Today's gospel reading from Luke is a hard one. Heard within the context of our Lenten journey towards the cross, it conveys a sense of urgency and a clear demand for results. Jesus tells the story of the farmer and his fig tree. For three years he looked for fruit on that tree, but there was none. "Cut it down," he said to the gardener. "It's been wasting good soil for three years and there's no fruit." The gardener urges a bit of an extension: "Give it another year, and then if there's still no fruit, cut it down."

The story always reminds me of some of the questions posed to new ordinands in our United Methodist Church. I revisited those questions as I was considering twenty years in ordained ministry, which you so magnificently helped celebrate last week. I remembered back to that night of my ordination, standing on the stage of the chapel at the University of Redlands in front of 1000 or so people and the bishop and being asked the traditional questions first posed by John Wesley to his circuit riders-questions which now sound quaint to our ears-including these: "Have you borne fruit? Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life? Are you earnestly striving after perfection in love?"

There is another question which always elicits a round of giggles: "Are you in debt so as to embarrass your ministry?" We all dutifully answer "No" to that one, knowing full well that nearly every graduate of seminary and graduate school is in debt up to his/her eyebrows by definition. But to the other questions, it is anticipated that we will answer "Yes," just as our new members answer "yes" as they are received into the fellowship of the church this day.

Have you borne fruit? Has your ministry produced anything good? Has it made a difference? "Yes," we say, thinking of one or two moments of sheer grace. And are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love this life? "Yes," we whisper, wondering if God will indeed see fit to shape and mold us gradually but assuredly into the very image and likeness of Christ. That's what John Wesley meant by Christian perfection. That we should expect to be made holy in this life, that our mind and heart and life should over time become the mind and heart and life of Christ.

Now, friends, these are not just questions for those who are ordained. All of us would-be disciples are expected to be able to answer "Yes," and this morning we would all be well-served by looking deep within our hearts with the piercing gaze of the farmer ready to chop down his fruitless fig tree, and seeing if there is evidence of the fruits of the Spirit in our lives and in the lives of those with whom we interact, and asking if we are straining forward to be made perfect in love.

The strange season of the Christian year that is Lent is a time in which to ask ourselves these questions again and take measure of the state of our souls. You know, we often talk about the Christian life as a journey, and you'll remember that the early Christians were called the People of the Way, following Jesus who called himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

So we should ask ourselves sometimes: Are we going anywhere? Is there movement? Is there life? And just where is it that we are headed?

To put it another way, let's ask: Are we more faithful disciples this Lent than we were a year ago? Are we growing in our relationship with God? Are we more Christ-like in our living, our being, our heart and soul? Have we remembered to expect that we should be farther along and to hold ourselves accountable for our faith?

All of this leads me to make some comments about a very interesting development in the life of this congregation. If you've read your Sentinel, you'll know that we have been named an "excellent congregation" in a study done by Paul Wilkes and funded by the Lily Endowment. Paul identified 300 excellent Protestant churches and 300 excellent Catholic parishes-our neighbor Saint Monica's is one of those-and has published two volumes highlighting a few. The first covered the Catholic parishes; the second comes out next month and features nine Protestant congregations. We are one of the nine.

Press releases went out and have been picked up around the country. The United Methodist News Service featured us in a lead article. People have sent me clippings from local papers in Phoenix, Arizona, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, Georgia, all reporting the news. I've received cards and calls and e-mails expressing admiration and congratulations from folks all over the place who've seen us named as an "excellent church." But to some of us who live here day in and day out, who know this congregation and all its warts, so to speak, the challenges, the weak points, the former greatness . . . some hear the news and ask what this could possibly mean.

So let me offer my take on what this honor means for us and what it can do for our spiritual health and growth. Paul Wilkes and his researchers were out here on a couple of occasions and some of you will remember them interviewing folks, sitting in on worship and small groups. Wilkes is a journalist and an active Catholic lay person. He's not a seminary professor of church something-or-other or a sociologist of religion. He's a journalist and he follows his nose to find a story. He takes his cues from the recommendations of others. He was looking for churches that are exciting, where people wanted to be, who welcomed strangers, are deeply spiritual, where outreach and reverence are real. . . . And along the way he was referred to us.

His time with us convinced him that we are-and have been for 125 years-a church striving to attain excellence. Some of the criteria he used to determine that include: evidence of a joyful spirit, that something is happening; there's an aliveness about the place and our life together that is palpable; that we are welcoming of everyone and that there's a place for all; that we are aware of the diversity of our members and can adapt to a variety of needs and groups; that there is emphasis on the spiritual life and a deep relationship with God.

That decisions are made collaboratively and that broad lay involvement is encouraged and expected; that worship is thoughtful, alive, appealing, and reverent; that teaching and preaching are scripture-based; that we are reaching out in mission to the needs of the people of our community-and our UBH was real solid evidence of that; that we are "boldly confronting" real problems within our own life and in our community; that we are not comfortable with our successes, not resting on our laurels, not trying to recreate the church that was, but seeking to grow faithfully into the church we now are called to be.

Left to ourselves, we can lose sight of all that. Don't we get horribly bogged down in our shortcomings and defeats? We do the same in our personal lives sometimes. We dwell on everything that isn't what it should be. We carry forward grievances and hurts and disappointments and let those define our present. We let our nostalgia for the past and our fears about the future harden into cynicism and bitterness. And, as in our personal lives and relationships, this poisonous negativity can almost kill us.

We have been given a great gift from people coming from the outside to check us out and take our pulse. Asking a version of Wesley's old questions: Is this congregation bearing fruit? Is it moving on towards perfection? Is it moving along the path towards greater Christ-like discipleship? They looked at us, and met us, and spoke with us, and worshipped with us, and said, "Yes."

This does not mean that we have arrived-it means that we're on the path and that we're moving. There are signs of life and an honest hunger for greater holiness. It does not mean that we are more excellent than others-except to say that the essential signs of faithfulness and spirit are evident here. It does not mean that we have achieved all that we're meant to-far from it. But it means that there is a desire within us to move on to perfection, as John Wesley would have said it, that we are striving and straining to reach the goal, which is Jesus Christ. The Wilkes study has given us the gift of seeing ourselves as we might become, of reminding us of our highest calling, and of publicly committing us to live up to our reputation. With God's help and a lot of hard work, we will strive to be an excellent congregation of the church of Jesus Christ.

As I close this morning, I invite us into prayer together, praying a prayer from the Anglican church that was probably familiar to Mr. Wesley. Let us pray:

O God of unchangeable and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. AMEN.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2001. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.