Isaiah 55:10-13
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

A significant part of any sport is the mental aspect.  We often hear commentators making references to the mental part of a particular sport.  Comments like, “She has mental toughness,” or “It’s vital that he keep his head in the game,” suggests how important the mind is in sports.  I’ve become increasingly aware in the last couple of years how my mental state affects my swimming each morning.  To reach my goal of how fast I swim a mile is contingent on keeping my mind focused as well as my physical ability to swim. 

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com has identified an important characteristic we need to develop in order to age better. He observes that when you're young, deferring gratification is not a common skill. But as you age, "you get better at the marathon mentality." (Jeff Bezos, "What I've learned," Esquire, January 2002, p. 83)  We must develop the ability to understand that we are in life for the long haul.  The approach an athlete takes for the 100 yard dash is different than the approach one takes in running the marathon. 
           
Two important aspects of life for us are quantity and quality.  We need a certain amount of quantity to develop quality and a lack of quality can quickly cause us to desire less quantity.  Many factors have converged resulting in longer life spans.  Coupled with the desire to live longer also is the desire to have a good quality of life.  While we want both, many of the people I talk with will sacrifice some quantity for better quality.  Most people I know are not willing to sacrifice quality of life for quantity.  A helpful insight comes from Augustine, “We must care for our bodies as though they were going to live forever, but we must care for our souls as if we are going to die tomorrow.” (Quoted in Money Matters, August 2001, p. 3)
           
We need to develop a marathon mentality to cope with the quantity and quality issues of life.  We need a model for that.  Where do we go to find illustrations of marathon mentality?  One place would be to explore the life of Methuselah. After all, he lived a record 969 years, according to Genesis (5:27). That’s a lot of quantity.  The biblical writers don’t say anything about Methuselah’s quality of life, however.
           
However, the biblical Methuselah was a mere babe compared to the tree named after him, a bristlecone pine that is now more than 46 centuries old. The "Methuselah Tree," part of California's Inyo National Forest, was a seedling way back before the Egyptian Pyramids went up -- and it's still alive today.
           
This tree, recognized by Edmund Schulman in 1957 for its great antiquity, clings to rocky ground at 11,000 feet in one of the driest places on Earth. "Methuselah" took root when the Great Pyramids were being built in Egypt and has lasted through the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Machine Age, the Nuclear Age, the Space Age and now into the Information Age.
             
The Methuselah Tree offers some survival strategies that can help us as individuals and can help the church to grow in even the harshest of conditions.
           
What's its secret? Is it the marathon mentality? Or something else?
           
The conditions under which the Methuselah Tree has accomplished this extraordinary feat are surprising. Robert Mohlenbrock, a professor of botany, visited the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, part of the Inyo National Forest. "At the time I thought that any organism that lived longer than the norm had to have optimal conditions going for it," he wrote in Natural History magazine. For plants, that would mean moderate temperature, shelter from extreme weather and plenty of moisture and nutrients.
           
Mohlenbrock was in for a shock. "When I stood looking at Methuselah," he recalled, "I knew I had been wrong." Though it was midsummer, a bone-chilling wind ripped right through him, and the scarce patches of soil at the site appeared to contain little -- if any -- moisture. Conditions turned out to be horribly harsh at the 11,000-foot elevation where Methuselah and other ancient bristlecone pines grow.
           
So, what's Methuselah's secret? How can it survive, much less thrive, in a place that would strike fear into the trunks of virtually any other trees? It turns out that the bristlecone pine has evolved survival strategies through the centuries that help it to cope with one of the most austere and unfriendly environments on the planet. Methuselah's adaptations include slow growth, extensive roots, disease resistance and small size.
(Peter Tyson, "A tree's secret    to living long," NOVA Online, November 2001, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/methuselah/long.html)
           
These strategies are the basis of the tree's marathon mentality. And maybe Methuselah tree has something to teach us as individuals as well as something to teach the church today as well as teaching us as individuals.
           
The prophet Isaiah certainly wasn't afraid to look to trees for inspiration. In today's passage, he speaks of God's Word as a force that comes down from heaven like the rain and the snow, bringing refreshment and growth and nourishment to the earth. God's Word always accomplishes its goal, according to the prophet, inspiring us to go out in joy and be led back in peace, and joining our jubilation are mountains and hills that "burst into song," and trees of the field that "clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12).
           
The cypress tree and the myrtle shrub shall grow up, says the prophet, and they "shall be to the LORD for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" (v. 13). These plants are a sign of the wonderful new things that God is doing in human life -- the days of judgment are over, says Isaiah, and new life is now available to all who repent.
           
It's probably no accident that the tree growing up in this passage is a cypress. These particular trees were used extensively for shipbuilding in the ancient Middle East, and grew abundantly in the area. Many believe that Noah used cypress wood for the ark -- a vessel that carried faithful people safely through a time of judgment, and delivered them to a place of new life, something of what the role of the church is today.
           
How can the church accomplish this task? Perhaps there is insight for us the marathon mentality of the Methuselah tree. The harsh conditions bristlecones endure, such as alkaline soil, scant moisture, desiccating winds, constant freezing and six-week growing seasons, allow little chance for insects, fungus and rot to survive. Bristlecone pines have also survived gold rushes, silver strikes, nuclear testing and the surreal transformation of the desert.
           
Characteristics that enabled it to survive 46 centuries are: slow growth, extensive roots, disease resistance and small size.
           
In some ways, Methuselah trees are like many congregations found in areas that would seem to have a negative impact on growth and development of ministry.  Yet, there are congregations that grow where they are planted.
           
The Methuselah trees survive on less than 12 inches of precipitation a year, and most of that falls as snow in winter. In addition, they experience only about six weeks of a warm growing season, and they are rooted in a substance called dolomite, a limestone substrata with few nutrients.
           
With so little rain from the heavens, so little time to get energy from the sun and so little nutrition to be had from the soil, how do these pine trees grow? Very slowly. A bristlecone may add to its girth no more than an inch per century. (Wow.  I can add that much to my girth in a week.)  That's perfectly acceptable, and it serves as an excellent survival strategy for a congregation in the 21st -century. We shouldn't feel insecure when our membership growth doesn't match that of some other congregations. Actually we need to resist getting into the comparative mode, comparing ourselves to others because that quickly leads us to move into the competitive mode.  Neither approach nourishes the congregation and its ministry.  If there is to be any comparison made, it should be comparing our performance with our potential.  This will lead to slow, steady growth in insight, understanding, in wisdom and favor with God and in the development of compassion and justice.  All of this will change lives which is the purpose of the church. A modest increase every year has served the Methuselah Tree very well for over 4,600 years and can serve Glenview Community Church well as we continue our ministry in the 21st century.
           
The second characteristic of the Methuselah trees are their extensive roots. Trees seem to know that if they live in challenging environments, then the supply of water and nutrients may be limited. So they put down extensive roots and expand their upper branches, maximizing intake of scant resources.  As a congregation we will value from putting down deep roots in our community, so that we can make the most of the gifts God gives us. By being known as a place where Scripture is faithfully studied and proclaimed, where all people are welcomed and included, where the gifts of compassion and hospitality are eagerly shared, and where there is an attitude of generosity, the fruits of these extensive roots will be bountiful. 
           
The Methuselah trees are disease resistant. As a congregation we are challenged to create barriers to crippling invaders. A true marathon mentality also includes a strategy for resisting disease.  We can make certain we have policies in place to help us achieve financial stability.  We have a policy and program to prevent child sexual abuse in the church.  We can strive to maintain a strong theological integrity in a culture that offers many shortcuts and encourages the church to follow a corporate model rather than a service and ministry model.
           
The Methuselah trees teach us that small size is one of the greatest of survival strategies. It fact, it is an approach that has allowed certain individual trees to live longer than entire civilizations. When the green part of a tree dies from a lightning strike, for instance, the tree copes by letting an equally significant part of its tissue and bark die as well. This way, the remaining greenery has a smaller total organism to support. Some particularly ancient bristlecone pines have only a thin strip of living bark left, which sustains a single living branch bearing but a few living twigs and needles.
           
In a sense, these ancients have gone back to being seedlings. The bristlecone allows most of itself to die, so that a small part of it can live.
           
Is there a lesson here for the church? To allow old and outdated practices and patterns to die, so that new forms of church life can live. To encourage small groups within the church to be constantly in the business of creating additional small groups, so that growth continues and stagnation is averted. To see the success of the church as being measured over the course of millennia, not over days or months or years.
           
We can so focus on the bigness of things, on the approach that everybody needs to do everything that we miss the essential personal connections and relationships.  This has been one of the values of many of the chapters of the Women’s Association through the years and it is part of the value of small groups as well. 
          
"As the church grows larger, the church must grow smaller," reflects Pierce Klemmt, rector of Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, a 3,000-member Episcopal congregation that averages 1,200 worshipers each Sunday. "Whatever you do," he says, "meet in small groups." Small size is one of the Methuselah tree’s greatest secrets, and one of the church's greatest survival strategies.
           
In China, the church, though persecuted and oppressed, has survived. When missionaries were expelled, many thought the church would die. But the church, going underground, spread its root system far and wide, went small and remained strong.
           
If we take these tips from the trees, we'll be an ark of safety in stormy seas and a place of new life in an unfriendly environment. The purpose of the church is to change lives.  Lives are changed slowly almost imperceptibly over the course of time as new ideas are integrated into people’s thinking and behavior.  The church needs a marathon mentality that focuses on the principles of slow growth, deep roots, disease resistant strategy, and small size.  With a marathon mentality, we'll be able to draw deeply on the gifts of God and constantly find ways to get our performance closer and closer to our potential.  With a marathon mentality we may discover we are not merely surviving; we actually are thriving.