Burying the tendril

This past Sunday those of us who were present for house church had communion before we actually took part in 'communion.' We had a very heart-felt, and at times, teary discussion as we contemplated the three stories we know so well that are found in Luke chapter 15.

We split into two groups and I asked three questions...

1. Describe a time when you were lost geographically.

2. Describe a time when you felt lost spiritually.

3. Describe a time when you found something, geographically or spiritually.

It was the second question that seemed to provoke the emotion, and at times, even tears. As I was reflecting on that discussion this week, I started reading the book, 'Under the Tuscan Sun' by Frances Mayes.

'The way we have potatoes is the way most everything has come about, as we've transformed this abandoned Tuscan house and land over the pat four years. We watch Francisco Falco, who has spent most of his seventy-five years attending to grapes, bury the tendril of an old vine so that it shoots out new growth. We do the same. The grapes thrive.

To bury the grape tendril in such a way that it shoots out new growth I recognize easily as a metaphor for the way life must change from time to time for us to move forward in our thinking.'

For those who may not know the tendril is that part of the stem on a vine that serves to attach a climbing plant to its support. So that apparently, at some point in the life of the vine, the best thing you can do is to cut off the part that is connected to the building or fence which serves as its foundation. Only by doing that can the vine once again experience real, new growth.

For many of us, we have been cut off from that institution that has been in many ways the foundation for us spiritually. But we have also found this to be an opportunity for new growth. Perhaps not the way we would have scripted it, but sometimes it takes burying the tendril to produce true growth.

Sunday we will be discussing Luke 16, and the Parable of the Shrewd Manager...one of the most difficult passages in all of the New Testament...see ya then!