Wonderings--April 20

I wonder if we choose to praise God enough? 

This morning I finally returned to Palmetto Rehab for another dose of therapy on my right knee. For 45 minutes my therapist had me bend, stretch, extend, lift, and work the muscles in my knee in an attempt to strengthen them and increase my range of motion. 

As normally happens, the appointment went well. I worked hard and am a bit sore as I sit and write to you. . . It was a good experience and I was thankful for it. I know that I have some distance still to travel as I heal. But throughout the entire appointment my mind went back to the 'check-in' process. I would like to share it with you this morning.  

As I told the woman working the front desk that I was here, she asked how my Easter was. (She knows I am a pastor). I told her things at Bethesda went so well. I was so thankful for how God was with us and how full the church was with love and family throughout the day. But I said, "I am still a bit tired from the weekend."

I then told her that it was a long weekend because Jennifer and I went to a Christian concert in Charlotte on Saturday. She asked who we saw. . . I said, For King and Country. Frankly, I didn't expect any responses besides a polite one from the receptionist. I am happy to say that I was wrong on this one. 

For the next 10 minutes we talked about Christian music and how it shaped her walk with God. She asked if I knew about certain bands and I did. She asked about others... I knew them too. Those 10 minutes became a time where she could, and did, talk about how, through music, God ministered to her heart at the passing of her father. I listened as she narrated her story through grief and toward healing with God by her side. 

Not surprisingly, the door to the PT gym did not open at all as we talked. I believe that God wanted this woman and I to talk about how the music of TobyMac, Red, and P.O.D. helped shape her life and how she knew that God was with her. 

I smiled as eventually my therapist came and got me, but for those 10 minutes God showed up. 

Looking back, the conversation didn't feel especially holy. Instead, as we talked in the lobby I knew that it was just a chat. But this 'chat' brought a smile to my face--which returns me to my initial question: how often do we choose to praise God? 

Again nothing transformational happened as we talked, but now as I sit here at my desk, I can say that God showed up. And I know that He has a habit of walking into the room when we least expect it. Maybe those unexpected moments are a needed chance to offer Him a word of thanks and praise? Maybe today was just a little blessing that warmed my heart a bit? 

Walking into the gym it was business as usual--sorta. As I warmed up on the stationary bike, I smiled as I remembered the songs we talked about in the lobby. The encounter stayed with me as I left and started the truck and headed to the office. I even put on one of the bands we talked about. 

I wonder if we could choose to praise God more often? 

Blessings

Rev. Derek

Wonderings--April 19

One of the hardest things to consider and contemplate upon is the church following Resurrection Sunday. After Easter we begin to wonder: now what?  

For six weeks we have been preparing, praying, and anticipating the joyful worship services that we will participate in on Resurrection Sunday. Breakfasts are planned. Music rehearsed and fine-tuned. Flowers purchased and arranged in the worship space and out front of the church. Worship Committees, in union with their pastors, have planned and prayed through worship practices for Holy Week. We have hoped that everything we planned is done so in accordance with God's will. 

Everything is as ready as possible. . . . 

At Bethesda, we gathered in the gray fog to begin worshipping the resurrected Messiah at 7am on Easter morning. As families placed their flowers on the cross in front of the church, we could feel the spiritual anticipation building. There was a murmur in the congregation as we gathered. 

Then as quickly as the service began, and breakfast was served, we fell back into the realm of 'now what.' . . . 

After Easter, we are left thinking about the war in Ukraine that seems to tell us more and more horrible, tragic stories each day.  I sigh each time I open an article on-line about the war knowing that what I will read is tragic and painful and it feels unnecessary and downright evil. I know I will pray about it, but yet I still feel hopeless, and I look for God around me. 

After Easter, we are left thinking about rising gas prices and an increase in inflation. While we are ready for covid to finally become a distant memory, and mask to be put away. Yet that has not happened yet either. . . and I wonder if it ever will. I read about the midterm elections and we can feel the 'fight' growing around us by both parties as they grasp at power to further their agendas in Washington DC.  

After Easter, I wonder how are we going to re-engage the God who came from the Tomb for us? I wonder if we feel it is even possible to dwell with Him? 

With this in mind, I read the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as part of my morning devotions. At the conclusion of what I reading I found the following prayer that I now share with you. I imagine that after Easter you have felt the same pain, confusion, and questions rising in your heart. If so, perhaps this prayer can be something that you pray to our Lord: 

"Dear Child of God, it is often difficult for us to recognize the presence of God in our lives and in our world. In the clamor of the tragedy that fills the headlines we forget about the majesty that is present all around us. We feel vulnerable and often helpless. . . . But we are not helpless and with God’s love we are ultimately invincible. Our God does not forget those who are suffering and oppressed."

Archbishop Tutu's words are true and they should ring in our ear for I know each of us deals with these same concerns and fears. Yet we have God's love to lean back up. We have God's love to help us serve and live faithfully. Today I wonder if you could take some time and read and re-read that prayer. Maybe God will use it to help you as you consider what happens next after Easter. . .  

Blessings

Rev. Derek

Wonderings--April 14

Today is an important day in the life of Jesus' church. While we are happy to join together this evening for worship, there is in the air a sense of sadness present. We greet another in love and friendship at the door as we come into the worship space, yet we will leave with our heads down and our hearts heavy. Silence will replace normal conversation. Darkness instead of light. 

The sanctuary looks different today. Darker. The table will be covered in black tonight and the Word will be carried out of the worship space dramatically. One of my theological professors reminded me that the liturgical color for today is not purple or white (as it has been in throughout Lent). Today we are gray for the church has lost her hope--for now. 

We are a church who mourns because her bride, her hope, her savior and teacher, the one who called her by name, has been taken away, and for now, we do not know what we shall do. We do not know how to be. 

Certainly we know that in a few days we will sing that "Christ the Lord is Risen Today," but today let us not rush to those words. I wonder if you could just sit. . . just be? Think about that for a moment with me. . . just being. . . 

As I wrote those words 2 individuals came into the office here at the church. I needed to speak with both of them so I was glad to see them. We had some final plans to solidify for this weekend. Then my iPhone chirped to remind me to call my doctor for a refill for one of my medications associated with my knee. Next, I forgot to tell Pat about a change to the bulletin so that needed to be reconciled. . . . Just 'be,' huh, not likely. But God wonder if we could. 

From my perspective the most important part of Maundy Thursday is our willingness to witness to what is happening in the life of Jesus Christ. I know the story and you know it. We have taught it to our children and heard it preached many time in the pulpit. But today God wonders if we can just 'be' with the story and witness it? 

I encourage you to find some space, some time, a moment even, and dwell with God. Allow the power of what he is doing on this night to touch your soul, and as it does, ask him what you should do with that touch. . . 

Blessings

Rev. Derek

Wonderings--April 13

Like you I have read the Passion narrative many times in my Christian life; I have heard it read to me may more times. I have examined each of the four gospels as they speak about how Jesus died and rose again for us as the church. More than just examining each narrative, or hearing them read, over the years I have preached on each of the gospel's resurrection stories--and they all bless my heart and warm my soul. 

I never get tired of hearing how Jesus defeated death by choosing to be the perfect sin-sacrifice for humanity. Yet in that familiarity a temptation exists to skip portions of the story because we know it so well that we don't think it contains anything that can change us any longer. Like John 3:16, most of us can complete the resurrection story as it is read in worship this Sunday.

 And so I ask: what is left to wonder about on Easter morning? 

If we are so familiar with what Jesus did for us, then why read it each year? Why look for something that changes lives and remakes people when it feels stale and overworked? 

It is in that moment, as I am tempted to become frustrated and overwhelmed on Holy Week, it is at that moment when I remember an important detail-- an important choice that Jesus made. He surrendered to what was coming. . . I wonder what that might look like in your life today? 

Howard Thurman offers the church these words that I share with you today. He invites you and I, as we think on what he is saying, to surrender to God. He wonders with us if as we surrender to the Lord, do we allow what seems familiar the space that it needs to become transformational yet again? As we know this is the greatest story ever told. 

Thurman wrote:  

"I surrender myself to God without any conditions or reservations. I shall not bargain with [God]. I shall not make my surrender piecemeal but I shall lay bare the very center of me, that all of my very being shall be charged with the creative energy of God. Little by little, or vast area by vast area, my life must be transmuted in the life of God. As this happens, I come into the meaning of true freedom and the burdens that I seemed unable to bear are floated in the current of the life and love of God.

The central element in communion with God is the act of self-surrender."

Jesus self-surrendered for us. He gave up control for us. He allowed his mission and his purpose to overwhelm his humanity which we know was anxious and fearful. As did so, God the Father welcomed us back into perfect communion with Him forever and ever. All because of the simple act of surrender. 

Certainly something that dramatic isn't going to happen to us today if we surrender to God. But a miracle, a transformation, and renewal, will happen when we practice the self-surrender Howard speaks about. And as we practice this, I wonder, if the narrative will become live again? 

Blessings

Rev. Derek

Wonderings--April 11

Holy Week invites the church to examine, one last time before Easter as we think about the motives for why we lives and serves as we do. How do we practice our faithfulness? How do we reach out to our community? What is example from our Lord are we following. . .  

My theological teacher once said: "Discipleship begins with one realizes that what one must do is to do what Jesus did." As you can imagine I believe that he is absolutely correct in this assumption. So this morning as I think about what Jesus' did, and how He did it, I wonder if we can find a small little step that we can take as well. I am not talking about His suffering, that reflection comes later, but how did Jesus care and how did He live with other? 

Certainly Jesus did the work of atonement on the cross and that can never be minimized, but again notice how his choices, which were deliberate, helped create a posture of openness and caring when the rest of society did not adopt his choice often in their lives.

As a practical example, consider this story from the same author. . .  

"On one housing estate there was a large empty field, fenced off by the city council. Local residents had often asked to be able to use it for sport and recreation, but there was always civic reasons why this as not possible--most referring to the debris on the park and fears of litigation. One morning two local parents arranged for a group of children to clear the park of cans, bottles, and other litter. They made sure the newspapers were aware. They did not tear down the fences, but they carefully dismantled all [of] the local authority's reasons for keeping the fences up. Soon, soccer matches were being played on the field. The council seemed to be able to find sums of money for equipment after all. It became obvious that attempting to sell the park to a major retail developer would be disastrous. Those two parents began with a bottle clean-up. Within weeks they had a youth movement."

This story speaks to my heart about what is possible when we take a small amount of initiative and apply it to our faith and our service. I sit here this morning, at the start of Holy Week, wondering about the small, little thing that God has invited us to do with those around us. It may not be flashy or dynamic in itself, but if we are faithful, and if we follow Jesus' example, we might find a community transformed and remade.

Blessings,

Rev. Derek 

Wonderings--April 6

As the Body of Christ, I wonder, what do we truly desire? If God were to grant us an audience with the divine in heaven as we read about in the book of Job, what one thing would we as the church as God to grant us? 

Now we can skip all the secular answers, we might joke about them outside of church semi-seriously. Money, prestige, influence, power, fame. . . those are what most people look for in this life and world; they are also what most people would ask of God if God brought them to heaven and gave them their one true wish. 

Those answers and that posture do not interest me today, I am wondering about the deep thing that we would ask God for?

As I pray about it, and look through my Bible as part of my morning devotions, I think that I would ask God to help me tear down the walls of that I have created that separate me from my community. I would ask God to help me to change my heart and change my perspective so that as I work toward faithfulness, I might be able to build community and be present to care for those God places in my path each day. 

Henri Nouwen says it this way: 

"To make compassion the bottom line of life, to be open and vulnerable to others, to make community life the focus, and to let prayer be the breath of your life. . . that requires a willingness to tear down the countless walls that we have erected between ourselves and others in order to maintain our safe isolation. This is a lifelong and arduous spiritual battle because while tearing down walls with one hand, we build new one with the other." 

I am as guilty of this idea as anyone--and I suspect that you have some understanding about it as well. While affirming in church that we are the Body of Christ that seeks to "be with" others, does that practice take shape in our lives continually and consistently? 

I wonder if you'd join me in asking God to help you tear down those walls today so that you could serve Him faithfully? 

Blessings

Rev. Derek

Wonderings--April 5 . . . My installation at Bethesda

In the fall of 2002, with wife and young son JonMark supporting me, I began the work of pastoral ministry with a small rural church in Savannah, Ohio. Savannah Presbyterian church was a welcoming and aging congregation who welcomed my family and gave me space to learn to be a pastor. They pushed me and simultaneously offered me grace to fail and space to experiment. 

Before this calling I served as a youth pastor and Christian Education director--quite a difference from full pastoral ministry. Now as I began my work in the pulpit, I would be responsible for the spiritual life of a congregation. 

A lot has happened in my family's life since that first Sunday in Savannah as I anxiously preached a sermon about how to be the church. But with every church that I served there was a constant refrain or mantra that followed me into the pulpit. 

Sometimes these were words that were spoken by members of the church to each other. Other times they hid in the shadows of church work and life. At some points in ministry I have needed to remind God's children about the validity of them. . . I have always tried to share them as often as I can (albeit it in many different formulations through the year).

We are better together. . . 

They are simple words but carry a profound meaning and implication for the church of Jesus Christ. 

Interestingly this is also the primary lesson that covid-19 taught the church if we have the courage to listen and learn. If we were willing to move outside of our "holy huddles" and spend time listening to God's word, we found words of community building right before our eyes. They were, and they are, inescapable as we work to be faithful to our joint calling as Christians.

Now some churches today, some 2 years later, are still held back by their lived-experienced with covid. Anxiety and frustration still are primary driving factors for those church. They want to be faithful to God, they love the Lord, but yet are unable to take that final step toward faithfulness and affirm that we are "better together" rather than apart. 

But as I was installed this weekend at Bethesda I am happy to report that a sense of "better together," or as I would say, "being with" is prevalent and at work in this church family.  As I listened to the message which was tailored around the Philippians 2, I couldn't help but sense God's Spirit asking us the question: "Will be continue to be better together? Will we 'be with' our community?"

Stepping behind the communion table for the second time Sunday, with a knee that was shaky and weak, I heard the words of Institution reminding us of all that God, through Christ, did to "be with us." And so, I leave you with this 'wondering,' . . . I wonder if we are truly better together? And I wonder what it would look like to find space to 'be with' our community? 

Blessings (and enjoy the video of the installation if you choose),

Rev. Derek