A Busy Summer

The months of July and August are supposed to be slower, months not marked by the frenetic pace that fills our lives the rest of the year. Certainly in the church we have our busy seasons: Advent, Lent, the month of September as we gear up for a new program year, the month of May as programs and the school year wind up.

But July and August are busy months around the church as well. We start the month of July with the whirlwind of Vacation Bible School. Churches have been offering VBS programs in one form or another since the late 19^th century, a reminder that our calling to learn doesn’t end when the school year ends.

Our Vacation Bible School programs are designed to be ecumenical, and it is always a thrill for me to see children from throughout the community fill our classrooms as they laugh, sing, play and learn together. The purpose of VBS isn’t to convert or even add to our own membership, but to provide an opportunity for children to come together to learn of God’s love given them in Jesus Christ.

As soon as we finish up our VBS program, the sound of children’s voices will be replaced by hammers and saws as construction crews take over our Sunday School wing. The classrooms and bathrooms date to the construction of the building 36 years ago and are long overdue for renovation. Our Property Ministry Team is overseeing the work that will freshen up and brighten the rooms both for our Early Learning Center and our Sunday School. 

In mid-July eleven young women and men from our High School Youth Group will spend a week on the campus of Purdue University in Indiana participating in the Presbyterian Church Triennium. As its name suggests, it is an opportunity that happens every three years for high-schoolers from across the country to gather to explore their faith, make new friends, and have fun. Our young folks will spend the week with 6,000 other young people from across the country and across the world. 

The program’s website tells us, “Triennium participants will explore each day one of the significant “I am” metaphors from the gospels.  Jesus used the “I am” images to help the rookie disciples understand his purpose, depth of care, everlasting presence and wide redemptive love.  We hope to do the same in hearing and seeing and praying these stories at Triennium! It is a theme all about identity– the identity of God and our identity as children of God.  … We also hope youth participants will wrestle with their own sense of self as young Christians in today’s world.  We hope that through the event these youth will hear God saying, “I AM with you.  I AM calling you.  I AM preparing a place for you and a path for you.  I AM challenging you to be my eyes, hands, and feet in the world.”

We are thrilled that we’ve got such a large group attending this year. We’ll ask them to share their experiences and what they learned after they return, but while they are away, please do keep them in prayer.

Now it is your turn: what do you have planned this summer to help you grow in faith? Reading? More time in prayer? Perhaps you’ve thought about a retreat either on your own or with others. Perhaps you’d like to form a prayer group/reading group/study group. Summer may be a time for slowing down, but it is also a wonderful time to renew and refresh yourself as you grow in faith.

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

Made in Heaven

I am guessing that the ZZ Top song “Sharp Dressed Man” is not a tune you would expect to hear in a church, especially in the sanctuary. But its sheer exuberance fit so well as part of our High School Youth Group’s Talent show last month, as members old and young alike got up in the bright lights of the chancel and shared gifts ranging from singing to story-telling to stand-up comedy. We do have a wonderfully talented congregation!

The show was just one of many special occasions that filled the month of May. June too will have its share of celebrations, as you’ll read about elsewhere in this newsletter. In addition to everything else that will fill the calendar this month, I’ll finish leading my Adult Education class on what the Bible does and does not teach us about marriage.

What we’ve learned the past few weeks is that there is surprisingly little in the Bible that speaks directly to marriage. We also discovered that the church’s involvement in marriage is relatively recent. And we learned that our Book of Confessions and Book of Common Worship are our most helpful resources, teaching us that: “marriage is a union, in which two people commit themselves to a mutually shared life, in which they respond to each other in sensitive and lifelong concern. In marriage a woman and a man belong to each other, and with affection and tenderness freely give themselves to each other as they help and comfort each other.”

The Reverend Peter Marshall captured the essence of marriage perfectly with his words: “A marriage made in heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone.”

In a time when fully half of all marriages end in divorce, marriages that succeed are built on a foundation not only of love, but of respect, interest, compassion, patience and goodness, where each partner takes a strong interest in the other as friend as well as spouse.  Communication is vital to a healthy marriage; couples who don’t talk, who don’t share, who don’t make time for one another will inevitably drift away from one another.

 

Anticipating marriage? Newly wed? Celebrating a 20^th? 40^th? Even a 50^th anniversary? It is those couples who “freely give themselves to each other”, who “help and comfort each other”, who work to build a “mutually-shared life”, who “forgive even as they are themselves forgiven”, and who “clothe themselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” who will find ample reasons to celebrate year after year.

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

A Visit to the Cloisters

I spent a part of my recent vacation/study leave time traveling to New York City to visit the Cloisters Museum. This branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is located at the very northern tip of Manhattan, in a park up on bluff overlooking the Hudson River.

The Cloisters is a reconstruction from ruins of several different medieval monasteries. There are columns, stones, windows and other structures from monasteries built in France and Spain that date back as far as the 11^th century. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who was the driving force behind the creation of Colonial Williamsburg, was also the one who led the creation of the Cloisters in the late 1930s.

 The museum provides the ideal setting for the display of devotional works of art from the 11^th through 16^th centuries: stained glass, sculpture, altarpieces, illuminated manuscripts and prayer books fill the rooms just as they once did in chapels and other rooms that were part of many different European abbeys. To walk through the Cloisters is to walk back in time, as though you are cowled and tonsured, a part of community gathered in the 14^th century to worship God through Jesus Christ.

Few people could read and only priests had access to the Bible, so churches and monasteries commissioned paintings, sculpture and other works of art to tell stories from the Bible. The birth narrative has always been a popular subject for artisans of all kinds; the Cloisters is filled with artworks devoted to our Lord’s birth. Among the many beautiful pieces was a stained glass panel from the 1500s featuring the visit of the Magi.

Tapestries had become popular by the end of the 15^th century and there are a number of exquisite tapestries hanging in the museum. One large one, dating from 1500, traces the life of Mary with extraordinary color and the detail captured by needle and thread. 

My favorite piece was a whimsical statue of Jesus astride a donkey, hearing the crowds shout out “Hosanna!” on that first Palm Sunday. The statue was mounted on a cart, clearly designed to be part of a Palm Sunday parade – a joyous, noisy celebration in an otherwise quiet monastic community.

I will lead an Adult Education class on Sunday morning at a later date to share more pictures from this extraordinary museum. Come join me as we look and learn how Christians through the centuries found ways to give expression to their faith, praising God, even as we do today, with beauty and our creativity.

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

No Clapping Allowed?

“To clap or not to clap, that is the question.” Is applause appropriate in a worship service? When our choir sings a moving anthem, when our high-schoolers belt out a rousing spiritual, or when our youngest singers enchant and charm us, should we applaud their efforts?

When our choirs sing they are not performing for us, they are offering a gift to God. Everything we do in worship is directed to God – every word spoken, every word sung. Those of us listening to glorious music, or any other offering, share in the gift, but we need not clap as we might if the singers were performing to entertain us. So, on that basis, we might well conclude that applause is not appropriate in worship.

But every element of worship should move us to respond: music, the word read, the word preached, prayer, every part of worship should prompt a response in each us. That response may be a silent word of praise or thanksgiving, but there are times when a lively, moving, or deeply compelling offering calls us to a more demonstrative response.

A glorious piece of music offered as a gift to God may move us to want to stand and shout out “Praise!” or “Amen!” or even “Hallelujah!”. We Presbyterians are not likely to be that demonstrative, though, so applause provides a more comfortable way for us to respond. We should never take any pride in being thought of as “God’s Frozen Chosen”, but instead open ourselves to the call and response of the Spirit.  So yes, applause can be a very appropriate part of worship.

Worship should be joy-filled and lively reflecting the presence of the Spirit, who moves us all to respond. Worship involves everyone gathered in community, not just those who are up in the chancel. As the Psalmist has taught us, “Clap your hands all you people; shout to God with loud songs of joy.” (Psalm 47:1)  ALL you people!

The prophet Isaiah tells us that all creation is engaged in worshiping the Lord our God: “the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12) If the trees of the field can clap their hands in praise to God, so can you - yes, even in worship.

Hallelujah! 

Pastor Skip 

True Followers

“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned…” These are the words King David wrote in a prayer of confession, a prayer we know as Psalm 51. They are powerful words, deeply felt, welling up from David’s heart. David knew his sin and made no attempt to rationalize it, excuse it, explain it, minimize it, or deny it: “for I know my sin is ever before me”.

We live in a culture where we are far more inclined to try to minimize our waywardness, rather than acknowledge it, where we are quicker to make excuses than we are to offer an honest confession, where we are quick to blame someone else, and slow to accept responsibility ourselves. Yet, as David knew so well, God “desires truth in the inward being”. Anything short of an honest and truly penitent confession may fool others and provide temporary comfort for ourselves, but it will not fool God.

Lent provides us with the opportunity to acknowledge and confess our sins, our transgressions, and our waywardness – all those ways we have turned from God. God wants us to confess and repent. And God expects us to be as honest and forthright as David was almost 3,000 years ago. 

“Wash me and create in me a clean heart, O God,” David pleads. This should be our prayer too, a prayer we can lift up with confidence, knowing that if we are indeed honest and contrite, God will wash us clean and “put a new and right spirit within us”. 

We cannot hope to grow – truly grow – in discipleship if we refuse to acknowledge when and where we’ve gone wrong. Soren Kierkegaard wrote that without regular introspection and confession, we will never be more than admirers of Jesus Christ, when we are called to be followers. We’ll praise Jesus, applaud his teachings, even immerse ourselves busily in the life of the church, all as we sing out praise for our Lord. But we’ll never be true disciples. To follow Christ – that requires new life, a life modeled on Christ, living as he lived, grounded in compassion, grace, kindness, and love, looking to God to guide us and teach us, and call us back when we stray.

Our Ash Wednesday service, which marks the beginning of Lent, reminds of us our mortality: “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” are the words we hear as ashes are imposed upon our foreheads. That powerful reminder of our mortality should also be a powerful reminder of how easy we find it to turn away, how easy we find it to rationalize, excuse, and even deny our sin, and how difficult we find it to repent in humility and contrition.

But in the love and mercy God has given us in the Risen Christ, we can always find hope for new life. We can always know the joy of forgiveness, the joy of being washed clean, and the joy that we’ll never know as admirers, no matter how enthusiastic, but only as true followers, true disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Alleluia!

Pastor Skip

Making Time for Prayer

If Advent is a time of preparation, Lent is a time for contemplation, a time for us to reflect on our lives and see where we have turned from God in sin. Lent calls us to contemplation so we can acknowledge our waywardness and repent.

The liturgical color we use during is Lent is purple, the color of repentance. The color is a visible reminder of what Scripture teaches us: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Acknowledging our sins leads us to repentance, and from there to the joy of forgiveness: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 

For all the busyness that fills our days in December, Lent should be a quieter time, a time for us to read, to reflect, and most important, to pray. We should pray not just for forgiveness, which is always readily granted us by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, but for understanding and wisdom so we can learn from our mistakes and avoid making the same ones time and time again.

We struggle with prayer, though, struggle with the idea, that we are not sure just how to pray. After all, even the Disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. But prayer really is quite simple; you need not be concerned with the eloquence of your words, and yes, absolutely, you can dispense with Elizabethan English words like, “thou”, “thine”, and “thee”. Prayer is conversation, in your own words, with God who is always ready to listen.

But prayer is not as much about talking as it is about being quiet, contemplative and listening for God to speak to you. As the Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick observed in his classic book, The Meaning of Prayer, “one of our strongest misconceptions concerning prayer is that it consists chiefly of talking to God, when the best part of prayer is our listening to God.” 

Prayer should refresh and renew us as we unburden ourselves and feel God’s loving grace wash over us. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote that “prayer is not only the lifting up of the mind and heart to God, but it is also the response to God within us, the discovery of God within us; it leads ultimately to the discovery and fulfillment of our own true being in God.” 

 Prayer awakens us, enlightens us, tunes us in more completely to and with God. As you journey through Lent make time in your busy schedule for yourself and for prayer. Listen for God’s response to your prayer, grounded in the simple, yet powerful words of Jesus, “yet, not my will but yours be done.” 

Amen 
Pastor Skip

It's the Giving, Not the Getting!

Who doesn’t enjoy seeing piles of presents under the tree on Christmas morning? We all love getting presents! Young and old alike, we eagerly tear away the wrapping paper, a sense of excitement and anticipation filling us – what might be in the box we’re about to open? 

But Christmas calls us to focus on the giving, not on the getting. After all, the first Christmas gifts were given – given to our Lord Jesus Christ by the Magi: On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  

A gift should be something that reflects affection and thoughtfulness; it should be as meaningful to the one who gives as to the one who receives. When I was a youngster, my mother used to take me and my sisters to Hengerer’s, the big department store in downtown Buffalo, to shop for presents. My list was not long and my budget was small, but oh how I used to scour the floors and aisles of the store looking for just the right gift for grandparents, parents, and sisters. To find just the right gift is such a joy. 

And even as you look for the perfect gift for each person on your list, don’t forget the one whose birthday we are celebrating. What will you get for Jesus? What gift will you put in our Lord’s stocking? Love? Kindness? Compassion? Generosity? What our Lord wants from each of us costs no money and need not be wrapped. What our Lord wants, as the lovely carol “Midwinter” reminds us, is our hearts: “What I have, I give him: my heart, my heart.”

The weeks leading up to Christmas can seem like an endless and exhausting shopping expedition, with stores incessantly trumpeting their “specials” and “one-day-only mark-downs”. As long ago as 1897 the playwright George Bernard Shaw complained that “Christmas is forced on a reluctant people by shopkeepers…” It’s up to each of us to “keep Christmas” in our hearts, even as we shop for the perfect gifts. As the Reverend Henry Van Dyke reminds us, it isn’t what we get that matters, but what we give, for we have been given the greatest gift of all.

“See—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:

 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,

who is the Messiah, the Lord!”

Glory to God in highest heaven!

Pastor Skip