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November 6, 2011
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Order of Worship
Dear Friends,
If I were to ask you to identify the obstacles and distractions that keep you from achieving your goals or accomplishing some plan, what would make your personal list? Perhaps you’d list all your responsibilities – the mortgage, the job, the kids, the dogs and the dishes and the demands and all the urgent and necessary “to-do’s” that you must do just to keep the ship afloat. According to this logic, there’s just not enough time or resources to focus on yourself and what’s important to you right now. “Perhaps someday, I’ll get to it.” you say, “Just not today.”
Or maybe you’d list all the things you lack, your deficiencies – “If only I had more training, more education, more opportunity, more support, more (fill in the blank here).” According to this line of thought, it’s not entirely (or even remotely) your fault. The deck is stacked against you. What is required of you is more than you have to offer. “It is what it is,” you say in resignation.
Or maybe you’d list all your past experiences, or your old wounds, or your disappointments.
Or your fears. Or the potential dangers. Or the risks. Or the bad timing. Or (once again, fill in the blank here)…
While it might all be true, it won’t change a thing. You’re still stuck, only with your many excellent excuses, you feel a little better about it – at least for now. But what about later? Will there come a day when it’s too late?
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a rather dark and humorless parable about Ten Bridesmaids, five of which are locked out of the wedding party because their lamps have run out of oil and the Groom, unable to recognize them in the dark, refuses to let them in. It’s a parable about keeping our lamps lit, about making sure that we do not put off for tomorrow what we know we must do today – the important stuff, the stuff that, like oil is to a lamp, we cannot live without.
Just as a lamp without oil is of no use, a Christian without passion for the things of God shines dimly, if even at all. When we put off our prayer life, our acts of devotion and worship, the sacraments, our relationships, the works of mercy and compassion and justice, we quickly become, like an oil-less lamp, of very little use.
Like you, I have many excellent excuses that make me feel better about all the things I put off that I cannot live without. The Groom is not persuaded. If we want him to recognize us at the door, we must tend the flame today. If we want to join the party inside, we must drop our lists of excuses, and start shining on.
See you in Church,
Rev. Mark
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5-20-11
Order of Worship Announcements
Dear Friends,
If you were to set out on a journey in search of God, where would you go? Over the centuries, people have travelled the world in search of God. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit such sacred places as the Holy Land, or St. Peter’s Square in Rome, or the Croagh Patrick in Ireland, or El Camino de Santiago in Spain. Others head for the quiet solitude of the desert, or retreat to the mountains or to monasteries, in search of God, or at least an experience of God. Some people go to church, or to yoga class, or golfing. It’s not uncommon for someone to return from their search grateful for having found something of what they were looking for; but more and more, I encounter people who return somewhat disappointed, unimpressed, with unrealized expectations.
Perhaps one of our problems in searching for God is that we don’t really know what we’re looking for, or that what we’re looking for is not who God really is. Our expectations can be unrealistic, or even misguided. We might expect that, upon encountering God, there ought to be some kind of drama, or overwhelming sign, to punctuate the experience. If we’re not deeply moved, or brought to our knees, or given to see visions, or changed, we might remain unconvinced that we have found anything at all. There was, as they say, “a big wind and a lot of dust, but there was no rain.”
Jesus was preparing his disciples for his departure. He was leaving them for good, but he promised that he would send another – the Holy Spirit – to be with them in his absence. But for the disciples, it felt like a huge disappointment. Their journey with Jesus, they believed, was supposed to have led to some dramatic and life-changing encounter with God. “Jesus,” says one of the disciples, “Just show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied.” That’s when Jesus tells them that, in following him, they have been with God all along. “The Father is in me,” he says, “and because you believe in me, when I am gone, the Father will be in you, and you will do greater things than me.”
If we were to set out on a journey in search of God, Jesus reminds us that we would not have to take even a single step. We who believe and do the will of the Father will, over time, take on the nature and character of God. It doesn’t happen overnight. But it happens. And Jesus says that when it does, we will do the works he did — in fact, even greater things than these.
Rev. Mark
3-13-11 Listen Watch Video
Order of Worship, Announcements
Dear Friends,
Every one of us can likely think of a moment or two in our lives – what some might call a kind of “test” – that helped to define who we are and what are lives would be about. Perhaps it was a choice that we consciously made; maybe it was a decision to go one way and not the other; or it may have been an intentional response to a “calling” or a sense of purpose for our lives.
The Gospel of Matthew records one of those moments for Jesus. He had just stepped out of the waters of his baptism when the Spirit led him out to the wilderness, where he was tempted, or tested, by the devil. Everything the devil tempted him to do was both reasonable and practical – such as turning stones into bread for his empty stomach. There was nothing about the devil’s offer that was inherently bad or evil. In fact, you could easily argue that what the devil offered Jesus might have done a lot of good for him, at least in that moment. But for Jesus, it simply was not what his life was all about – food, power, the illusion of success.
Real temptation is not always a matter of simply choosing between right and wrong, between black and white, between good and evil. Real temptation is deeper than that. Real temptation is a matter of choosing the will of God in those moments when all the options before us seem reasonable and good for us, yet when only one choice will do.
If the time is right for you to make a new beginning, Lent provides the opportunity. In the season of Lent, God wipes clean the slate and we are given the chance to start over, so that we can ask the meaningful questions: What am I going to do with the rest of my life? What is my life all about? What is the will of God for my life? It’s never too late to ask such questions, and those who do will find, as Jesus found, that a life worth living is one of freedom, purpose, of integrity before God.
See you Sunday,
Rev. Mark
3-6-11 Listen
Order of Worship, Announcements
Dear Friends,
This Sunday, the light of Epiphany burns its brightest as we observe Transfiguration Sunday – the moment when Jesus is revealed in glory before his disciples’. In this mysterious and wonderful story, God announces the identity of Jesus as his beloved son to three bewildered disciples. It was a holy moment. This “mountain top” experience begins not only Jesus’ journey to the cross but also the disciples’ journey of living in the light of faith. For this announcement about Jesus’ identity comes with the invitation to follow him as they descend the mountain and live out the joys and sorrows of their daily lives. God’s last word to the disciples on the mountain was “Listen to him.” We will take this direction to our own hearts as we begin our own Lenten journeys in the weeks that are ahead. The season of Lent begins this Wednesday, March 9. The Ash Wednesday service, which will include Holy Communion and the ritual of imposition of ashes, will be held at 7 pm in the Sanctuary. Please note the other opportunities for study and service during this season noted in the articles below.
See you Sunday,
Rev. Martha
2-27-11 Listen Watch Video
Bulletin, Announcements
Dear Friends,
As we continue our journey through the Sermon on the Mount this week, we are once again baffled, frustrated, astonished by the teachings of Jesus, which seem not only impractical but illogical. “Do not worry about what you will eat, or what you will drink, or what you will wear,” he tells us. “Do not worry about tomorrow, but let today’s troubles be sufficient for the day.”
We can all probably think of a few people who seem to have mastered this worry-free way of life: they do not have any real plans for their future; they seem to just “go with the flow,” as they say; they often get by on the generosity of others; they live only for the moment. But is it just me, or are such people terribly annoying? Where would the world be without people like us, who make and keep commitments, who plan for tomorrow and live responsibly and worry about everyone who does not? Is it a problem for Jesus that some of us give serious thought to how we will feed our families, or where we want our career paths to take us, or how much we’ll need to make ends meet in our retirement?
I think the problem, the way Jesus understood it, is that for many of us, the highly-planned, carefully-controlled life can be one of the greatest forms of human idolatry. It easily deludes us into thinking that we can save ourselves. We dot every I, cross every T, and leave nothing to chance. Our anxiety about what tomorrow may bring can become a kind of subtle atheism in which we act as though God did not exist, or that we have no need of God.
The antidote posed by Jesus is not to live “for” the moment, but to live “in” the moment – to meet each day, each moment, with gratitude, emptied of fear, like lilies stretching for sunlight, like sparrows buoyed by the wind. There is enough sunlight and wind today to bring us to our knees in gratitude and wonder before the God who knows our every need – today, tomorrow, and always.
Along with our Chancel Choir, our Canticle and Bell Choirs perform this Sunday, and we will be receiving several new people into the membership of the church. I look forward to worshipping with you.
See you Sunday,
Rev. Mark