April 28, 2020

Dear Church Family

   As we enter day whatever of our isolation for the sake of keeping people healthy, I write to encourage you to hang in there. I know it’s not easy, and boredom and anxiety can begin to eat us up from the inside and lead to crazy decisions. Let us not leave our senses, but look forward to the wisdom and guidance of our Lord, especially during these trying times.

  For a couple of thoughts for us this week.

   Would you send me a brief appreciation of your mother, or of a woman who really blessed you in your development as a person, or as a Christian? Next Sunday is Mother’s Day and I would like to use these dedications as a part of our celebration in thanksgiving for what we have received from others. I know we are not all mothers, but we all had one, or someone who really made a significant difference in our lives. That is who I would like to honor next week May 10, 2020.

   Many have asked me about the video that was in last Sunday’s message about the letters of the New Testament. It was produced by The Bible Project, They have a brief introduction video for every book of the Bible. They have also developed a lot of brief videos on topics or themes in the Bible, about an overview of Scripture and explanations about certain major events. You might find them very helpful to your own faith journey. www.Bibleproject.com

   I have been following the Bible Project reading plan that covers from Genesis to Revelations, and each time there is a new book of the Bible, there is an introductory video. It’s planned out for daily readings. I’m at the Book of James, almost done, the whole Bible reading it this way. If you like variety and not too much reading, this is the way to go.

   I am truly, very grateful to all who have helped keep us moving forward financially, during this time while we are absent, one from the other. Your generosity is needed and appreciated. Some have paid their estimate of giving in advance or put in extra in order to keep us going. Though we cannot walk by our offering plates, we can think that our church still needs our commitment and support. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

   One of the prayers I have been praying, besides praying for each of you regularly, is praying for our church when we can get back together in some form. One of my clergy support groups on Zoom, recently suggested that we aren’t ever going back to the way things were. But we have the opportunity to feel “Easter” and know that with the Resurrection from the dead, we will not be the same, but even better, because we know God can do anything. So pray with me, that we will all feel the Spirit leading us forward. “What we shall be has not yet been revealed, but when the time comes, we shall be like Jesus.” A slight paraphrase of I Corinthians 13: 9 & 12.”

   May God’s blessings and Spirit be with each of you, now and always. As John Wesley would say, the best of all, God is With Us.       Pastor Jeff

Sacrifice for a Healthy Nation

Dear Church Family

   Here we are on April 17, 2020, a week after the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who provided a way for all of us to know we can be forgiven, and we need to learn what sacrifice can mean to bring wholeness to our country now. And in Easter season, know sacrifice leads to new life.

   Today’s Washington Post article by Petula Dvorak on Sacrificing as an American issue is very poignant for right now. She complains that some people are resisting the need to sacrifice some of our privileges, for the sake of the whole community. Wearing face masks and gloves when we are out in public to keep from catching or sharing the coronavirus, is very important. We are expected to comply. Many protestors around the country are ignoring the need to be compassionate and sacrificial for the health and welfare of others, in the name of personal rights.

   Sacrificing is not pleasant or easy. When we have grown up thinking we can have anything we want, no matter what it does to others, we lose our ability to think outside of ourselves. Yes we have rights, but we also have responsibilities to love God who asks us to love our neighbors as Jesus loves them. That will mean some sense of sacrifice is needed. I hope our Christian faith can help us learn of Christ, who taught us the importance of sacrifice. Even when difficult, he taught us to pray, “Not my will be Thine be done.” It’s even in the Lord’s Prayer that most of us use all the time, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” We need to see that there are times when that means we give up our will about not wearing a face mask, for the health of another. We may not get the virus, but we can pass it along to others, unknowingly.  Let’s be careful out there.

  Living sacrifice and transformed lives

12 So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service.(Romans 12: 1 Common English Bible)

   St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, wanted us to see life as holy and pleasing to God. That is the measuring stick we are supposed to use, to figure out if we are doing what life is supposed to look like, sacrifice and all. I keep hoping that maybe this time of isolation, and being restricted to home, will give us an unexpected opportunity to grow in our faith, to use this time to learn how we can be pleasing to God. We will need a whole new perspective, when the day comes for us to freely move about the country, or community, or in church.

   If you need help to grow in your faith, there are many resources out there, put in the size you can benefit from. You can listen to devotionals, if reading is not your thing. Maybe you need some time to exercise, or walk the dog, or recognize you have time that you are not stuck in traffic, to put to good use in your faith journey. Take a look at You Version. There is a website and app for that. Or Biblegateway.com, or UpperRoom.org, Abide, Our Daily Bread. Sojourners can deliver a thoughtful devotional to your inbox every day, as can many of these others. Heartlight.org is one of my favorites, because it comes with pictures.

   I hope as a representative of Christ, we can show our neighbors what sacrificing for the purpose of helping our neighbors looks like. Ms. Dvorak in her article had to look back to the WW2 crowd to see what a whole nation doing that looked like. Now is the time to show her and others, that we followers of Jesus can pray and do, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”

   Blessings and continued prayers to all of you. Elaine is better today, and I thank God for that, and thank you for all your prayers. Sacrifice is taking good care of your loved ones, your family and your community.

Blessings, Pastor Jeff

Finding Hope

Dear Church Family

   Now we are in the Easter season, the period of 40 days when Jesus appeared to his disciples to convince them, and prove to them, that he is Risen Indeed. It may still seem incredible for us. As we move beyond Easter, knowing that God can do incredible things, but we still find ourselves in the pandemic, separation and quarantine all around us. How does Easter address this, you may be asking.

   It’s been a topic in my house these last few days. St. Paul addressed it in his letter to the Romans to introduce himself and to reassure the disciples there, they could get through whatever they were facing. Where in your life do you need to turn to Jesus today?

Romans 5:3-5 Common English Bible (CEB)

³ But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, ⁴ endurance produces character, and character produces hope. ⁵ This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

   Easter is telling us we can grow in this tough time because of the steps the trouble gives us.  First, trouble produces endurance. We are facing each day the challenges of physical distancing, or losing work time and money, or being separated from our support groups. But we are getting through them one day at a time. Thus producing endurance. We will be able to look back on this and say, if we could handle that…. We can handle almost anything.

   Second, endurance produces character. We are developing parts of us in this endurance that will make us special in some way. Just look at the creativity being produced all around us by our children, by those who are contained at home. We are seeing incredible examples on the internet, through Facebook and YouTube, that just boggles the mind. I am in awe of some of the parodies I’ve seen by creative people. Just the other day there was a boy playing guitar who was dealing with at home schooling and using the Halleluiah song to tell his story. Today I saw a parody on Mask Maker, Mask Maker, make me a mask, from Fiddler on the Roof. Such talent. Endurance produces character. Maybe there is something growing inside of you that will make a difference for us or for you in this time of character building.

   Third, character produces hope. These gifts that are coming forth out of boredom, or creativity or necessity, are going to produce hope. We can improve, we can endure, we can find new ingredients in our character. We can see good things coming out of this, and a whole slew of heroes, who are putting everything they have into helping others. There are many reasons for hope.

   Finally, this hope reminds us of God’s love for us that has been poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit. Jesus in the Upper Room, on the night before he died, promised the help of the Holy Spirit. We will come to appreciate this greatly as we go through the trouble.

   God’s peace be upon you all.

Pastor Jeff

April 14, 2020

Good Friday

Dear Church Family

   Here we are on Good Friday and you may be feeling a bit like this. “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” (Jesus, quoting Psalm 22) But we do feel like that, why are we still sick?, why are we still stuck here?, why is life so difficult now? How long can this possibly go on? How many will lose their jobs? How many more people have to get sick? How many more people will die? How many will I know? The list of questions and those feelings and many others linger.

   One of the Good things about Good Friday is that we have Jesus to help us identify with that feeling.

“Also, let’s hold on to the confession since we have a great high priest who passed through the heavens, who is Jesus, God’s Son; because we don’t have a high priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses but instead one who was tempted in every way that we are, except without sin.”    (Hebrews 4:14-15 CEB)

   When we pray, when we talk to God about this challenge, we do have one who understands what we are going through, and that should give us some kind of comfort. We are not alone.

   Good Friday makes it clear that the troubles and the barriers we have between us and God, the targets we’ve missed, the choices we’ve made, the reluctance to do what we know we should do or have done or not done, is FORGIVEN. The barrier is torn down, the distance is narrowed, we are again welcomed into the Garden of Eden fellowship with God. We are welcomed home like the son when he came back from the pig farm in the parable of the Prodigal.

   God goes to extraordinary measures in order for us to see how incredible the love of God for us is. The extreme circumstances of betrayal, denial, injustice, abandonment, is all understood by God. We do have someone we can rely on to seek help from. No matter what you are going through, Jesus understands and travels this road with you.

   We have been reading the Story together this year, the condensed version of the Bible, so that we can learn the main points of God’s love for us, and God’s desire to bring us back to our relationship with the Creator like it was intended to be. That is the Upper Story. The Lower Story is what we go through before we get to understand the power of the love of the Upper Story. Over these few days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and into Easter, we see how we are being restored, renewed, forgiven, transformed and blessed.

   In all that is going on, we need to remember that God loves us, and wants what is best for us. We don’t always see it that way, but we can grow and learn that it’s true. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that who so ever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

   Sometimes we realize that when we are down and out, we renew or rediscover our need for God and that brings us to a much higher level of life. In Jesus’ upper room conversation he promised that if we love him and follow him, and do his teachings and his will, he will give us abundant life. That’s far better than ordinary life. That is far better than life that looks like our neighbors or our culture tell us what we should have. The coming good news is all about the joy and the abundant life that God provides.

   May the reflections of this Good Friday, bring you to a glorious Easter. Join us on Zoom, and please invite your family and friends to see us there.      

Blessings.  Pastor Jeff