Many of you told me that the parable of the apples from my sermon struck a chord with you. I remember how much it hit me, when I first heard it several years ago. If you missed my sermon this weekend, I humbly ask you to give it a listen here, as you’ll probably hear references in coming weeks to life as “ten apples,” and it won’t make much sense without hearing the whole thing.
As you ponder how God is stirring and challenging you through this metaphor, and through this entire five-week series, there is something important I want to add. The goal of this series is not to claim all of the Lord’s apple only for Transfiguration. That’s because I don’t believe we have dibs on the work or presence of God. There are people and ministries and organizations in this world that are not official parts of “the Church” that are unequivocally doing the work of Jesus. They’re serving refugees, or sheltering the homeless, or fighting environmental degradation, or feeding hungry people. They are absolutely part of God’s purposes, and we give to God when we give to them.
The goal of this series, then, is to encourage us to give all of the Lord’s apple back to the Lord, wherever and however we see the Spirit of God moving with life and healing. I believe God is very much present and working through us here at Transfiguration, so I strongly hope you will return a significant portion of the Lord’s apple through our church. We are doing some important work for Christ, and by God’s grace and your generosity, we will do even more next year. But it’s the sacrifice that counts, not how much of it comes through our accounting office.
So my prayer for myself and for all of you is that we would grow into greater faithfulness this fall, that we would truly embrace simpler, more generous lives, and that we would willingly sacrifice more of ourselves for God’s Kingdom.
-Casey+