The Church Is A Dandelion--March 18, 2020

The Church Is A Dandelion--March 18, 2020

"Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that took place over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, and they spoke the word to no one except Jews. But among them were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers and turned to the Lord." [Acts 11:19-21]
The church is a dandelion. Remember that.

At least, you could say that about this particular moment in the church's life from Acts 11.  The scene, to bring you up to speed, starts out with fear, grief, and uncertainty.  For the first time in its brief existence, the church had lost one of its members to death at the hands of others--Stephen, an early servant-leader in the Jerusalem church, was martyred by an angry lynch-mob that stoned him to death.  And as a result, that set off a wave of hostility toward the followers of Jesus which scattered the fledgling disciple-community all over.  You know... like dandelion wisps.  The flower is obliterated--it ceases to exist in its old form.  But that very action of scattering makes it take root in a hundred new places where it bursts forth, alive and glorious.  And as anybody who has mowed a lawn knows, from the disintegration of one dandelion comes a blanket of golden yellow flowers in no time at all.

Death and resurrection.  It turns out not to be just the one-time event of Holy Week, but the ongoing modus operandi of the Body of Christ we call the church.

Like a white-headed dandelion blown by the Spirit, little seeds of the community of Jesus are blown in a million different directions. And maybe at first, that seems a sad thing--if you were one of those Christians forced to leave Jerusalem because of the death of your friend Stephen, you would probably have felt like a refugee seeking shelter. It surely felt like a violent upheaval in their lives, being forced out of their homes to find safety somewhere else. And it must have made them wonder where God was in that moment--how God could have let this happen, how God could have let things get so out of hand. But when you zoom out here to Acts 11, the chaotic motion of these scattered disciples seems to have more purpose to it--or at least more possibility. It seems that these dispersed Christians end up being little seeds, bringing the news of Jesus wherever the wind blew them. We could even say that it was really the same Wind that blew on the Day of Pentecost--the Spirit kept blowing, and blew on the Christian community in Jerusalem to send it out into the world so that others could be drawn into the life of Christ. The church, it seems, is a dandelion.

But was this just a fluke in the story of Christian history? Was this dandelion moment just a blip on the radar, and should we now be looking for the church always to seem stable and secure? Or do we still live in a community that needs to be scattered--even if just between Sundays--in order to do the work God is calling us today? Is our picture of "the church" one in which we have to round people up into our pews in order for ministry to happen or good news to be shared, or is our picture one in which we are blown like dandelion seeds into the world around us? I wonder if that second one is really more accurate--what if God's way is to blow on us and scatter us to our jobs and daily routines, so that the way you interact with people today becomes a venue to make them wonder about this faith of yours, so that the casual conversation you have today lays the groundwork of trust for someone to confide in you weeks or months later when her heart is breaking, or when he is distraught an seeking a listening ear? Perhaps we will have no idea how the scattering will happen or what will come of it--it seems in these verses from Acts that those who were scattered from Jerusalem didn't quite know what would come of their life on the run--except that they kept telling the news of Jesus to people wherever they went. And it also seems that they didn't quite know who would receive their message--but the Spirit had something in mind.

I want to raise this possibility for us right now because it seems to me that the community called "church" is on the verge of having one of those wind-to-the-dandelion moments.  Congregations across the country are having to suspend Sunday services, cancel meetings, and postpone events, all in order to prevent the spread of contagion in these days of COVID-19.  And, just like it was for the first-century church, those decisions come with sadness, with a sense of loss, and with uncertainty for what comes next.  We find ourselves asking how we will survive, especially when right now it feels like everything is coming unglued, and we are afraid of whether it will come back together on some future day we imagine will restore us to "normal."  And we worry whether the old assumptions we had about church are disintegrating before our eyes, and that maybe something new will have to spring up after there is nothing but a lonely stem left of the old order.  Maybe we aren't supposed to long for the old model, or to try to force it to come back together.  Maybe we are being scattered exactly for the purpose of springing up as new blossoms in the world, overtaking the world's orderly lawn with the golden-yellow joy of resurrection.  Maybe we are not being sequestered in defeat, but sent like dandelion seeds to rise anew.

Where might we be sent today? And how can we let ourselves be led by the Spirit, trusting that there is divine purpose even when we do not know where we are being led? That's the funny thing about being dandelion seeds--you know that dandelion seeds were made, designed, for being blown by the wind and carried to new places. But you can also never quite pin down where they will land--except that it will be "out there" in the wider world. Can we risk trusting that the Spirit has designed us for blessing the lives of others, even if we have no clear picture of where or who or what that will involve? Perhaps we can simply unclench our lives and let the wind carry us where the Spirit will today.

O Lord, give us the peace of letting go and being carried in your current--but let us be carried in order that we can spread your blessing and plant your story around us. Let us be your holy dandelions today, Good Lord.