cousin and friend had been arrested for doing just a small portion of what Jesus would be doing in his own ministry, Jesus went somewhere more public.  He went to the highly populated Galilee, where he could easily be found.  

Jesus withdrew into a public place.  He didn’t run back home to Nazareth in fear or doubt.  He pushed out to a place that was not at all safe. So, Jesus’ first major act of ministry–before calling the disciples, before healing anyone and before saying a single Jesus-y thing–was to immediately go to an unsafe place.    

And while moving out into a more populated, public space, Jesus also made a home.  He rooted himself in Capernaum, a city in the area that used to belong to the northern Israelite tribes of Zebulun and Naphtalli–before the Israelites were enslaved by the Babylonians, and the Roman Empire took over.  This is a place that had largely been forgotten by Jesus’ people–the Northern tribes were not well liked and not affiliated with the Pharisaical leadership of Southern tribes, the “true”, reigning tribes of Israel.  

So, effectively in the first moments of Jesus’ public ministry, before he even had followers, he did the opposite of what any of us would do.  He made his home in dangerous country, by going somewhere that could get him killed.  

And, he made a home in Capernaum, a place that many of Jesus’ religious peers could have seen as a place not worth visiting.  Jesus made a home in an unsafe,unpopular, marginal place.  He planted himself in the unpopular region of Zebulun and Naphtali, and said, “this is where I have been called.  This is where I will be rooted.  This is where I will bloom.”  

There is–of course–a great dissonance between making a home and being in danger.  We like to assume our homes are safe.  And if they are not, we try to make them safe.  If we have children, we cover all the outlets with stoppers that even we can’t get out.  We put gates up in front of the stairs, so the kids can’t fall down the stairs.  As we age, we move furniture so we don’t trip over it, or we sometimes move to homes that have fewer stairs.  We look for safety.  Many in our world do not have the luxury to look for safety, but the vast majority of us in this room do have that luxury.  If our home is not safe, we fix it or we find a home that feels more safe.

We look for places to live that we love, that have beauty, that we can make a life in without fear of getting hurt.  We long for comfort and safety.  We long to bloom in places where we feel protected.  

But before Jesus even began his ministry, the first indication of the nature of his ministry was that place mattered, that he was going to live and root and bloom somewhere that was public and in doing that, he would risk his safety.  And in this public, seemingly risky place, Jesus would make a home.

It’s only after Jesus moved into the public, and made a home in a place his people would consider unsavory, that Jesus went the sea and said to the disciples, “Follow me.”  Live as I do.  

We often focus on this text with any eye on his words, but there are other things that matter here. Where Jesus placed himself matters.  How and where he lived matters too.  

Jesus placed himself in Capernaum and made a home there.  He lived publicly.  He lived there knowing it would cost his life.  And he lived there knowing that it had cost his cousin, John the baptist, his life too.  

And that’s where we are called to live, too.  From wherever we are planted, our work is to live our values and faith out in the open, without fear of the empire, or fear of the institutional responses. It’s hard work.  It’s harder work, in fact, than speaking or carrying signs.  

This work of blooming where we are planted is deeply spiritual work.  It’s rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It’s rooted in our call and in the stories of faith that inspire us.  It’s rooted in the faith community that we covenant to walk with, nurture and support.  

Friends, we live in uncertain times, just as did Jesus.  And if we are to–with integrity–call ourselves followers of Christ, we too are asked to live our lives, our allegiances, and our values, in public and sometimes uncomfortable ways.  We are to make homes where we are, and root ourselves in our community, with the understanding that everything starts with what is local.   

Now more than ever we must be willing to risk.  Now more than ever we must be rooted deeply in our faith, our community and in our call to be followers of Christ.

Where Jesus rooted himself mattered.  Where we are rooted matters.  And not just where we root–it is important that we bloom and grow, publicly, boldly and unapologetically.  And as we grow, take root, and bloom, we know that we do not do this alone.  We are surrounded by the loving, nurturing support of this community to be the people God has called us to be, in this time and place.

Let us bloom where we are planted–in this time, in this community, as we are nurtured by the stories of Christ and and share the boldness of living our lives publicly.  AMEN.