Sunday flowers...

I have just come in from cutting flowers for this morning’s worship. My summer flowers are beginning to bloom and some of the late spring bloomers are still hanging on. Every Sunday morning the Lord’s Supper table in the little church of my childhood was graced with flowers from someone’s yard. There was a schedule and every family was expected to participate in providing flowers for worship. In those days, silk flowers were a disgrace and florist’s flowers were for emergencies only.
Some bouquets were more skillfully arranged. Some of us had greener thumbs than others. Some of us had black thumbs and had to ask for help from our neighbors. But all of us took our turn bringing flowers. Mama could stick a branch in the ground and it would grow and bloom. We always had zinnias, roses, marigolds, iris, hydrangeas, azaleas, old fashioned carnations, nasturtiums, spirea, forsythia, and more roses. Mama loved roses. They grew higgeldy piggeldy, a glorious riot of dancing color with bees and butterflies dining al fresco. I was the designated flower arranger in our family. Mama could grow them but she thought I did a better job of arranging them so I grew up being a part of the Ladies Flower Brigade.
This Sunday morning, as in my childhood, I will carefully set my arrangement of yard flowers in a five gallon bucket for the trip to town. The bucket will hold it upright and contain any spills. When we get to church, I will set them on the table and hand the pastor two empty quart jars so she can take flowers to those she visits on Sunday afternoon. All the Ladies Brigade knew this secret...sharing flowers shares not only their beauty but is a gift of grace, a blessing that comes from the renewal of the earth tended carefully by loving hands and given with loving pride.
One of the old hymns we sang began, “Bring ye all your tithes into the storehouse, All your money, talents, time and love...” Flowers are a gift of talent, time and love. I give them with a glad heart. They are a reflection of my soul’s desire for beauty, an affirmation of God’s gifts to us in our world, and a response to the call to bring all of myself to the table of plenty provided for me in the house of the Lord. Thanks be to God for yarrow and iris and achillea and lamb’s ear and catmint and echinacea and hydrangeas and bachelor’s buttons. Like the flowers, we are children of many colors and all beautiful in our time. It is a good and gracious gift. Amen.