Transcript
Hi, I’m Bishop Brian. Last Sunday, the third Sunday after Pentecost, we read from the Gospel of Mark a parable. At the beginning of that parable, Jesus speaks about a person who is going out casting seed on the ground. After throwing seed on the ground, the person sleep, the person rises, the seed has died and has grown, and a plant has emerged. And that person doesn’t understand how that has happened.
You and I in this time that is COVID becoming post-COVID, I believe we’re called to be that person, to throw seed, to plant, knowing that we often do not understand what it looks like for things to grow, how it is that God moves in the lives of others. But what we can understand is this is the time to proclaim good news again, to treat each church, each ministry in our diocese as if it’s new. To plant the church again, to plant ministries again, with the sense that we had maybe been waiting hunkering down, enduring, hoping there’d be a time that would be hopeful in this pandemic.
Many of our churches are gathering in-person again, and ministries are restarting again. This is a time to assess what has gone well, what has maybe atrophied, what needs attention, what maybe no longer serves us, but also what has emerged. What new thing is on the horizon for us. So I would encourage you to think about this as a planting season.
One of my favorite things to do is to go get the mail at our house every day. And there are certain times of the year when I go to the mailbox and there are those seed catalogs letting us know it’s time to plant. Well, as your Bishop I’m saying to you, I believe it’s time for us to plant. To get those seeds of the gospel and to cast them wildly in our communities. And to trust that God knows how it is. God moves in people’s lives.
What you and I can control, is that we are proclaimers of that good news and that good hope. Your diocese and staff, parish leadership, clergy, lay leaders, this is a time for us all to take on this task and to take on this task together. I look forward to being with you in this planting season.
Amen.