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Blessing of Fields and Gardens

Use this prayer when preparing the soil and planting seeds or bulbs.

O God, our creator, from the earth you bring forth fruits and vegetables, grains and flowers, to nourish and delight us.  Grant that this land, sustanined by rain and favorable weather and cultivated by human hands, may bring forth an abundant harvest, through Jesus Christ oru Lord.  Amen.

Blessings for Travelers

O God, whose glory fills the whole creation, and whose presence we find wherever we go:

• Preserve us/those who travel:
• surround us/them with your loving care;
• protect us/them from every danger;
• and bring us/them in safety to our/their journey's end;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The Mustard Seed

The mustard seed becomes a shrub that shelters the birds, recalling ancient images of the tree of life.  We'd expect a cedar or a sequoia, but Jesus finds the power of God better imaged in a tiny, no-account seed.  It's not the way we expect divine activity to look.  Yet the tree of life is here, in the cross around which we gather, the tree into which we are grafted through baptism, the true vines that nourishes us with its fruit in the cup we share.  It may not appear all that impressive, but while nobody's looking it grows with a power beyond our understanding.

John the Baptist

Commemoration Sunday, 24 June

John the Baptist is a unique figure in Christian memory, a hinge between the Old Testament prophets and teh first Christians.  In the gospel stories he recognizes Jesus as one greater than himeslf, one for whose coming he prepares teh way.  But still from his prison he asks if Jesus is truly the Expected One.  He is a figure of perpetual Advent and in that way stands for all of us who may be Christian beleivers but still wait and wonder, discern and doubt.

The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

A woman finds healing by touching Jesus' cloak, and a girl is restored to life when he takes her by the hand.  In both cases a boundary is crossed:  in Jesus' time the hemorrhaging woman was considered ritually unclean, polluting others by her touch, and anyone who touched a corpse also became unclean.  In Mark's gospel Jesus breaks down barriers, from his first meal at a tax collector's house to his last breath on the corss as the temple curtain is torn in two.  We dare to touch Jesus in our "uncleanness" and to live as a community that defines no one as an outsider.

(from Sundays and Seasons, 2018)

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