Pastor's E-Letter

Pastor's E-Letter

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Pastors E-Letter 1/8/21

In worship on the first Sunday in Advent, we read the words of the prophet Isaiah, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…” (Isaiah 64:1). We talked then about our desire, our longing for God to come down and clean up the mess that we are in. Our desire for God to come down and set everything right. And then we connected that longing to God’s answer to our pleas. In Jesus, God has indeed come down. God has taken on our flesh and blood to set things right, to clean up the mess, and lead us back to God. 
 
I couldn’t help thinking about this truth as I watched the images of violence and chaos at the U. S. Capitol. The mess is still with us. It seems to grow messier and more chaotic every day. A woman lost her life in the violence inside of the Capitol, the symbol of our democracy. All of us watched in horror. The world watched in horror as well. What is happening in our nation that we have come to this? 
 
All of this transpired on the day Christians mark as Epiphany – the day we celebrate the revelation of the light of Christ, the hope of Christ, the peace of Christ to all the world. The Old Testament reading for yesterday speaks of this light, “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” Isaiah 60:1-3 
 
We know the darkness. We saw and felt the darkness spread over us like a cloud on Wednesday. But the promise of God in Christ is that the darkness will not win. That the light has come and is shining even in these dark and chaotic days. 
 
This week, as I opened my bible to the gospel lesson for this Sunday, the baptism of Jesus from the gospel of Mark, I noticed that the same words are used in the description of Jesus’ experience of baptism by John, as are used in Isaiah, “And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.” (Mark 1:10) I’ve never noticed that connection before. God tore open the heavens to come down to us in Jesus. And then again, God tore open the heavens to send the Holy Spirit and to speak those amazing words of affirmation over Jesus, “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” 
 
This Sunday in worship, God will do the same for us. As we come again to the waters of baptism to renew our baptismal covenant with God, God tears open the heavens to send the Holy Spirit on us and to speak those words of affirmation over us. That Holy Spirit is given to us to empower us to walk in newness of life. The Holy Spirit is given to us that we might carry the light of Christ in us and that we might walk in his grace and truth. The Holy Spirit is given to us that we might know the truth, stand for the truth, and be set free by the truth. The Holy Spirit empowers us, as our baptismal vows state, to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” The Holy Spirit empowers us to push back the darkness and testify to the light. 
 
We cry out for God to move and to act. God has acted in giving us God’s own self in Jesus Christ. God continues to act through the power of God’s Spirit poured out on us in our baptism. The question is, will we, empowered by that Holy Spirit, embrace the light, the love, and grace of Christ and stand up for truth? Will we allow God to use us to push back against the forces of darkness in our nation and our world? 
 
This Sunday we will answer those questions as we worship, in-person and online. We will claim the power of God to bring order to chaos, light out of the darkness, and use us as instruments of light, truth, grace, and peace through the work of the Holy Spirit in us. If you are worshipping online, be sure to set an altar or holy table in your home and have a bowl of water on it for the renewal of your baptismal vows. 
 
I knew I needed to be washed in the water once again as we head into this new year. I had no idea how that need would grow in me this week. But I not only need to be washed but I need to be renewed in my commitment to stand and speak for truth in this world. I look forward to worship this week. And I pray you will join with me in the meantime, praying for our country, praying for an end to the darkness, praying for people of faith and good will to stand up for truth and for the courage to push back the darkness in the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
Grace and Peace,
Annette
Posted by Annette Stiles Pendergrass with

Pastors E-Letter 1/1/21

Happy New Year!
 
We made it, can you believe it? 2020 is over! Cue the dance music, balloon emojis, and “Auld Lang Syne.”
 
2020 has been a rollercoaster of a year, hasn’t it? I’m sure you, like me, are tired of the words “unprecedented,” “unimagined,” “unusual,” and “interesting.” I did not imagine when I set my New Years Resolutions for 2020 (to work out more and be more balanced) that I would be offered a few months working from home, online worship, losses in our congregation, and the rewriting of allll of our plans for the year. Yet, each day offered a new beginning as we journeyed through 2020, and we pushed on *hoping* that the year would end in a better position than we found ourselves on January 1, 2020, or on March 15, 2020, when the world began to flip upside down. We have been waiting for the number of that year to flip over, maybe more than we usually do.
 
But we’re here. You’re reading this. The year number is one more than it was. Yet not much is different from just 12 hours ago, is it?
 
I’m struck by that inconvenient truth each time the ball drops, marking a new calendar year, or each year when I wake up on my birthday. I am still… me, after all. The world is still itself. Life is still life. And moments of transformation rarely happen when the ball is dropping, or your age ticks forward another year, or 2020, the “unprecedented year” ends.
 
True transformation is sneakier.
It happened when you gave generously this year, even in the midst of a pandemic.
It happens when you say yes to Jesus, again, after all these years.
It happens when you allow your mind to be changed.
It happens when we listen to our brothers and sisters who are marginalized, and try to be less racist in our daily lives.
It happens when we feed the hungry (like you can on January 6th with Daily Bread!) or love the unhoused with blankets, or donate to a cause that needs our monetary resources more than ever.
It happens when you keep getting up, day after day, as you mourn the loss of your spouse, sibling, child or friend.
It happens when you decide to get treatment for a mental illness.
It happens when you decide to forgive someone, even if they will never accept that forgiveness. It happens when you decide you won’t touch the drink, or the drug, or the affair anymore.
 
It has nothing to do with the date on the calendar.
 
So in all honesty, 2021 seems a little too much like 2020. I’ll be wearing masks and socially distancing on vacation this coming week, despite scribbling in my planner, “Surely we’ll be done with this!” multiple times throughout the year. (How that alone did not ultimately change the trajectory of the pandemic, I do not know.) I do have a New Years Resolution, but I’m aware more than ever that I can’t plan what 2021 has for me. Only God knows that, and I learned this year that despite my best efforts, I can’t engineer what only God can see.
 
This Sunday is traditionally “Epiphany Sunday,” while Epiphany itself is on January 6th and closes the Christmas season. At Epiphany, we hear of the Wise Men, who started out on an very ordinary journey to follow a star. They were professional star-gazers, after all, and this would have been just another week in a star-gazers life. But the journey was one of extraordinary transformation as they turned away from Herrod’s evil plans and “went another way” after meeting Jesus. Their encounter with Christ, relatively unnarrated, changed the way they saw the world. They were transformed without a ball drop, without an increase in their age, without a New Years resolution. Their decision reminds us of the biggest grace of our God, and the hope of this 2021:
 
Every day is a new opportunity for us to be transformed by the love of God.
 
Lamentations 3:22-23 says,
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
   his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
 
Great is God’s faithfulness, no matter the date on our calendar. We made it. Happy New Year!
 
Peace,
Pastor Allee
Posted by Allee Willcox with

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