Pastor's Message

February 2006

We continue in the Season of Epiphany, the first “green” season in the liturgical year. This season will end on the last Sunday of February with Transfiguration before we enter into the season of Lent in March. Let me share some thoughts on the color green as it relates to the environment.

In photographs taken from satellites and space shuttles, we can now see the range of green that covers the earth’s land surface. Is it any wonder that contemporary environmental movements claim green as their color? It is a sign of compassion for the planet’s health as well as a warning: green can turn to black (as in asphalt).

For medieval people, the land’s green growth was not simply an object to be used by humans. It was honored as the “book of creation” in which the eyes of faith could readily perceive the gracious hand of God. Among those who loved this living book was the eleventh-century mystic, Hildegard of Bingen. With her Benedictine sisters, she established a monastery along the Rhine River in the lush, fertile Nahe Valley of western Germany. Hildegard was a remarkable woman: church musician and composer, herbalist and gardener, poet, preacher, head of her community, scripture scholar, and artist. She created paintings based on the creed, religious hymns and poems, sermons and a famous account of her heavenly visions. In her contemplation of John 1:1-14 she wrote that Christ, through whom all things are created, is our viriditas, the greening power in whom all things find life.

For humans who suffer spiritual dryness, Christ is the moisture who falls from above, the hidden energy who causes all things to grow green with love. One does not need to live in a wintry landscape, longing for spring, to recognize the truth of Hildegard’s insight. Most people are drawn to living, growing, green things simply because they are signs of hope. Yet in our appreciation of spring’s green growth, we may overlook the great struggle that takes place in the earth, what Jesus referred to as the mystery of the dying seed: unless a grain falls into the earth and dies, it cannot bring forth life. From years of labor in her gardens and vineyards, Hildegard knew that viriditas, the greening power, always bears the seed of self-giving. Life begets life. “The lifegiving greenness of God’s hand,” she writes, “has planted a vineyard.”

This is a time in the life cycle of St. Paul's UCC, to recognize the seeds that we are planting, trusting in the promise of a “greening viriditas”. In the cold of a February winter season, we use green vestments for the altar in the season of Epiphany as a reminder of the growth to come through the love and grace of Jesus Christ. It is a reminder of the patience that any gardener learns, as we work in the vineyard now, trusting in the harvest to come. Our prayers are directed to the source of life, growth and direction. May we see the hand of God in this time of preparation and anticipation.

Pastor Cluley