What Shall I Give Up?

What is it to be: Coffee? Chocolate? Ice Cream? French Fries? With Lent comes that feeling that wells up within us that we should give something up for the 40 days. We are not sure why we are to give up something, but surely somewhere in the Bible, or perhaps in our Book of Confessions, there is some mandate sounding like a Commandment: Thou shalt give up something during Lent. 

The idea has its foundation in Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness following his baptism. Matthew tells us that Jesus “fasted forty days and forty nights”, and from that the spiritual discipline of fasting became an established Lenten devotional practice 

Over the centuries we’ve taken what can be a very powerful spiritual practice and watered it down into giving up a favorite food for six weeks. The idea behind any spiritual practice is to help us grow in holiness, to help us grow closer to God. Giving up the occasional bowl of ice cream or a slice of pizza is not likely to help you grow spiritually.

Even before Jesus spent his time in the wilderness, God condemned the spiritually empty practices his children were claiming they were doing to show their faithfulness. When God took no notice of their rituals, they lifted up their voices in protest to God, “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”

But God’s response through the prophet Isaiah was blistering “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,… Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight…Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.”

Then God tells his children what to do: give up sin. Look deep within yourselves and see where you have strayed from God’s commands and teachings. “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to let the oppressed go free, to share your bread with hungry…to satisfy the needs of the afflicted.” 

“The purpose of Lent is to arouse – arouse the sense of sin”, writes Edna Hong. “The purpose of Lent is to arouse the humble contrition for the guilt of sin that makes forgiveness possible. To arouse the sense of gratitude for the forgiveness of sins.” The purpose of Lent is to awaken us to where we have turned away from God. Lent should begin with a downward journey into yourself, so that you can then find your way up, born anew in Christ, dying to the old ways, the old life. 

If you want to give up something for Lent, here are some suggestions: give up Pride, Self-righteousness, Anger, Greed, Envy, or Self-indulgence. Give up your excuses for why you don’t pray more often. Give up your excuses for why you are not doing more to nurture and grow your faith. 

Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness of the desert to grow in God and let God grow in him. That’s the goal of Lent. Give up those things that impede your growth, that don’t nurture your faith. Take on new practices and new disciplines that will help you grow in wisdom, obedience, and faith. Do these things, and you can still have that bowl of ice cream.

Grace & peace

Pastor Skip

Looking to the Future

January always seems to be a month of getting ready as we get organized for the new year. Elders and Deacons who have completed their terms of service rotate off their respective Boards and Teams, and newly ordained and installed Elders and Deacons begin their terms and find their way to the various Ministry Teams they will serve. Schedules and calendars are prepared and then we get to work.

Our Elders and Deacons gathered on Saturday January 21 for their annual Officers’ Retreat and to begin the process of planning. This year we want to look beyond the current year, to plan for the next few years, even the next five years. With change happening so quickly all around us, it can be difficult to plan for the future, but we need to think ahead and try to envision what we’ll look like in five years as we celebrate our 150^th anniversary, and from there determine what needs changing, what needs work so we can celebrate our sesquicentennial with confidence as well as joy.

We met at La Capilla, the restaurant that is housed in our old church building in Old Town Manassas. It proved to be a very fitting place for us to begin our work of looking ahead by looking to the past, to think and reflect upon our long and proud history. We stand on the shoulders of so many saints who worked so faithfully on behalf of God and our church over the past 145 years.  

The Rev. Dr. Ed White, a consultant with the Alban Institute (www.Alban.org), led the Retreat and will be working with us throughout the year to help us with our planning. Ed has a long history with us and knows us very well – he was present at the dedication of our current building when he served as Executive Presbyter of the National Capital Presbytery. Ed is looking forward to helping us reflect, discern and plan for an exciting future.

In the more immediate future we’ll begin Lent with our traditional Ash Wednesday service on February 22. A soup supper at 6:30 will precede the 7:30 service, a worship service that focuses on repentance and forgiveness. The text that guides us is God’s word to us spoken through the prophet Joel: “Return to me with all your heart, says the Lord; rend your hearts and not your clothing”.

We’ll build on the theme of repentance and forgiveness with a five-part Lenten series on Thursday evenings beginning March 1. We’ll gather for supper at 6:30 and then at 7:30 spend 90 minutes each Thursday throughout March exploring what it means to repent, why God wants us to come before him with penitent hearts, and why we find it difficult both to forgive and be forgiven. Mark your calendars and plan to participate.

Lent is a time of renewal, a time to offer forgiveness, a time to seek forgiveness. Lent, even as it falls in the midst of winter, brings with it the hope of spring and the promise of rebirth and renewal – a promise we have each day in Jesus Christ.

Grace & Peace

Pastor Skip

The Art and Science of Worship

Why do we worship? How should we worship? When should we worship? Where should we worship? What should the space in which we worship look like? 

These are among the many questions our two weekly Bible Study groups asked throughout September and October as we studied the many elements that fall under the word “Worship”. 

As always, we began our work with a look at the Bible to see what we could learn in its pages. Did you know that the basic model for how we worship was established more than 400 years before the birth of Jesus? The Old Testament book of Nehemiah teaches us that the faithful gather in community, prayer is offered, Scripture is read, and then Scripture is interpreted “so that there is understanding”. Worship is as simple as that!

We learned that interpretation isn’t limited to a spoken sermon. Music, dance, drama, and pageants are among the many creative ways we can interpret the Word of the Lord. We learned that worship spaces are as varied as the people who fill the rooms. Our Confession of 1967 helps us to understand that “the arts, especially music and architecture, contribute to the praise and prayer of a Christian congregation… awakening us to God’s presence”.

One of the most important lessons we learned is that worship requires the active participation of everyone gathered. A congregation seated in a sanctuary is not an audience. Our Book of Order teaches us, “the people call God by name, invoke God’s presence, beseech God in prayer, and stand before God in silence and contemplation. They bow before God, lift hands and voices in praise, sing, make music, and dance. Heart, soul, strength, and mind, with one accord, they join in the language, drama, and pageantry of worship.” In other words, everyone is actively, energetically involved in every part of worship – not just those who happen to be in the chancel.

We also learned that every hymn we sing is a prayer we offer to God. It doesn’t matter whether you sing well or struggle to stay on key – the important thing is to participate in the prayer, even if it is just saying the words of the song.

As you worship each Sunday, remember “Worship is the workshop where we are transformed into God’s image,” but only if you come to worship ready to be fully involved, “heart, soul, strength, and mind, with one accord…joining in”. Come to worship each Sunday ready to “call, invoke, beseech, stand, bow, lift hands, make music, dance and join in the pageantry of worship.”

The psalmist said it best when he wrote:

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come into his presence with singing.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, 
          and his courts with praise. 

Give thanks to him, bless his name.

(Psalm 100)

Or, as Eugene Peterson paraphrased the psalm in The Message: “On your feet now – applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter, sing yourselves into his presence!”

Grace & peace

Pastor Skip

Happy 200th PTS!

Next year the Princeton Theological Seminary will celebrate its 200^th birthday. It was the first seminary to be established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church and is the largest of the 10 Presbyterian seminaries.

Prior to Princeton Seminary’s establishment, clergy were trained in college classrooms. Young men called to ministry in the Presbyterian Church made their way to Princeton to attend the College of New Jersey, founded in 1746 and renamed Princeton University in 1896. The Rev. Dr. John Witherspoon, President of The College of New Jersey in the later years of the 18^th century and a Presbyterian pastor and teacher, had the distinction of being the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence. 

The Seminary’s charge at its founding was “to unite in those who shall sustain the ministerial office, religion and literature; that piety of the heart, which is the fruit only of the renewing and sanctifying grace of God, with solid learning; believing that religion without learning, or learning without religion, in the ministers of the gospel, must ultimately prove injurious to the church.”

Learning has always been foundational in the Presbyterian Church, so it is not surprising that Presbyterian seminaries are centered around two buildings: their chapels and their libraries.  Princeton’s chapel is lovely, the perfect setting for daily worship in the midst of the academic scrum. But Princeton’s library is matchless, an extraordinary resource available to students, faculty, and the broader community. You’d have to travel to Rome, to the Vatican Library, to find a richer and broader theological collection. 

All buildings age, and the Seminary’s library building was no exception. It was dated and worn when I was a student 15 years ago. A bold decision was made a few years back by the Seminary’s leaders to tear down the old building and in its place build not just a replacement, slightly larger and technologically up-to-date, but a building that would house a library designed to reach out to the global community: to pastors, teachers, and lay women and men in far distant lands, especially those without the easy access we have to books, articles and other resources to help them learn. 

Construction of the new library is well underway. I’ve been following the library’s progress closely not only as a faithful alumnus twice over, but also as a member of the Bicentennial Committee that is helping the Seminary prepare for a joyous celebration next year. 

Our Pastors’s Committee has a two-fold charge: first, to help raise funds for this exciting ministry project, and second, to help our congregations learn more about Princeton Seminary and how broad the school’s reach is. There are 11,000 Seminary alums scattered throughout the globe, including almost 400 here in Virginia, ministering, teaching, preaching, counseling, evangelizing, and praying in the name of Jesus Christ. Seminary professors author books and articles that influence preaching and teaching in churches of every denomination. We’ll host Professor Cleo LaRue next June as guest preacher and teacher. 

The world of theological seminaries seems removed from us as we go about our daily business, as though they were cloisters, rather than the vibrant centers they are. Our seminaries touch all our lives – not just mine – deeply and profoundly. 

We as a church community should take a keen interest in and be strongly supportive of all our theological seminaries, and especially Princeton as it takes a giant step forward to become a resource available to men and women the world over eager to learn, eager to grow in their knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Thank you Ann and Amy

         The sign out front this week as I write this letter says, “Thank you Ann and Amy.” It is just one more way for us to express our gratitude to Ann Curtis and Amy Simpson as they both leave the staff for new opportunities.

         Ann worked so capably as our Office Manager for five years. She was so much more than a secretary, so much more than a receptionist, so much more than an administrative assistant. She kept our website current, prepared the weekly worship bulletin, managed the building, answered the telephones, helped edit and produce the newsletter, and juggled the needs of the rest of the staff as well as the various ministry teams. And she managed to do it all with a smile on her face!

         Amy Simpson was part of our Early Learning Center staff for four years: the first two in the classroom, and then the past two years as our Assistant Director. Like Ann, she brought a smile to her job. Her love for children was as obvious as her devotion to the ministry we provide through our ELC.

         ELC has already filled the Assistant Director’s position with Jody Ritner. Jody has been a part of our ELC family for 20 years, most recently as the lead teacher for the Purple Bears – the pre-kindergarten class. We are blessed to have Jody succeed Amy.

         Our Personnel Ministry Team, chaired by Elder Scott Myers, is working to fill the Office Manager’s position. They’ve updated the job description and have posted it on the church website, as well as on the National Capital Presbytery’s website. They have posted the opening through other sources, too, all in an effort to find the best person to fill Ann’s big shoes.

         At its June meeting the Session discussed the practice that a growing number of churches have adopted in recent years of separating staff positions from church membership. Things can become complicated and stressful when a person is employed by the place that is also his or her church -- the place he or she looks to for spiritual growth, renewal and refreshment. 

         Many churches have put in place boundaries to assure that for members the church is a not a place of employment, but the member’s spiritual home. Our Session has adopted that policy for the Office Manager’s position. This will assure that the person in this demanding and sensitive job will be fully able to put in the long hours the job requires, and then find renewal and refreshment on Sunday morning at his or her church.

         I am excited to be part of the process as we discern whom God has chosen for us to join our staff and be part of our team. We are a busy, dynamic place as we follow the Head of our church, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

The Constancy of Change

          “Slaves obey your masters” – the words are right there in Scripture, in Paul’s letter to the Colossians. “Obey your masters”, Paul wrote, “to please them”. Today the very word “slavery” horrifies and repulses us, but two thousand years ago slavery was so common that Paul saw no problem with it.

         “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate.” Once again, we find these words in Scripture, again in Paul’s writings, this time in his first letter to the Corinthians. In the 21^st century there are still many churches adhering to these words, with women in decidedly subordinate roles, but this is not true for us within the Presbyterian Church (USA). Our Brief Statement of Faith, one of our Confessional statements, reminds us that God “makes everyone equally in God’s image, male and female, of every race and people.” Fifty years ago the PCUSA did not allow women to be ordained to the office of deacon, elder or minister, but this year 19 of the 33 ordained officers serving on our boards here at MPC are women.

         The Holy Spirit leads us to change and transformation over time, opening our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and our minds to perspectives that we had not been able to see before. For more than 30 years we have debated, often bitterly, Scriptural passages which some have argued should exclude a class of men and women from serving as ordained officers of the church. Others have argued that the passages in question are being read in a way that lacks God’s grace, love, and acceptance revealed to us in Jesus, and, as a result, creates barriers in a place where our Lord teaches us to remove barriers.

         The recent vote to change the language of an amendment in our Book of Order removes barriers and eliminates language that excluded otherwise faithful, qualified men and women from serving as deacons, elders, or ministers. This is a welcome change, as is any change which removes hindrances to service in the name of Jesus Christ. Conversely anything that creates boundaries, barriers or hindrances goes against our Lord’s teachings.

         I look back at how the Holy Spirit has worked within me over the past 30 years as my thinking has changed. I was once very supportive of exclusion but am now very supportive of inclusion.  I read, I studied, I prayed; I thought I knew. But God helped me to see in a new way, a different way, a way that is grounded in the grace that was lacking in how I once thought.
         You can find more information about the change on the PCUSA website (www.pcusa.org). As the new language puts it so well, we submit “joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of our lives”, lives that begin with grace and acceptance, and end with love given all, without exclusion.

         Grace & peace

         Pastor Skip

Happy Birthday KJV!

         “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”

         These are the familiar words from the Twenty-third Psalm as they come to us from the King James Version of the Bible. The psalmist comforts us with words of such profound faith, and the translation sings in its poetry and its lyricism.

          The Bible I use in the pulpit each Sunday is a New Revised Standard Version, the most accurate translation of the original Hebrew and Greek currently available. But, for as accurate as the NRSV is, it lacks the poetry of the KJV. The NRSV’s translation of Psalm 23 is correct, but dry:

         “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.”

         The KJV is celebrating its 400^th anniversary this year, and with the celebration has come renewed interest in the text. It was England’s King James I who decreed in 1604 that the Bible should be available in the English language and then assembled a team of scholars who worked the next seven years preparing what we now know as the King James Bible.

         The work was fraught with challenges. There was the difficult task of going through ancient texts and translating from the original Hebrew and Greek. Even more challenging was overcoming the conviction that Latin was the only appropriate language for the Bible since Latin was the language of the church. William Tyndale had tried to translate the Bible into English a century before and was burned at the stake for heresy.

         It isn’t surprising that the KJV sounds so wonderfully Shakespearean — it was produced when Shakespeare was in his glory. The translators worked to make the KJV lyrical and elegant, powerful and yet musical. In his engaging history of how the KJV came to be, God’s Secretaries, Adam Nicolson observed, “the Bible was appointed to be read in churches… and so its meaning had to be carried on a heard rhythm, it had to appeal to what T. S. Eliot later called the ‘auditory imagination’, and that ‘feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word.’”

         For as glorious as the language is, the weakness of the KJV is the translation itself. The group that produced the Bible worked from manuscripts that were often not at all accurate, and their knowledge of the languages was well short of mastery. As Nicolson put it, “this is clearly a translation done by people who didn’t really understand what they were translating.”

         Masterful, lyrical language is wonderful and certainly has its place, and so we should sing out Happy Birthday to the KJV. But the greater legacy of the KJV beyond its language is its attempt, even with its flaws, to discern as accurately as possible the word of God. Scholars continue this work today so that you and I can know more completely the word of God to help us understand more fully the will of God.

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip