We're Not Supposed to Eat Lobster?

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. These familiar words were part of a recent Year-of-the-Bible reading, words found in the third book of the Bible, the book of Leviticus, chapter 24, verse 20. They are words we know well. They are words that seem to give us permission to avenge ourselves when we feel ourselves wronged.

But in our very first week of reading, we heard Jesus’ words to us, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth’. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” (Matthew 5:38-39) Jesus appears to be rejecting the Leviticus text and telling us that we cannot seek to avenge ourselves to right a wrong of any kind.

So what are we to do? How are we to reconcile two biblical texts that seem to be in conflict with one another? And, truth be told, most of us would probably admit to preferring the Levitical text over Jesus’ teaching. When someone wrongs us, we want payback!

This is why we read the Bible and this is why we study the Bible. This is why we do things like Year-of-the-Bible. For as much as we’d like to reduce the Bible to a set of rules, with everything easy and clear, the Bible can often confound us and confuse us. Understanding the Bible takes work, and it takes God’s help through the Holy Spirit.

The Year-of-the-Bible structure is helpful. It gives us Old and New Testament together, side by side, so we can compare texts. And then we are given a bit of a Psalm and Proverb to form a frame around the Testament texts. So we read, for example, “The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin” in Proverbs (10:14) as a reminder that God calls us to learn, with the Spirit guiding us.

Lent should be a time of learning, a time of study, a time of reflection and introspection.  We should look afresh at texts, reading the words and learning the context, always digging deeper. It is one thing to read the rules in Leviticus, but why, for example, did God insist that we were not to eat lobster, scallops, clams and shrimp? And why now do eat with great enthusiasm marine creatures that have neither “fins nor scales”? What actions may we take when we feel ourselves wronged? Are we really to “turn the other cheek” to everyone, or can we be selective?

Make March a time of study, of reflection, and of opening yourself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Make Lent a time of transformation, the Spirit refreshing you like a spring breeze and teaching you as you grow in grace and wisdom as a disciple of our Risen Lord.

Allelulia!

Pastor Skip

A Walk Through the Woods

What have you read so far in your Year of the Bible reading that has surprised you? Have you read a passage and found new understanding and meaning? Have you read a story and realized that there was much you’d misunderstood before?  

Why are there two rather different Creation stories? Why have we developed so much mythology around the visit of the Magi? How long was Noah, his family, and all those animals on the Ark? Which is the best word to use in the Lord’s Prayer: “sin”, “debt”, or “trespass”?

I am thrilled that we have such a large group participating in the Year of the Bible. The Bible can appear daunting: all those thin pages, the tiny print, the stories that so often seem confusing, troubling, or just out-of-date. And then there are all those translations – is the only acceptable Bible one filled with Elizabethan English words such as, “thou”, “thee”, “thine”? 

And then there’s all that violence in the early pages of the Old Testament, all those prophets intoning their warnings to repent, all Jesus’ often confusing parables, all Paul’s lists, and that wild, Technicolor ending!

Reading through the Bible is like taking a hike through the woods. Some trails are flat, sunny, and easy. Other trails are winding, rocky, steep, and difficult. Some trails take us through deep, dark forests, while others lead us seemingly into the clouds.

But as you hike through the woods, you begin to get comfortable with your surroundings. You learn how to take the difficult trails slowly and steadily. You learn not take the easy trails for granted. You develop an appreciation for your surroundings: the trees, the wildlife, the rocks, the sky, the silence, the wonder.

Reading through the entire Bible will, we all hope, help you to grow more comfortable as you walk through the pages of any of the Bible’s books. Reading through the entire Bible will, we all hope, inspire and encourage you to take more regular sojourns through the pages of Scripture, with your mind and heart open to the Spirit’s teaching.

Lent, which begins this year on February 10^th, is a particularly appropriate time to walk through the pages of Scripture, beginning with those stirring words we hear on Ash Wednesday through the prophet Joel, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, … rend your hearts and not your clothing.”

But even if you are not participating in the Year of the Bible, there are wonderful books by eminent writers that can help you to hear God’s word to you, writers such as Henri Nouwen, Barbara Brown Taylor, Frederick Buechner, Fleming Rutledge, and Anne Lamott. We’ve got many of their books in our library – stop by and browse.

Read. Listen. Learn. Let God’s Holy Spirit guide and help you. Open your eyes, your mind, your ears, and your heart to the Word of the Lord - and enjoy the walk!

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

We've Done It!

We’ve done it! We have reached our Capital Campaign goal of $525,000. In fact, as of the most recent report, pledges stood at $566,000, and we know there are still more pledge cards to come in!

This is amazing, wonderful, and exciting. I am so filled with gratitude for the generous outpouring from so many of you who have responded to our campaign with enthusiasm, faithfulness, and joy.

We will start the New Year on a strong and vibrant note as we get to work tackling the various projects our Elders identified as necessary to the continued vitality of our church. We will get to work “strengthening our foundation”! We are already talking about which projects to take on first. Some have longer lead and planning times, but other projects can be done quickly, so we’ll soon see the fruits of our labors.

We’ll also start the year on an exciting note for all who have signed up to participate in “The Year of the Bible”. When we last did “The Year of the Bible” in 2009, almost 40 members completed the journey, reading every word in the Bible from Genesis through Revelation, from “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth...” to “Come, Lord Jesus!” If you have not yet signed up to participate, talk to Melissa Kirkpatrick and let her know you’re ready to read.

This will be the 6^th time I’ve participated in the Year of the Bible and I always look forward to reading with “fresh eyes”. God’s Holy Spirit always opens my mind to new interpretation and new understanding as I read the written words through the lens that is the living word, our Lord Jesus Christ. We’ll have multiple opportunities each week for you to join a small group to discuss the week’s reading.

At a recent Session meeting we discussed a plan from the Membership Ministry Team to split that Team into a Fellowship Team and a Membership Team. The Fellowship Team will have responsibility for organizing all our many wonderful picnics, dinners and other activities, including our Advent Festival. The Membership Team will focus on visitors, inquirers and new members. We have an exciting story to tell here at MPC – we don’t want to “hide our light under a bushel basket.” So we will make a greater effort in the new year to let our light shine brightly.

The year’s end is always a good time to step back and express gratitude to God for all our many blessings. Take time in the busy month ahead for even just five minutes of quiet each day to center yourself in God’s presence, open yourself to renewal by God’s Holy Spirit, and recommit yourself as a disciple of the One born for us, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessings for joy in this season and in the New Year!

Pastor Skip

Our Future

We have much to be thankful for here at Manassas Presbyterian Church. We are a vibrant, active, faithful, and healthy congregation, with a proud 148-year history. We’ve been celebrating that history these past few months as the foundation for the future we are preparing for through our Capital Campaign.

This month we will all be asked to make a commitment to the Campaign, which means we will all be asked to make a commitment to the future of our church. Our campaign is nothing less than that. The excitement should be universal and unanimous, and our commitments to our future should also be universal and unanimous.

As I shared in my sermon on October 25^th, I’ve already returned my pledge card. I’d spent a great deal of time in prayer the past few months listening for how God was calling me to respond to the campaign. I have the same financial concerns we all have: a mortgage, utility bills, car expenses, expenses for food and clothing, and at my age, concern that I am setting enough aside for my retirement. 

Still, God was clear in what God wanted me to do: make a leadership commitment to our campaign. I did not hesitate in my response to God’s call - I filled out my pledge card joyfully. I made my commitment with profound gratitude for the many blessings God has graced me with in my life, including being part of this community.

In my sermon, I spoke of the whirlwind around me the past month or so, God’s still small voice in that whirlwind speaking to me of “sacrificial giving” and “cheerful giving”. The whirlwind of God’s words also reminded of the text from the Gospel of Luke in which our Lord Jesus tells us: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” 

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase from The Message captures our Lord’s words so concisely: “Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!” We have been blessed with many gifts in this family of faith we call Manassas Presbyterian Church, and that means we have great responsibilities to be faithful stewards of our gifts for ourselves and for those who will in time stand on our shoulders.

This Campaign is about our future. It is a bright future, an exciting future - as long as you and I make it so. I pray that when you fill out your pledge card, you too will do so joyfully and with gratitude, saying, “To God be the glory!”

With joy and thanksgiving,

Pastor Skip

Will You Join Me?

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Some months ago Mary Ann Brown sent this letter to me in response to a conversation she and I had had about the planning then taking place for a Capital Campaign. I asked Mary Ann if she would let me share her letter with the congregation and she very graciously agreed. Her letter follows:

“I am like many of the members of our congregation—a retired senior, living on a fixed income.  We don’t have lot of discretionary cash and what we do have many of us already give in the regular offering or through our time, talents, and enthusiasm.  But I have been reflecting on a few of the gifts I’ve received from MPC in the four plus years here.

• A worshipful space to grow closer to God
• A weekly message to spiritually recharge me
• A community that challenges my faith and helps me grow
• Opportunities to lead and serve in roles that bring me satisfaction and fulfillment
• Beautiful music
• Some of my best friendships
• Bible study, and circle, prayer shawl group
• Laughter and joy
• Watching the youth and children grow in their faith is an inspiration to my soul ….and that’s just a beginning.

Wish though I might, all the time and talent I give won’t provide a suitable roof, new and adequate heating and cooling systems, much needed technology additions and improvements, improved access to the building, furniture replacements, and other needs too numerous to mention. And my yearly pledge, which helps support church operations, mission, and outreach, isn’t enough to address these deferred and continuing maintenance needs.

With visible issues like the homeless, the hungry, and the injustice all around us, I sometimes wonder where my offering would make the most impact.  Giving to MPC may not be as direct as giving to a homeless shelter, or justice organizations, but then I think about the ways our facility is a beacon for hope and provision in this community… Our Early Learning Center, housing the English As A Second Language Program, providing meeting space for social service organizations, the music organizations from schools and community programs, our sanctuary, which welcome all for worship, warmth and spiritual uplifting, friendship, and a caring loving congregation.

So to me, “church” is not a monolithic institution, and building of stone and steel.  It’s a dynamic group of people giving one another gifts of the spirit. My pledge (no matter what amount) to the MPC Capital Campaign will help preserve a facility that welcomes others in to experience what we’ve found here. At the same time, our gifts will help sustain a space for us to renew and transform ourselves for the work God calls us to do.  In that context, giving is far from an obligation.  It is a joy!

Will you join me?   Mary Ann Brown.” 

To Mary Ann’s words I would add just these: thank you and amen!

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

Getting Out of the Silo

Come to the church in the evening on the second Tuesday of each month and you’ll find our Ministry Teams hard at work. We’ve set the second Tuesday as Ministry Team meeting night so we can gather in community as we go about our work. 

Churches are famous, perhaps even notorious, for being places where nothing can be done without going through a committee. We laugh at the very idea, but we work that way because we work in community. Each committee, group, or team is a smaller version of the body of Christ, and as Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians, we need one another, and we need one another’s gifts.

And this is true across committees and teams. Our Property Team needs to work with our Finance Team, and our Finance Team needs to work with our Early Learning Center Team, and our Early Learning Center Team needs to work with our Christian Education Team, and our Christian Education Team needs to work with our Property Team, and on it goes.

This is why we have a common meeting night so we can gather together, talk together, and work together. It may well be more convenient for this Team or that to pick another day and time to meet, but we are called to be the Body of Christ, and work together in community, and so we have our common Ministry Team night – a practice that most churches have had in place for years. 

You’ve heard me say before that it is easy for each group to work in its own silo, easy for each group to work diligently and faithfully, but ultimately on their own. This “silo mentality” has become a growing concern for businesses and organizations of all kinds. Gillian Tett, a prominent writer on business and financial matters, has authored a new book entitled, “The Silo Effect”, in which she examines how easy it is for organizations of every kind to fall into the silo trap.  

We work together, all of us, because that is what the Holy Spirit calls us to do. As Paul reminds us, “there are many members, but one body” and it is the body that we serve as we follow the head of the body, our Lord Jesus Christ.  

If you’d like to be part of Team, then come join us on Tuesday September 8 in the Sanctuary at 7:15 pm, or any second Tuesday, and find your place – every Team is always happy to welcome new members. 

“Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received…so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 4:10)

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

Reminder to Myself: Pray!

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Prayer is defined by the dictionary as “a devotion, a plea, an appeal, a petition, an invocation”. A prayer is each of those words and so much more, for prayer links us to God. It is in prayer that we lift up to God what is on our minds and in our hearts: our joy, our fear, our gratitude, our sorrow, our confusion, our anger, our trust, our hope.

It is easy, too easy, to turn prayer into a wish list, to ask God for this or that. It is also easy, too easy, to bargain with God. Jacob’s first prayer was not a prayer of trust, it was an offer to bargain: “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God.”

Listening is as important as what we say when we pray. Kierkegaard wrote, “the true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he or she is the one who hears, who hears what God wills.” When we listen, we align our wills with God’s will, following Jesus’ lead when he prayed, “not my will, but your will be done.”

I have many prayer books in my library and I find they help me focus, center, and shape what I might be struggling with as I try to stitch together words in prayer. The Reverend Peter Marshall was known not only for the power of his sermons, but also for the simple eloquence of his prayers: “In the name of Jesus Christ, who was never in a hurry, we pray, O God, that you will slow us down, for we know that we live too fast. With all eternity before us, make us take time to live - time to get acquainted with you, time to enjoy your blessings, and time to know each other.”

Here’s another from Marshall: “Father, forgive us all that we talk too much and think too little. Forgive us all that we worry so often and pray so seldom. Most of all, O Lord, forgive us that, so helpless without you, we are yet so unwilling to seek your help. Give us grace to seek you with our whole heart, that seeking you, we may find you, and finding you may love you, and loving you, may keep your commandments and do your will.”

William Barclay is another favorite, with this Sunday prayer: “O God, tomorrow we go back to the world and to all its work and its activities. We remember that Jesus prayed, not that his friends should be taken out of the world, but that they should be kept from the evil of the world. Help us to live in this world as we ought to live.  Help us: To do the world’s work faithfully and well; To enjoy the world’s pleasures wisely and temperately; To value the world’s goods without becoming enslaved by them and without despising them; To resist the world’s temptations bravely and resolutely; Help us to live in the world, not as those whose interests never look beyond the horizons of the world, but as those who always remember that in you we live and move and have our being, and that we are pledged to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

The slower pace of summer is the ideal time to work on your prayer life. Make time each day to lift up your words to God. Make time to listen. Make time for prayer. 

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip