Sermon: “Be heliotropic.”
Mark 9:30-37
When my family returned back home from our month-long holiday in Korea, we were welcomed by these guys in our backyard:
the seeds that Jah-bi had planted in June had turned into a lemon flower forest. It was a very cloudy day, as you see in the picture, but the lemon-coloured flowers were simply bright, as if they could cast out the spell of the clouds.
People often experience being amazed or uplifted by sunflowers – I gleaned those words from the Facebook posts of my friends.
One of my friends was walking on the Camino. She resisted the urge to speed up when all the people were briskly passing by. Her unhurried pace allowed her to notice the beauty of the fields and open space. The sunflower field. The contentment inside, letting go of anxious/fearful thoughts with every breath.
Now, a few more gleaned words from two people who are in this space. “A hot hazy day on the prairies - finally. Haying and other harvesting underway on my way to work. The cheery-faced sunflowers are hanging their heavy heads awaiting harvest. Our resident mother bear and cub haven’t been spotted for a few days but the plum trees will beckon them soon, no doubt.” (Sept 4, 2009) What lovely images.
Another one is from Aisha! (Our Sunday School director-to-be, who starts her work on Oct 1st, tomorrow) “My light is so bright that I grew sunflowers in snowstorms….”
Sunflowers are not just friendly or pretty, though. They are the healers of the land, and therefore, the community. They detoxify soil – after the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi, in Japan, millions of sunflowers were planted to help purge the soil of radiation and heavy metals.
One United Church minister reported: “Last year when the congregation was scattered because of the evacuation order due to the forest fires, I stayed in touch via email reminding the community of our identity in God, reminding one another that while we were scattered across the province and even beyond we were still connected one to another in God. The image that came to me was Jeremiah, who reminded Israel that even in captivity their identity in God was with them. The forest fires had scattered the community but the fires could not destroy who we knew ourselves to be. I heard from many folks how much this helped them in a time of great uncertainty. I would wonder Leenane (one of my United Church clergy colleges in Vancouver) in the devastation of a flood, if the people just need to remember their identity is not in that which was lost, but in their faith in each other, found in their belief in God. Prayers with you and the church. And with others in the community impacted by the unexpected flood.”
To this prayer, Even Smith commented: (She is an indigenous member, and a United Church clergy serving the Toronto Urban Native Ministry) “After the hard stuff is done, plant sunflowers outside. They draw the toxins up out of the soil. We did this all over in New Orleans after Katrina. Sending you prayers.” 
Another example: Recently, in Alberta, sunflower seeds were collected and sent to High River United Church. The congregation who initiated this compassionate effort had enough seeds donated that they could donate a package to every home affected by the flood.
Reading and hearing all these, I found it very inspiring to think how each creation is God’s given gift. The sunflowers are a great treasure to clean the soil and begin healing the earth. They have to be planted when the time is right, though – in Spring, when winter loses its fierce grip on the land. Sunflowers can truly be a metaphor for prayers in our lives — cleansing our hearts and healing the future.
Now, there’s one more lesson about sunflowers I would like to share, and I hope that I can make a meaningful link with today’s scripture reading.
I invite you to find or affirm your personal strength in relationship with the divine in you, and God in all things, with the image of the Sunflower being heliotropic.
Have any of you heard the word heliotropic before? Students of Greek, artists and gardeners might have an advantage here… I first introduced this word to the search committee by writing about it in my application, and I was wearing a little sunflower necklace at the actual interview. Helio is the ancient Greek term for sun. To illustrate, sunflowers are heliotropic. They turn their large flower-face towards the movement of the sun in order to constantly face the light. We, as a community and as individuals, tend to grow in the direction of our positive images of the future, like a sunflower or heliotrope grows toward the sun, to find our best alignment with the direction and warmth of our source of light. I told the search committee that my research about this community, Immanuel, through interviews, documents and reputation, impressed me, especially Immanuel’s clarity of vision — what it means to be the church — and this community’s desire to continue to grow as an inclusive, heliotropic community. I said, ‘You are spiritually confident, deeply rooted in your authentic tradition and, at the same time, open to embracing new possibilities where freedom and community can bloom.”
After being part of your mission and journey for the past year, and now in this second turn round the sun, the faith and belief I saw from the first have only been affirmed, strengthened and increased. Our life, our individual life’s goals and purpose, our church, our home, our nation, our society all need to, metaphorically, (and also practically, maybe :)) plant sunflowers to draw the toxins up out of the soil, to clean the soul, and to begin healing the following spring.
In today’s scripture, Jesus finds the disciples arguing with one another over who is the greatest among them. Jesus’ response, as a way of teaching, is astounding and beautiful. He sits down, (he sets the peace in the room, like a ceremony) and calls the twelve and says to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he takes a little child and puts the child among them; and taking the child in his arms, he says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
When Jesus’ disciples were arguing about who was the greatest and who would sit next to the throne of the Christ in the new Kingdom, they were swallowed up by their fear of uncertainty. They were not disputing about power and entitlement because they were excited and confident about what the future would bring to them — prosperity and thriving potential; they were quibbling over signs of security and privilege because they were afraid, anxious – they were operating from a deficit mindset. But Jesus’ calling and teaching about the Kingdom of God is clear and compelling: our leadership and spirituality must be grounded in appreciation, gratitude and a perception of abundance.
Think about how children explore their world, rolling over at 6 months, crawling at 8 months, walking at 12-15 months, picking up interesting things and putting them into their mouth to taste, and starting every day’s new learning from a blank slate, really believing they can do new things themselves - often insisting they can do it! Because they are so sure that they have some not-fully-known ‘superpower’ inside their body and mind. And it is true, they have such faith in the world, and people, and God has such faith in them. Children are, by nature, sunflower beings from birth, incredible Heliotropic creations who always look for possibility, strength and the Sun, the greatest source of light and hope possible and available to them.
That heliotropic nature of children to seek warmth and light highlights how Residential schools, the intergenerational trauma caused by the Residential school system and the cultural genocidal programs that separated children from their homes, parents, culture and tradition were so wrong, and were responsible for so much tragedy. Stan McKay once told me that even the current school system’s teaching practices can break an indigenous child’s soul. We are humbled as we lament, our only small gesture of remembering the past and the present and the future of all indigenous children and the irreplaceable, God-depth worth of every child on our planet by wearing orange today.
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Sept 30th, 2018, Orange Shirt Day, Immanuel United Church |
From their birth, to the high peak paralleling the Sun above, to the moment the harsh weather will make them collapse at the end, the sunflowers faithfully follow their orientation — constantly facing the sun. Let us do the same.
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