The Neighborhood Podcast
This is a podcast of Guilford Park Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina featuring guests from both inside the church and the surrounding community. Hosted by Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing, Head of Staff.
The Neighborhood Podcast
"Rest & Growth" (March 23, 2025 Sermon)
Preaching: Rev. Stephen M. Fearing
What if our most productive moments happen when we're not producing anything at all? This thought-provoking sermon explores the countercultural wisdom hidden within Jesus' parable of the fig tree – a story about patience, growth, and sacred rest.
Beginning with a child's simple question – "How many sleeps, Daddy?" – we journey through the surprising science of what happens during sleep. Far from being downtime, sleep is when our bodies perform crucial "synaptic pruning," healing neural pathways and rejuvenating tissues. This biological rhythm mirrors spiritual truth: periods of apparent dormancy are often when the most significant development occurs beneath the surface.
Like the fig tree that appears fruitless but is developing complex underground relationships with soil fungi, our spiritual lives don't always display visible "productivity." The impatient landowner demanding immediate results represents our culture's relentless hustle, while the patient gardener embodies divine wisdom – understanding that growth follows its own sacred timeline and requires nurturing space.
Drawing from Cole Arthur Riley's powerful prayer that "we were made to close our eyes, that we might see," this message challenges us to resist economic systems that sacrifice rest at the altar of productivity. The concluding hymn "Near to the Heart of God," with its poignant origin story of grief and comfort, reminds us that true rest is communion with the divine – a place where healing and growth happen simultaneously.
What might our lives, neighborhoods, and communities look like if we embraced the paradox that rest and growth aren't opposites but partners in the divine dance of human flourishing? Listen and discover the courage to pause, breathe, and grow in God's perfect timing.
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Let us pray Creator. God, your word is like soil, something we can root ourselves in. Your word is like the sun, big enough to touch everything with its warmth. And your word is like a gardener, a love that prunes and encourages, waters and delights, seeds and tends. So as we turn to your text today, warm our bones, tend to our broken pieces and show us how to grow With hope. We pray Amen. Then he told this parable A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came looking for fruit and found none. So he said to the gardener See here, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and still I find none. Cut it down. Why should it be wasting the soil? He replied, sir, let it alone for one more year until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down. Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.
Speaker 2:Friends, let us pray, o Lord. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, o Lord, our rock and our redeemer, amen. How many sleeps, daddy? That's how we measure time in the fearing household. Cognitively speaking, children don't really grasp the concept of concrete dates until the age of maybe six to eight somewhere around there. And since we have a three-year-old and a four-year-old in our house, we measure time in sleeps. It's about the closest you can get to understanding the abstract notion of the linear movement of time. When you're in preschool, how many sleeps until Dodie comes to stay with us? That's Trisha's, mother's, grandmother's name. Two sleeps, sweetheart. How many sleeps, daddy, until you take me to your pool to go swimming? One more sleep, honey. How many sleeps, mommy, until the 100th day of school when I get to dress up like a little old lady? Three more sleeps. But then we get into lengthier times that are a little bit harder to measure in sleeps. How many sleeps, daddy, until I have gray hairs like you? I don't know, sweetheart. How many sleeps until Dodie and Poppy move to the beach? We don't know, sweetheart. How many sleeps until Dodie and Poppy move to the beach. We don't know, sweetheart. How many sleeps, mommy, until I start kindergarten? Alexa, how many days until August 25th? The answer, by the way, is 155 sleeps.
Speaker 2:That last question is particularly important these days, as Hazel Grace is super excited about starting kindergarten at Jones Elementary next fall in the Spanish Immersion program and I get why she's eager. She's put in a lot of hard work, thanks to the stellar teachers here at our preschool. Hg has put in a lot of preparation getting ready for kindergarten. She's learned some Spanish, she's learned important social skills and has a much better grasp of boundaries and effective communication. She can count to 20, say her ABCs, her colors, can write her own name. We went last week to Jones for their open house so she could meet her teachers, her new classmates and tour one of the classrooms that will eventually be hers. And after we did all that and spent much time explaining to anyone that no, she and Winnie are not in fact twins, it was time to go home. But first Hazel Grace wanted to see her desk with her name on it and she got more than a little upset when she couldn't find it. We had to explain to her that it just wasn't time yet that these desks belonged to other students who still need to finish the school year, just like her, so that they could move on and then she could have her very own desk. But how many sleeps, daddy? She said. I turned to Google and passed the number along to Hazel Grace 165 sleeps, sweetheart. She pouted, before getting distracted seven seconds later by one of her new classmates who had flowers on her dress.
Speaker 2:When we work hard for something, it's natural to want to see the results, and we want to see them sooner rather than later. Though I use my four-year-old as an example, you and I all know that this phenomenon exists for all of us, young and old alike. Who among us doesn't know what it's like to have the impatience of the landowner in today's parable? How many sleeps, mr Gardner, until this darn fig tree gives me what I want, what I've worked for, what I've waited for? Who among us doesn't know what it's like to have the passion of the gardener? Just, let me try something new. This project, this relationship, this community, just it needs something a little different some new soil, some new manure, a new plan. Just give me a year and then we'll revisit. And who among us doesn't know what it's like to have the vulnerability of the fig tree. I'm doing my best. I just need a little more time, a little more support, a little more patience, a little more rest, a little more patience, a little more rest.
Speaker 2:The parable makes clear the gardener's stubborn belief that the fig tree needs some more sleeps, it needs to rest, it needs a certain regeneration. That comes with time and trial, with practice and yes, play. When was the last time your body gave you warning signs that you were pushing too hard? When was the last time you listened to your body for such a signal? When was the last time you listened to your body for such a signal? The agrarian listeners of Jesus' parable likely would have chuckled at the impatience of the peevish landowner who probably wasn't paying attention to the signals of his vineyard.
Speaker 2:Fig trees take time to produce fruit. Some of you know that Tricia and I have a beloved blood orange tree in our house. His name is Massimo and this is what he looked like when we planted him almost exactly two years ago. That was him as a little sprig there on the right, and that was the big planter's pot that we put him in. Of course, because we live where we live, each fall we bring him into the house to protect him from the freeze of winter. It's getting to be about time for us to return him to his perch on our upper deck where he gets plenty of sun after his winter rest. And this is what he looks like now takes up approximately half of Trish's office at our house. The leaves that retract a little during the off season in the coming weeks will stretch and unfurl renewed by the light of spring. The older, coarser, darker green leaves will welcome new neighbors newer, softer, lighter green ones.
Speaker 2:New branches will spread out from the trunk and produce new thorns that I've learned the hard way are in fact sharp enough to draw blood if you're not too careful. But Massimo has no fruit yet, maybe this will be the year, maybe it will not.
Speaker 2:Some things just take time and rest. Our bodies and our spirits are no different. We live in a seemingly endless rat race where the wisdom of a resting plant seems rather counterintuitive from the lifestyle many of us have found ourselves in. Though I opened this sermon with a lighthearted anecdote of my four-year-old constantly asking how many sleeps Daddy, the truth is that that same four-year-old might be the best rested person in our household when he is going through some sort of sleep regression at the moment, which means that Mommy and Daddy don't always get a full night's rest either. But Hazel Grace sleeps like a darn rock. Once she is out in the evening, she is dead to the world until 7 am, and so this week I decided to do a little research on what happens in our bodies when we sleep. It turns out, though we think of sleep as restful, our bodies are actually hard at work when we're doing it.
Speaker 2:When we lay our heads down to rest, our bodies begin a process, a busy process of healing, rejuvenating and resetting. Sleep resets and strengthens the neural pathways in our brains that aid in decision making, memory recollection and learning new things. As you snooze, your brain rids itself of toxins that it has accumulated during the waking hours. The fancy neurological term for this, by the way, is synaptic pruning. Sounds rather agricultural, doesn't it? As you dream, the tissue of your body heals and regenerates. It should then be no surprise that good sleep lowers our risk for heart disease. It should then be no surprise that good sleep lowers our risk for heart disease, cognitive decline, dementia, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, depression and other chronic health conditions. Rest and growth friends. They're not the binaries we've been taught that they are. We all need some synaptic pruning on a regular basis, but we don't live in a culture that tells us to rest. We live in a culture that tells us to hustle and, to be fair, the unforgivable economy in which we live is not conducive to things our bodies were designed for. That God designed our bodies to do Play, silliness, rest, stillness, silence and reflection.
Speaker 2:I recently, this past week, added a book to my library that I commend to each and every one of you. It's called Black Liturgies, prayers, poems and Meditations for Staying Human by writer and poet Cole Arthur Riley. In it she writes the following prayer on the counterintuitive practice of rest in a culture of relentless work. She says Rested, god, we want more than a life lived exhausted. That you have woven healing rhythms of rest into our minds and bodies reminds us that we are worthy of habitual restoration. Keep us from apologizing for our own healing, that we would know that when we pause or rest, we are restoring not only our bodies but the very condition of a world held captive by greed and utility.
Speaker 2:We grow weary of societies that view us as more machine than human, more product than soul. The fear that we won't survive without overworking stalks our days. Liberate us from the depraved socioeconomic structures that require that the poor and the vulnerable sacrifice their own rest at the altar of survival and opportunity. Protect us from fear as we rest with you, breathe with you. Remind us that the beauty and paradox of our humanness is that we were made to close our eyes, that we might see. May it be so, friends. I love that sentiment that we close our eyes, that we might see. How might our neighborhoods look differently if we took that to heart? Our schools, our families, our churches. I know it's not easy. Trust me. I know what might happen if we practice that holy curiosity. I know what might happen if we practice that holy curiosity. You know we come to this place of worship each and every week to rest, but that rest is also about growth. We come to rest, yes, but also to be challenged. We come to rest, yes, but also to hear, hopefully, a compelling word that calls into question the harmful patterns we design for ourselves. We come to rest, yes, but also to grow.
Speaker 2:In his commentary on today's passage, popular so-called ex-evangelical author, jeff Chu, says the following faithful waiting doesn't mean doing nothing. The gardener in today's parable waters and weeds and fertilizes, and modern science is teaching us what happens in the meantime. Contrary to the peevish vineyard owner's assertion, nothing is wasted Down below, the fig tree isn't just gathering strength, it's also building relationships. Soil-borne fungi are finding home in its roots, boosting the tree's capacity to resist disease and take in nutrients. In return, the tree feeds the fungi.
Speaker 2:Perhaps this parable is better read as a gentle rebuke against those of us who are all too comfortable with our on-demand, instant gratification culture and who believe the lie that we can control more than we actually do. Perhaps this, too, is a parable. This parable was a word that Jesus needed to preach to his very human self. After all, he's the one who, in Matthew and Mark, curses a fig tree for failing to give him fruit when he wants it. Perhaps this is our invitation to slow down, do your part and remember the promise that the harvest will come. And, friends, it is a spiritual discipline to seek places of rest and growth in a world that often feels stuck and stagnant. To practice rest and growth that comes with it is a sacred task in a broken world.
Speaker 2:The author of our next hymn that we will sing together Near to the Heart of God, knew a thing or two about seeking quiet, rest, comfort, sweet and full release.
Speaker 2:This hymn that we'll sing in a few moments was written in 1901 by a Presbyterian minister who had tragically lost both of his young nieces to diphtheria, with only a few days of each other. His name was Cleland Boyd McAfee, and he wrote the words to this hymn as he was wrestling with that grief. The hymn was originally intended to be paired with his congregation's quarterly celebration of the Lord's Supper. He finished it just in time to rehearse with the choir on a Saturday evening, and then he walked with them right next door to the house of his brother to sing it to him as he limited his daughter's death. It was sung publicly for the first time the next day, sunday October 4th 1901, and 45,095 sleeps later. You and I gather this day to remind ourselves that, as we rest and grow, there is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God. Friends, I invite you to rise in body or in spirit as we close this sermon together in song.
Speaker 3:There is a place of quiet rest Near to the heart of love, A place where sin cannot molest. Near to the heart of God. O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, send from the heart of God all loves who wait before thee. Near to the heart of God, there is a place of God in state, near to the heart of God, a place where we of Savior meet. Near to the heart of God. O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, stand from the heart of God. Hold us to wait before the King. Here to the heart of God, there is a place of full release. Here to the heart of God, is is. O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, sent from the heart of God, hold us to wait before Thee. Near to the heart of God to the heart of God.
Speaker 2:In the name of God, the Creator, redeemer and Sustainer, may all of us, god's beloved children, say Amen.