Becoming a Follower

Growing up, one of my favorite TV shows was Gilmore Girls. Set in a fictional small town, the story about a single mom and her daughter appealed to me in many ways, as a daughter of a single mom who lived in a slightly-larger small town. In some respects, the show is good and doesn’t age well in others, but is one of my favorite “comfort watches” when I can’t find anything else on TV.

The chorus of the introductory song of the show is a famous song by Carol King,

“Where you lead, I will follow
Anywhere that you tell me to
If you need, you need me to be with you
I will follow where you lead.”

This affectionate statement is meant to remind us that the center of the story is a relationship between a mother and daughter that would go to the ends of the Earth to care for one another. It reminds me that love, in its best forms, is about leading and following, give and take, and faithfulness. This, of course, is something many of you know from your many years of marriage! (Can’t help but have that on the brain this week!)

This weekend, we’ll begin a new, longer-range sermon series called “Follow Me.” We’ve set a theme for the first part of the year 2022 as we as a church seek to follow Jesus in every aspect of our lives. To begin the year, we’ll be journeying through the Gospel of Luke and the stories of Jesus’s ministry to see and learn where God leads us in the example of Jesus.

Through our connection with the church, we have all in some way agreed to pay attention to the actions of Jesus. Something is compelling about the Savior we meet in the Gospels, and for many of us, we have gone beyond just curiosity. We have agreed to follow Jesus with our lives, love him, and let him lead us to the ends of the Earth for his Kingdom. Some days are beautiful, but lots of days are hard. Through our sanctification (a big word in the United Methodist movement that means the ongoing transformation process as we follow Jesus), we are invited to decide to follow Jesus every day, every moment, and sometimes every second!

We kick off our Follow Me series this week with Jesus’s declared purpose in Luke 4:14-21. It is beautiful, real, raw, and… challenging. Jesus states that his purpose is to relieve the pain presently and the real-life conditions people were living in. As Christians, we’ll hear how we, too, are called to the work of natural relief for our community– work that made folks want to send Jesus over a cliff. As we think about Martin Luther King Jr. on the anniversary of his birthday, we’ll remember others who heard Jesus’s mission, agreed to it and made great sacrifices for that mission.

What does it mean to follow Jesus as we love him? What does it mean to deepen our discipleship and our commitment to God, our church, and our community, in the name of extraordinary love?

Let’s find out together- see you Sunday!
Pastor Allee

The Precipice of Another Year

Happy New Year's Eve!

It is my earnest prayer for you that you have spent the past week of Christmas-tide reflecting, eating Christmas cookies and snacks to your heart's content, and enjoying the people and the things you love. The days feel fuzzy, the moments feel long and soft, and I hope you’re enjoying some true self and soul care in this pause.

This moment, as we stand on the precipice of another year, is always a moment for clear-headed reflection in my life. It inspires a taking stock, a “searching and fearless moral inventory,” of my year and my behavior. Sometimes, as I come out of my cookie-induced-coma, I am unhappily greeted with the sobering realization that I have not been whom I wanted to be, that I have not loved or lived in a manner that’s worthy of the leading of Jesus in my life. I am accosted by the number on the scale, the apology tour I must take, and the gap that stands between myself and the ideal. Luckily enough, the world joins me in this reflection. And, each New Year's Eve, we as a society toast with sparkling something and watch the ball drop and decide that we may be better again. New Year's Eve is an opportunity after a moment of extravagant indulgence to put ourselves on the right path and to re-engage with our discipleship, our health, and our relationships.

As we said on Christmas Eve, some of us did “declutter our Christmas,” but some of us just… didn’t. We may have tried, but found ourselves overwhelmed by the swell of Christmas obligation and emotion. The New Year again offers us an opportunity, though less religious, to reset our lives and to let Jesus be the Lord of them. I’m not sure what that means for you: more regular participation in worship, deepening devotional and scripture-reading practice, joining a class online or in person, re-engaging your children in Kid’s Ministry, or serving in a new way in the life of the church, but we at Suntree are committed to joining you and engaging the opportunity to be a people of Extraordinary Love.

This Sunday, we’ll hear the story of Epiphany as these ordinary, secular Wise Men are given the revelation of Jesus’s lordship. They follow the bright light of the star to encounter the light of Christ, and the politics, power, prestige stop mattering to them as they see this vulnerable babe in the manger. They see themselves, the gap in whom they’ve said they’ll be, and they go home a different way.

I hope as you re-emerge from the fuzziness of this in-between week, you’ll see your own opportunity to follow the light of Christ in your life. You are invited to join us as we seek to love our neighbors and our world well in this new year. In that, I hope that you, too, feel the extraordinary power of Emmanuel, God with us, at work in you, too.

See you Sunday,
Allee Willcox