Through Stained Glass: Advent Word a Day 3 - Soul

 

"Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us."

― Maya Angelou

Despite cultural beliefs, rest is not a reward. 

Rest is a necessity. 

Our souls -- our entire being -- needs rest.

Rest comes first. It is not based on productivity.

Remember, we are not machines. Our worth is not determined by productivity. Neither should our time[s] to rest. 

I hope you take time today to rest. If you can't, then may this 60-second film of places where my soul found rest on sabbatical be a gift. 

Tend to your soul -- your personhood and your being. Say 'yes' to rest. Let the Holy One tend to you -- let your soul magnify Love.

Through Stained Glass: Advent Word a Day 2 - Strength

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

 Strength

What does it mean to have strength? 

Strength can mean strong – physically. 

Think of The Rock, Dwayne Johnson. 

Strength can mean the capacity to withstand pressure – mentally / emotionally / spiritually.

Think of Mother Teresa. 

Yesterday I saw Tom Brady play in Indianapolis. Before the game, I admired the structure of the dome – a building big enough to play a football game in; beams strong enough to hold all the material needed to create a space big enough to play football games. The strength of those beams is impressive! 

Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time. Physically, he is not the strongest on the field. His strength is found in the way he cares for his body off the field, the countless hours spent going over the playbook, and the experiences he has gained over his 22-year career. His greatest weakness is that he can’t scramble [run around when he is about to be tackled by the most muscular man on the field] and is too slow. He has seven Super Bowls. 

Strength. 

Advent upends our definition of strength. Or at least it can. 

Advent upends our definition of strength. Or at least it can. For Christians, it is the season before Christmas – the holy days celebrating the birth of Jesus. We call this event the Incarnation – the day in history [it wasn’t 12/25] when the Holy One took on flesh and lived among us. 

The Holy One came not with a parade. There was no royal announcement about Their birth. There were no fighter jets or military marches. Instead, the birth of the child who would become Christ was ordinary -- like ours. As the stories go in two of the gospels, it happened unexpectedly – at an unexpected time – to an unexpectant mother. 

The strength of Advent – the strength of our faith – I believe – is found with Mary. 

The Holy One was born into the world like us, lived in skin like us, and had a mother who cared for Them. Mary carried the Love of the Universes in her womb. The historian Margaret Miles explains how “a human body’s best show of power, and the evidence of Christ’s fully human incarnation, was the Virgin’s presentation of Christ from her own body.” The Holy One – who exists as a community of Three – reveals themselves not in a royal, lofty theology, nor in a parade full of pomp and circumstance, but in the ordinariness, the messiness of life. 

Imagine the strength of Mary’s witness. Strong enough to bring down the mighty – and start a revolution that begins at the margins and places where we least expect it. 

Mary gives me strength by way of her humanity. She isn’t God, but she is – us! She is lowly, or so she claims – and is the one who hands the Christ to the rest of us. In an age when women were seen as less than, she said ‘yes’ to the Holy One – and things were never the same. I love what Richard Rohr says about Mary when he writes:

“In some ways, many humans can identify with Mary more than they can with Jesus precisely because she was not God! The Gospels attribute no miraculous works or heroic acts to her, simply trust and pure being more than doing. From her first yes to the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:38), to Jesus’ birth itself (Luke 2:7), to her yes at the foot of the cross (John 19:25), and her presence at fiery, windy Pentecost (see Acts 1:14, where she is the only woman named at the first outpouring of the Spirit), Mary appears on cue at key moments of the Gospel narratives. She is Everywoman and Everyman, and that is why I call her the feminine symbol for the universal incarnation.”

We are all meant to be Mary. Mary’s story bears witness to ours – and our strength to point towards the Christ in our lives with our work, being, and personhood.

Through Stained Glass: Advent Word a Day -- Promise

 

“Stop for one whole day every week, and you will remember what it means to be created in the image of God, who rested on the seventh day not from weariness but from complete freedom. The clear promise is that those who rest like God find themselves free like God, no longer slaves to the thousand compulsions that send others rushing toward their graves.”

— Barbara Brown Taylor

Promise. 

Outside my house, once tress abundant with leaves are barren. 

Inside my house, there is a bloom on my hibiscus plant. 

I smiled and laughed when I came home and saw the orange-crème color petals. A sign of life in the season when creation in the Northern Hemisphere hibernates. 

In the little flower, I see the promise of the Holy One Jesus speaks of in Luke 21. When destruction begins, and begin it will, the One Who Loves Us is as near as our very prayers. 

How many times has our world seen the fall of an empire? How often do you think folx like you and me have determined the end was near? We are a people who want straight lines, to live in a cut and dry world, to exist in the binary: "X" is either that or that. 

Throughout scripture, we see that the Holy One is anything but straight … and linear. Especially when it comes to time. I love what professor Audrey West says about God's time when she writes:

"Jesus in Luke 21 reminds his followers that God is not constrained by the chronos time represented by calendar and clock, the sort of time that keeps everything from happening at once. In God's kairos time, past and future are woven together for the sake of today.

God's time is the now/not-yet that reshapes the world's present expectations—and our own."

What I hear in this, and what I read throughout scripture, is redemption is ours -- even while we wait.  I love how Jesus communicates this by pointing to nature, using imagery from creation to bring us back to the presence of the Holy One amid the end times. I find comfort in it because creation reveals the cyclical nature of life – the impermanence of life. I'm mindful of the Oak Tree in my neighbor's yard that knows both when to wear Her crown in the season of abundance; and when to let them go. 

In my sermon two weeks ago, I mentioned how the trees unveiled a new meaning of the word apocalypse. The parable of "the fig tree and all the trees" suggests the past can help make sense of the future. When buds begin to form on barren trees, we are confident that winter is ending and summer will arrive. Why? Because we have previously lived through a change of seasons or because others have told us of their own experience.

The trees, your story, and scripture – they point me back to the promise that the Holy One is and will forever be with us. 

Advent is a season of promise. It is a season that invites our attention. The stories guiding us this season point to the faithfulness of the Holy One – and the new thing They are doing. Where does it begin? Usually on the edges – in the unlikeliest of places. 

Like a blooming hibiscus plant…

Through Stained Glass: Celebrating With a Smile

 Friends,

My heart is full.

As I took my morning run on this fabulous Monday, I found myself smiling a lot.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the life of our church. Not only because we received seven new friends into the fold but also because we saw so many familiar faces back in our sanctuary.

I was smiling because the CE Building was set up for a celebration for the first time in a long time. We were breaking bread [okay, it was cake], sharing cup [our Ministry of the Heart team filled our cups with a pleasing punch], and being present to one another by way of our fellowship.

I’m still smiling as I reflect on the beauty of yesterday. Indeed, grace is amazing, and so is the love of God flowing in and through each of you.

I’m smiling because as we conversed over pastries and punch, a handful of kiddos played upstairs. And they made a holy mess with their creations—a name tag that’ll hang on a door, a necklace for their dad on Father’s Day, and a clay figurine from their latest favorite video game. The laughter of children will make the Grinch smile on a Sunday in June.

Y’all, the smile won’t go away. And I’m okay with that because yesterday was beautiful! It was like a veil was pulled back, and we saw the reign of Love, even if for a moment. We prayed, we celebrated, and we played!

Thank you, church, for the ways you are leaning into this new season. Thank you, church, for bearing witness to the love of God in Christ by the way you are letting the Spirit lead you deeper into a relationship with one another. You all are a gift! And for you, I’m thankful!

Below is a poem by the late Irish poet and mystic John O’Donohue. It is titled “For Celebration.”

Now is the time to free the heart,

 Let all intentions and worries stop,

 Free the joy inside the self,

 Awaken to the wonder of your life.

Open your eyes and see the friends,

 Whose hearts recognize your face as kin,

 Those whose kindness watchful and near,

 Encouraging you to live everything here.

See the gifts the years have given,

 Things your effort could never earn,

 The health to enjoy who you want to be

 And the mind to mirror mystery.

I also include photos from last week’s challenge to celebrate! (Not all photos are included here. Some were selfies of church friends celebrating anniversaries, as well as personal accomplishments and overcoming fears!)

Through Stained Glass: Abiding as a Vital Congregation

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.
We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tired into a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

Abiding.

Sometimes the profundity of the Triune God overwhelms me.

Maybe overwhelm isn't the best or right word. 

Astounds me?

No, that doesn't quite capture what I feel either. 

Let me come at it this way. 

Sunday, we read these words from the Gospel of John:

[Jesus says] "Abide in me as I abide in you."

God the Parent abides in the Son who abides in God the Parent. We abide in the Son by the Spirit who abides in the Parent and Son. The Spirit draws us into the Trinity—in the Holy Community, we have our being.

We make our home in the heart of the Triune God. 

Abide means to be at home—a rough translation. 

We are at home in the Trinity's vineyard. God, the Vine Grower, wants to tend to us. God attends to us so that we may bear fruit. Growth is not the desired outcome. Plants can grow wild, but the fruit might suffer. Thoughtful and intimate attention to the plants is how growth and fruit-bearing occur. 

The church is a human community. The Spirit brings us to life as Christ's body, and we become the new Incarnation—a new Creation. To abide in Christ is to let Christ's words reside in us—make a dwelling in us. We are inseparable from Christ. We are a living, dynamic community.

Words like the ones we will hear this Sunday:

"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love."

Sunday, my sermon will touch base on what it means to be a Matthew 25 church in the PCUSA. A church committed to being a Matthew 25 community seeks to be a vital congregation. 

What is a vital congregation? 

It takes the reality of its abiding in Christ seriously. It is a church that contemplates the intertwining relationship of the Trinity to bear the fruit of Love and give it freely, without restrictions or conditions, to the world. It is a church that openly discusses topics that challenge the status quo—and moves towards the liberating love of God already bearing fruit in and through the people and places in our neighborhoods, without pretense or prejudice. A vital congregation welcomes the disruptive and reforming movement of the Spirit. A vital congregation seeks to prune as God does and endeavors to cultivate the hidden life in all people!

The hidden life is Christ in us. The emerging fruit is Love.

A vital congregation who abides in Christ the branch, which is cared for by God the Vine grower, is a church that makes their home in the Trinity. We are a vital congregation—one that has "already been cleansed by the word that [Christ] [has] spoken to [us]." We abide in God's love, Christ's words abide in us, and the Spirit draws us into the life of God.

Our life is in God. 

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. 

If that doesn't astound you, I'm not sure what will!

Abide—make your home in God. 

Through Stained Glass: The Praying Community: Joys & Concerns

“Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all [people], and all the history of [hu]mankind, in the light of God. To pray 'in spirit and in truth' enables us to enter into contact with that infinite love, that inscrutable freedom which is at work behind the complexities and the intricacies of human existence." ~Thomas Merton

 As a people of faith, we pray. We respond to God's grace through the gift of prayer. Recently I was asked why I pray. My response was simple, "I pray as a way of opening myself to God." I pray, and I suspect you do, too, because we long to be in communion with the Triune God. We connect with the Holy Community through personal prayer and communal prayer. Personal prayer may take a variety of forms, such as conscious conversation with God; attentive and expectant silence; meditating on Scripture; the use of prayer books, devotional aids, and visual arts; and singing, dancing, or other movements. 

 Communal prayer can take a variety of forms, too. For the sake of this post, I'm specifically speaking of prayer in worship. In response to the word, we pray for the world God so loves—joining Christ's ministry of intercession and the sighs of the Spirit, too deep for words. Or, to put it another way, we pray to embody our faith. These prayers are not the work of a single leader but an act of the whole congregation as Christ's royal priesthood. We affirm our participation in the prayer through our "amen" and other responses. 

 One of my favorite practices of our church is the way we communicate our joys and concerns. Before the pandemic, we would pass the microphone through the pews, and we would share those graces that gift us with joy, as well as those burdens that concern our hearts. In our current season, we are suspending this practice until we can be together without restrictions. Our new approach for in-person worship is to invite those in attendance to fill out the green prayer cards [photo above] and place them in the offering plate. During the doxology, the usher will bring the offering and the prayer request forward, which will allow me to have them as I lead us through the people's prayers. The prayer card indicates whether your request is a joy or a concern and if you'd like to add it to the bulletin. It isn't the same as we used to do it, but it'll be a good way of keeping us connected in our prayers for where we are now. 

 Another challenge we face is getting the joys and concerns from social media to me during the worship hour. Our associate of technological ministry, Zack, will compile those he sees online and get them to me during service. If you would like to assist Zack in this endeavor on Sundays, let me know, and we will connect you all! 

 Prayer is what brings us into the life of the Trinity. The Spirit brings us into the Holy Community, where we are invited to the table to rest, listen, share, and receive hope. We pray for ourselves, yes, and those in need—especially the weak and vulnerable. Through prayer for the world, the church, creation, country and community, and First Presbyterian Church, we enter into solidarity with our neighbors, especially those suffering. We pray because it leads to action. For prayer to be prayer, we must embody what it is we pray for and what God hopes for us as a people. 

 Honestly, that's reason enough to pray and share my joys and concerns with you!

Through Stained Glass: Mental Health Month

 

“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day.
It's about the choice to show up and be real.
The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
― Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. The Presbyterian Church U.S.A. is committed to pruning back the stigma around mental health. As a way to do this, all PCUSA congregations are eligible to apply for one-time 'seed' grants to initiate projects that will help educate, equip, and empower churches to reach out to people with mental health concerns and their loved ones. Our denomination is committed to seeing that we live a healthy, integrated life as children of God. 

 At First Presbyterian Church, we are committed to doing our part in normalizing mental health and wellbeing. A few years ago, the Hoffert family gifted First Presbyterian Church in becoming an advocate for mental health with financial resources to establish the FPC Wellness Fund. The fund is set aside for members of First Presbyterian Church seeking assistance with regards to their mental health. Thus far, the funds have been used for parishioners to visit with a licensed therapist, pastoral counselors, and spiritual directors. The Wellness Fund is available for all First Presbyterian Church members. 

 Throughout Jesus's ministry, he confronted the tendency to rank and sort people into systems that elevate some and diminish others as if all were not equally loved and precious in the eyes of God. At FPC we want to prevent this from happening around mental health. We do so by encouraging open dialogue about our mental health and equating it with our physical wellbeing. We also provide educational resources and opportunities to erase the stigma of mental illness in our community. The best way to destigmatize mental health is to share stories about how we care for our personal mental health. Finally, as a community of faith, we encourage each other to lean into the love God has for us in our journey towards wholeness and wellbeing. 

 Scripture calls us to love God with our heart, mind, soul, and strength. In the Incarnation of Jesus, we see God affirming all of creation—but especially our bodies, and all that comes with being human. Our goal is to be a place where people can come be themselves. Mental health ministry happens in communities that nurture authenticity, know how to respond when someone is in crisis or pain, and develop the capacity to 'walk alongside' with healthy boundaries, recognizing our shared human frailty and individual gifts, whatever our mental health status. Our Wellness Fund and the opportunities that flow from it is one more way we live into genuinely being a place where "all are welcome!" 

The Session, our Ministry Teams, and Adam are wanting to apply for the PCUSA grant. If you are interested in working with Adam, let him know. Also, if you would like to contribute to the FPC Wellness Fund, let Chris know, and she can make it happen. Finally, if you need someone to talk to or have questions about mental health, do not hesitate to reach out to Adam. He's more than happy to listen and learn from your questions and stories.