We are a downtown Church; committed to the Gospel, accountable to each other, loving Christ and making him known.
themessenger Monthly Newsletter of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church MARCH 2012
VOLUME 101
ISSUE 3
Deeper Roots in God INSIDE THIS ISSUE Winter Gathering Recap -page 2 Easter Egg Hunt -page 4 Becoming a Member -page 5 DON’T FORGET TO PLACE AN ORDER FOR EASTER FLOWERS!
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church 315 E. Pecan St. San Antonio, Texas 78205 (210) 226-2426 www.stmarks-sa.org
By The Rev. Mike Chalk, Rector
A
t the Ash Wednesday service The Rev. Dr. Jane Patterson presented a rich analogy that suggests how we can create deeper roots this Lent into the Spirit of God. She related her experience of moving to South Texas and learning how to adapt her passion for gardening to the local climate. “When I first got to South Texas, I assumed that the trick was just to give those beautiful pink and scarlet flowering impatiens by my front walk all the water they wanted. In the morning, I gave them a good soaking, but by the afternoon’s heat they’d be slumped over again, mutely demanding more water, so I gave it to them. By midsummer they were spindly and sad. I took a picture and showed it to the woman at the nursery, “You’re overwatering,” she said immediately. “But they’ll die without it,” I whined. “No, they won’t. You need to get them to send their roots down deeper for water. As long as you keep watering from the top, their roots will stay at the surface, and when the afternoon sun heats the ground up, the roots at the surface just fry. Water them less, so they will look for water deeper down.” Jane continued by declaring, “Unlike many people in the world, most of us have the ability to get pretty much whatever we need whenever we think we need it. But the season of Lent, with its call to simplify, not to indulge our every desire, is a chance to train our roots to go deeper, to send our roots down into the water that really sustains us. What Jesus was trying to
tell his disciples was that practices of prayer and fasting and generosity, when they are engaged wholeheartedly, do not lead to sadness and deprivation. No, a holy simplicity guides our roots into the divine joy that really sustains human life….those who truly sink their roots into practices of prayer and simplicity of life and generosity find themselves drawing up the sweet, cool waters of God’s own joy.” Jane ended the sermon asking us to reflect on the word contentment, from the Latin contentus, which is to be “satisfied” or “contained.” She concluded the sermon by stating: “The forty days of Lent offer us a chance to choose a container that will lead us toward contentment, a contentment that we could never reach when our every need is satisfied. When contained, we deepen. Deepening, we find contentment. Finding contentment, we are suffused with the joy that is the underground river of the life of God, flowing beneath us all the time, far below our daily distractions.” Lent is a time for us to deepen our roots allowing the source of our life to be something more profound than the indulgent appetites around us. In a culture that contends that contentment is related to acquisition, deeper roots to God are made by letting go and simplifying. I pray that you may experience a holy Lent by deepening your roots to the very Spirit of God.