Sermon of October 23, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: Acts 8:26-40

“Faith is Like a Cholla"

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned that some of the ideas for my sermons had their origin in a trip that Jane and I took to Arizona. We spent several days in and around the desert, and I’ve used little features of that experience to illustrate points in my sermons the last couple of times. This is the last one, but it’s the one I’ve been looking forward to the most.

One morning, later in the morning, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, which is this beautiful preserve of desert, really in the middle of the city. It’s not easy to find, but it’s worth finding because along the trails that wind through this, are just hundreds of different kinds of cactus plants with plaques near them that explain something about them – what they’re called and what they are. If you don’t know much about cactus, you probably think about those big ones that are way out west. Those are the Saguaro cactuses, big tall ones that can have up to hundreds of gallons of water stored inside them. There are the smaller Prickly Pear cacti – I don’t know if they’re called the arms or branches or protrusions that look like big ping-pong paddles; they’re flat and kind of round and stick out. There’s the octopus cactus that look like the tentacles of an octopus all over the place. There are large cacti, small ones, prickly, sticky ones, smooth ones. Literally, there are hundreds and hundreds of different kinds.

One that really caught my attention that I want to talk about today is called the Cholla (pronounced CHOY-uh). The Cholla is an unusual cactus in that it multiplies in an unusual way. A lot of plants drop seeds, and from those seeds either in that place, or they blow somewhere, or get carried by an animal, a plant eventually grows. The seeds find a place in the ground and grow up to be new plants. The Cholla has dangling stems with fruit on them. Most of you are not going to be able to see it, but this is a picture out of a book of these dangling, flowering fruit stems that hang from them very delicately and are easily broken off. And what happens with the Cholla is, when something is moving past it (an animal or even a human being) the barbed spines on the stems that hang down catch on whatever is passing by. It could be the fur of the animal, or maybe the material on a pant leg, and these spines pull away from the plant, almost like around here when we walk around and get burrs on our pants. It goes with the animal or person for awhile and then eventually falls off in a new place. And this stem that is broken off takes root in that place, and a new plant grows. As I was reading about this, I was just totally fascinated about this and I said, oh there’s a sermon here somewhere. Something like “Faith Is Like a Cholla.” So that’s what you’re going to get today.

Faith is like a Cholla because it travels. As I said, the Cholla would not continue to exist unless it moved somewhere away from that spot. If those stems all just dropped in that one place and just took root there eventually, I think they would die because they would all use up and sap all the nutrients there until the earth had nothing more to give it. But because it travels, it goes from this place to another place of fertile ground, and moves around like that, that it is not only able to multiply, but thrive. There are actually Cholla forests in the Sonora desert in southern Arizona and in Mexico, because these just fall off and catch to an animal or person and drop off somewhere else and multiply. We didn’t see a forest, we just saw the plants; it must be beautiful.

So, in order for the plants to survive, they have to travel. And so it is with our faith. For the last few months of the summer and into the early fall, I was using passages out of Exodus for the basis of my sermons. And Exodus is about how faith traveled, and how first Abraham went from Haran to the Promised Land and then in time of drought the people of God went from the Promised Land to Egypt, then in Exodus they escaped Egypt and traveled back to the Promised Land through the wilderness. It is all about how faith travels with God’s people from place to place. And as Jesus preached and brought his message, it went from place to place, too, you know. We know he was born in Bethlehem, but spent his adult life moving from place to place – throughout Galilee, Nazareth, Bethpage, Bethany, Jerusalem and many other places.  Jesus didn’t stay in one place and wait for people to come to him, he moved from place to place and took his message and traveled with it. And so it was also with Paul and Philip and the early Apostles; it was that faith traveled and that’s how it got to us today as a matter of fact. It began in Jerusalem but it moved out into the Mediterranean and eventually across the Atlantic and all the oceans of the world and to all the continents of the world. Faith was carried and it traveled and that’s why we have faith here in Bolton, Connecticut, in New England and in the United States today.

Philip was one of those travelers, the central character along with the Ethiopian in today’s lesson. It is because he is traveling on the way to Gaza that he encounters this Ethiopian and is able to share his faith with him. It’s because faith was on the move; it wasn’t static, it wasn’t just in one place, and that’s a good message for us. Our faith should not be something we think of just inside the walls of this sanctuary, but something that we, most importantly, take with us out into the world. That it goes with us to the places we work, to our neighborhoods, to our families, to our homes. That’s where it needs to go – it needs to travel.

The second thing I learned about faith and the Cholla is that faith is like a Cholla because it sacrifices. It includes sacrifice. Again, that image of that plant is not that it just drops a little seed, part of it actually breaks away; it gives up something of itself in order to multiply, in order to spread its beauty as far as it can. Something literally needs to break away from it and be carried, traveling to that new place.

And it made me think of people like Philip, who also made great sacrifices, as did all of these early apostles. I often think of how different their lives are from ours. They literally gave up everything. Imagine what it would be like for us today to give up everything to bring Jesus’ message somewhere out in the world. They sacrificed the security of a home life in one place, with one family, and went on the road and just traveled from place to place and never had the security of where they would stay, where they would be safe. They were constantly on the road sacrificing the security they could have had. And even in this moment when the Ethiopian asks him for help, he sacrifices some time, he holds up his schedule; he’s supposed to be on the road to Gaza. In those days travel was difficult, and to stop for something would be a great sacrifice; it puts you off time. They weren’t traveling quickly; they were traveling on difficult roads, either on foot or on beasts of burden, and it was hard. To give up time to stop and answer some questions would be a difficult thing. It’s a good message for us. How can we more readily be willing to sacrifice something of ourselves, so that the faith we have can spread to someone else? Can we give up sometimes our time, hold up our schedule, and make a sacrifice, so that our faith is passed along?

Well the last thing I know about faith and Chollas, is that faith is like a Cholla because what happens is accidental. It got me thinking about all kinds of things. Oh, it also could be serendipitous. I don’t think I ever said the word “serendipitous” in a sermon, but I wanted to say it today.  It either could be accidental or serendipitous. How that stem breaks away at a given moment to a given body traveling by is serendipitous. It’s an accident. It depends upon the animal or the person walking just close enough so those barbed spines can grab a hold of the pant leg or the fur of the animal. If I was walking by one and I was six inches further away nothing would happen. It’s totally accidental; unplanned. It depends on who’s passing by when and where they go from there that it gets dropped off.

It’s just like Philip and the Ethiopian. Philip and the Ethiopian encountered each other accidentally. The Ethiopian was sitting up in a chariot reading Isaiah and not understanding it. Philip is going by on his way to Gaza and Philip knows how to interpret what The Ethiopian is having difficulty understanding. They need each other at that moment. The Ethiopian needs Philip to explain what Isaiah is telling about. And Philip, the Apostle, needs to pass his faith along and here’s an opportunity to do it. This serendipitous, accidental moment that brought Philip and the Ethiopian together is like the Cholla, and its how faith spreads.

It is just like the beautiful little girls who were baptized today. Their parents have faith and they are passing it along. In sometimes planned ways, but sometimes accidental ways, as they teach and bring their children up in their homes, it is passed on. Something breaks away from them and clings to the child and faith begins to grow. And it happens to us in all of our families and in places where we are, if we allow our faith to be something that breaks away from us once in awhile, not just keeping it to ourselves, but it breaks away and clings to someone else and begins to grow in them, we have had faith like the Cholla.

The good news today is that God gives us wonderful ways to get lessons in life. It can be formally, like reading the Bible like the Ethiopian was, or coming to church and hearing a sermon, or listening to an anthem or a message, or hearing a prayer that touches your faith. Or it can be something like walking in the desert and seeing a plant and saying, Wow, there’s a message of faith in that plant. Our faith, God’s words to us, God’s message to us, comes to us in such wonderful ways. The best thing we can do, when we get them, is to not keep them to ourselves. Let them stay with us but also break away from us, sacrifice something and let it cling to someone else.

So, my last word to you is to look for those serendipitous, accidental moments and take advantage of them.  If you see somebody at work on their way to get a cup of coffee, or getting a drink of water at the water fountain, and you see someone who doesn’t look quite like they normally look, stop, and ask them if they’re okay; show concern, show them something of God’s love through your concern for them. Or is there a relative, or neighbor or somebody who you know who is kind of marginalized, or estranged, and maybe you can reach out and give them an expression of love, and pass your faith and let your faith cling to them and give them the support they need. There are all kinds of examples that I can think of, but that is what I would ask you to take with you today. The faith of the Cholla – it’s something you can let break away from you sometimes, accidentally or serendipitously, and cling to someone else, so that the beauty of our faith can be spread into a great forest.

[back to sermon listings page]