Prayers for our Nation upon Election Day

    I know we have all been tortured by the adds for election of candidates, and I am looking forward to the day after when those adds stop. We may not know the results of the election right away either, if you take the time to actually count all the appropriate votes properly. And, there will be challenges and denials which we will have to be prepared to wade through too.

   I love this country. I am a student of history, fascinated by the struggles that created the Constitution and the efforts to find ways to govern ourselves in a very diverse world. It isn't going to be easy to accept what happens on Nov. 5th either way. But I pray for our nation and would ask all of you to ask God to be with us, and as Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but thine be done Oh God.

   I love the Kingdom of God more, and I know we struggle with how to make the will of God fit in with our culture and circumstances. It is not easy, and if we are honest, it is impossible for most of us to live every condition that Jesus gave us for how to live in this Kingdom, the Reign and Rule of God in our situations and expectations. We mus try, however. But we need forgiveness and a chance to try again, over and over again, to try and get this right. Neither side has a monopoly on getting it just right. Both sides have elements that God would be happy with, and elements that God absolutely would abhor. Lord have mercy on all of us.

   I am amazed how easily we have forgotten what we learned in Kindergarten or in Sunday School. Truth, respect, honoring and appreciating each other etc. Jesus said it positively when he said, "In everything do to others as you would have them to to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets."  (Matthew 7:12) and also Luke 6:31,"Do to others as you would have them do to you."

   In other words, think about what you would really like to be given, and then go first, and give that to others. Pay it Forward, in other words.

“These are the things I learned (in Kindergarten):

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don't hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.
6. Don't take things that aren't yours.
7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

   The government of the United States, is not the Kingdom of God. But it ought to work to provide for each of our citizens, whether we agree with the leader or not. We decided that we wanted laws to make sure that justice and fairness was applied to all of us. I wish that was going to be true going forward. As I said, pray for our nation.

   I am praying that we recognize we have different ideas about how life ought to be lived. But I pray even more that we respect one another even in our differences. As long as we are not harming another human being, we can have differences of opinion on matters of choice and the life we live. May we treat each other truthfully and respectively and with the actual truth and facts at our disposal. 

   May the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ, and may the blessings of God be with you, now and always. Amen.

Pastor Jeff

Leap Year, Day

    I'm taking a leap of faith here on this special day and writing about the challenges we are facing currently. These thoughts are going to leap all over the place, since it's leap day.

   We need to pray for our country in a big way. For many reasons. We have forgotten our responsibilities as good neighbors, recognizing we all have different stories and experiences which we are rightfully entitled to. We need to restore our valuing the neutrality of the law. It must be applied across the board to be fair, there cannot be some who are under the law and some who can escape the application of the law.

   We need to make telling the truth important. It may not be convenient, but truth stands the test of what really is. We cannot make up our version of reality and call it truth. Our scripture tells us that truth will set us free, and we need to count on it being right. Law and Justice are how we take our love of neighbor and doing the right thing and apply it to people we don't know. No matter who you are, you should be entitled to fair and right applications of the law.

   I wish we knew what President John F. Kennedy said when he wrote the book about all being immigrants. Even Native Americans came across the land bridge from Russia to Alaska or along the Bering Straight, thousands of years ago. Some have come to our country because of family who were already here. Some came because of faith, they could not practice and live with their understanding in the country they left. Some came because of fear, they were persecuted or violated and had to seek a safer place to live. Some are here in pursuit of freedom, they want to participate in a nation that values differences and will allow those who wish to work hard, to do so.

   I wish in this day and age of such divisions that a third party should have the same access to participation in elections as the two established parties. There has to be room for compromise and working in the middle, respecting the extreme ends, but also recognizing their positive contributions. Primaries ought to be able to include other candidates running for office, rather than wait until the general election, and there should not be an exorbitant price applied to the candidates who don't belong to the two parties to be able to be included. We need to find a way to seek a middle way to be able to bring people together, otherwise we will fight each other until the whole house burns down.

   I am sorry that divisions occur in the churches as well. I would hope that the power of the Holy Spirit and recognition of the role the Spirit plays in the life of the church, would help us accept each other. There are so many different levels of faith and experiences of God, that to demand we all be in the same place spiritually seems to deny the very essence of the Body of Christ is many different parts and we need each other's parts to be a healthy body of Christ.

   I've told my congregations how hard it is to preach to a group of 35 different places in spiritual life. We have 4 or 5 or 6 generations (silent, boomer, gen-x, y, z, millennials) within the church. We have more than 5 church backgrounds gathered for worship (liturgical, free style, contemporary, charismatic, traditional, new age to name a few). We have a variety of musical heart languages, (Jazz, New Age, Country, Classical, Rap, Folk, Soul, to name just a few. Look at all the Sirius Station possibilities) We have people who learn better reading, or listening, or experiencing, or touching in order to comprehend. We have people who are left brained, or right brained as their dominant sphere for learning. We have people who are young, or old, married or divorced or always single. We have folks who are not yet followers of Jesus, newly baptized or committed followers of Jesus, we have folks who turned their whole life over to Jesus as Lord, not just Savior. We have people who are stalled in their spiritual progress and are wondering what comes next. Many of the folks in a church when they can't find out what they need, claim they are not being fed and try to wander off, or drift out, and really missing what God may have to offer them. I would love for people to have more acceptance and value the differences and work with that.

   We are all just children of the same God. Can we re-emphasize that and learn to live together. We will accomplish so much more.

Pastor Jeff

February 29, 2024