Thought for the Day - Thursday 18 June

Thought for the Day – Thursday 18^th June

‘So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.’ (Acts 6:7)

 ‘But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.’ (Acts 12:24)

‘The word of the Lord spread through the whole region.’ (Acts 13: 49)

‘In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.’ (Acts 19:20)

Having finished painting the manse garden fence and gates – only the front one mind you! – I decided it was now time to tackle the ivy which was colonising the manse garden and I decided to start with the garage, the pillars of the wrought iron gate and the wonderful Rowan tree which so enhances the garden but which was being choked by the ever entwining ivy around its trunk.  

As I started the ivy on the pillars I was delighted by the instant effect of wonderful clear brickwork, likewise with the garage where the results were instant but when it came to the tree, well that was another story. I knew I had cleared both the pillars and the garage before but I had never before tackled the tree and it soon became evident that this was going to be a bigger job than the brickwork. The ivy had a strong hold on the tree and it was so difficult to get in to cut the tendrils and indeed to even find the root stem at times that it took a long time to free the tree from the ivy’s hold on it. In fact, even when I did manage to find a root stem it would be so thick and so well-established that it was difficult to cut through. However, it seemed to me that with each removal of an ivy tendril the tree seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at having been released from the ivy’s hold and appeared to sway much more freely. Although, sadly the signs of the ivy’s hold will forever be on the trunk of the tree for those tight tendrils have left their mark.

Ivy is such an insidious plant, each time you lift one tendril it leads to a mass of others each rooted strongly into the ground and so finding the root stem and dealing with it is always a difficult task. Instinctively, each tendril weaves its way in and out of the other and as it goes it spreads more tendrils until together these tendrils effectively form a huge carpet which just keeps on spreading in order to survive. Of course, being a parasitic plant, as it spreads it saps the ground of nourishment and saps other plants of their very life blood!

However, I do think the ivy could be an object lesson for us – that is if we turn the negative aspect of it into a positive aspect for us as modern day disciples called to make more disciples.  

All through the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early church, there are these little ‘progress reports’ shown which you can see in today’s texts. They are given to show folk how the Word of God is spreading, how the kingdom of God is being preached and so in effect how the young church is spreading. Those early disciples have heard the Good News of Jesus – I suppose we could think of him as the root stem and they are called to share the Good News, each one of them like a tendril grounded and attached to that root stem going out from that root stem into the world and spreading the news by telling more folk of Jesus; sometimes their paths will overlap, sometimes they will intertwine but as they go about spreading the news they are always attempting to root more people in the Good News.

So maybe we are supposed to be like ivy – but positive ivy – we are not to be people who sap the life blood out of others or try to steal their nourishment but rather just go about spreading the Good News, providing spiritual nourishment to others and praying that they will wish to attach themselves to the root stem and work alongside us.

Prayer

Loving Lord,

You call us to be light in the darkness, your voice in any wilderness, your hope to the hopeless. Come, bring your strength when we feel weak, bring your words and a boldness to help us spread the Good News and bring your love, peace and gentleness to our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen