Fairly often during my weekday work, I am surprised to find someone else in the church, tinkering with something that needs a little work, or preparing something for the coming Sunday, or just doing a little cleaning or some extra yard work.  None of them, I think, would like to be named, but I’d like to say here how much I and the church appreciate the work that you do, and how much better the church can minister because this work is done.  Thank you! 

It’s often the things that happen in the background that oil the more visible gears, and the time and gifts quietly given that make things happen.  Craig addressed two more “background” items for us this past Sunday, and I’d like to take note of them here in the newsletter, too.

We’ve all had a year to get to know one another, and I’d like to say that I’m very grateful that I am appointed at McKnight again this year.  You are a faithful people, caring for each other and for me and my family, and looking outward to see what good you as a church can do in the world. 

Thinking about what McKnight can do, I’d like to know what causes are important to you.  Would you like to help a school, or fund some music lessons?  Or is there a medical mission that matters to you?  These are only a few ideas—there are many ways that churches can contribute, and many worthy causes to contribute to.  Some churches raise funds to pay off medical debt; others help with local food needs. 

Greetings from my vacation! Lucy and I took a trip to Louisville to visit my aunt and see some sights, and then when my older kids came home we all took a trip to Niagara Falls, which none of my kids had seen before. We even did the Maid of the Mist. We were skeptical of the cost—was it really worth it?—but oh, my! It was awesome. Literally. One of those moments that readjusts your sense of yourself in all of the awesomeness that is God’s creation.

Greetings to all, from the end of Annual Conference!

I have been in Erie most of this week, taking care of my responsibilities in legislative action but also in our larger community life as a United Methodist Conference—and I was also commissioned as a Prospective Elder!  As I told a colleague after, it was really important to me and a significant step in my journey to ordination, but I didn’t expect to feel it quite so deeply.  I am so very grateful that, by the grace of God, I have made it this far!

And I delighted to confirm what most of you already know:  that I will be staying at McKnight again this year.  I am very happy to continue to work with you, and to add Epworth in Allison Park to my charge. 

While Pastor Becky is away at Annual Conference this weekend, Becka Abbott will be leading us in worship. Please give her a warm welcome! Click below to read Becka’s bio.

There’s that one moment in our worship service every week where we “pass the peace.”  Often, we feel a little awkward—why are we saying “hello” in the middle of the service?  I thought I’d use this week’s letter to talk a little about why we still have that moment—why, even though it’s sometimes awkward, we keep it a part of the service. 

Summer greetings!

This coming Sunday we celebrate Peace with Justice Sunday.  It’s our Methodist acknowledgment that suppression of or lack of violence is insufficient to be called peace—and that that approach is likely also ineffective. 

Peace with Justice Sunday is when we ask ourselves how can we expect peace in the world when so much injustice remains.

We’re easing into summer now.  Preschool graduations were yesterday, and the families of about 65 young graduates gathered in lawn chairs in the church parking lot to celebrate their little ones’ growth and achievement with much love and enthusiasm.  The preschool staff organized and celebrated all of their many milestones, and showcased each of the students in song or reading or number games—it was an impressive group!  And thanks to an anonymous donation, on behalf of the church I was able to give small plaques to each young graduate as they received their diplomas.  The plaques were inscribed with the famous words of John Wesley: 

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

This coming Sunday is both Heritage Sunday and, appropriately, the day we’ve chosen to celebrate Kathie Chavka as she moves toward retirement.  

Heritage Sunday is the day we remember the church as it came before us, both as United Methodists and as Christians generally.  We are preceded and supported by the love, prayer, and work of many Christians throughout the ages, and we have so much to be thankful for.  Christians before us and all around us have persisted in difficult times, have found ways to understand the Word of God in their own contexts, and have served their communities.  We know that the church has also made mistakes, but we trust that God keeps an eye on us, nudging us into better directions and shaping us as we grow and learn. 

Like many of you, I start my mornings with prayer and some kind of reading about God.  This morning my reading was a little abstract:  it was an excerpt from the World Council of Churches’ statement on Faith and Order, in the introduction of which I found this, about “the calling of the whole people of God”: 

How, according to the will of God and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the life of the church to be understood and ordered, so that the Gospel may be spread and the community built up in love? 

Welcome Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Sterling

I’ve heard from a few of you recently about the need for refreshment—that life just feels too compressed, that it isn’t giving enough back right now.  I think a lot of us are feeling that way in this season.  Getting “back to normal” didn’t fix everything it was supposed to fix—or maybe things weren’t quite as good “before” as we want to think they were.  In any case, we’re left wanting.  Literally:  we want something, even if we’re not sure what it is. 

Easter greetings!  I know that by the secular calendar, Easter is over, but as a church we celebrate Easter and all that it means for a few more weeks. 

It was delightful to see the sanctuary full on Easter Sunday, and to meet some of you who have been away or have been worshiping remotely—I look forward to seeing you more in the future!  And it was equally lovely to meet some extended family, and to know that so many of you get to see loved ones on a day so important to your faith and so close to your hearts. 

This week I’ve been working on a summary of the mission and disaster work that we as a congregation have done over the past year, and I thought you might like to see what we’ve been up to. 

1.       We continue to contribute $1000 and about 10 bags of groceries to the NCHO each month. 

2.       We collect and donate medical equipment for Global Links. 

3.       We collect and donate used glasses for the Lions’ Club.

4.       We collect and donate household, laundry, and personal hygiene items for Crisis Center North.

5.       We collect and donate clothes and other items for the North Side Feeding Program.

6.       We (and the M&Ms in particular) have done several short term projects, including blankets for the homeless, cleaning items for flood buckets for the Mission Barn, and contributions for medical bills for a congregation member. 

7.       We have our yet-to-be-counted Lenten Coin Collection, all of which will be donated to pay down the mortgage of the the new Mission Barn location.  Speaking of which, if you forgot to bring your coins on Easter, as I did, please bring them this Sunday so we can tally them all together and share the good work!

But let’s resist our impulse to skip to Easter morning, to “brightside” everything.  In seeing what actually took place before that morning, there is, for some of us, something deeply reassuring in knowing that Jesus, too, faced painful and difficult things.  That Jesus knew how dark life could be, and that his resolve and his willingness to share even in the depths of our lives affirms in itself just how beloved we are. 

And as I was reminded this week, there is something deeply important about the act of bearing witness.  I was in conversation with a woman whose work concerns end-of-life issues for cancer and ALS patients.  She cannot “fix” their situations, but she can be with them—bear witness to the realities of their lives.  So let us bear witness to these final days of Jesus, honoring the work that Jesus does, even to the crucifixion.  Easter will come, but first we have this week. 

I invite you to our Good Friday service, if you can make it—in it, we will bear witness.  And then, after the quiet of Saturday, we’ll celebrate the resurrection on Easter morning.  I’ll see you in church—

Becky

Prayer

Gracious God, we thank you

For a love so deep and true that you refused to isolate yourself from our pain.

You stand with us,

Showing us that you know what it is to feel pain,

            physically, emotionally, and even socially.

You seek us even when we turn away from you,

Even when we are the ones who hurt you. 

We are grateful for your love

            and for your persistence.

Enable our ability to respond to you.

Form us in ways that enable us to see you as you should be seen.

Teach us how to live in that awareness

            and to return your love wholeheartedly,

And to share it with the world.  Amen. 

Within Christianity as well as Judaism, the Psalms have always had a special place—as you can see simply from those little palm-sized books of scripture that get handed out sometimes, and typically include the New Testament and the Psalms.  In the Roman Catholic tradition, the Benedictines incorporate the Psalms in their worship such that they recite every Psalm every single month. 

I’ve been thinking this week about how there’s still so much anger, and even bitterness, about how things “turned out” after the most difficult part of the pandemic—both inside and outside of churches.  About losses, and change, and shifting ground. 

I see the grief behind that anger, and some wishing for things to be “the way they were.”  And I get it.  I liked that we had a little more confidence back then, more of a sense that we could control the way things turned out.  We still have a voice, of course, and an ability to act, but we’re more aware now that even in a culture in which we can push buttons to make some things happen, there are still many things that are not under our control. 

I love to watch British TV shows, especially British mysteries.  Father Brown, Death in Paradise, the old Miss Marple series—I love them all.  I think I like them because they look at real human troubles, not all of which can be solved but many of which can still be addressed.  However messy the story gets, the detective still maintains that some things are worth doing, or worth responding to.  Some standards matter, even in the mess of life. 

One of my professors at seminary was the Rev. Dr. Steven Tuell, who is now retired but still writes about the Old Testament, or, as he preferred to say, the Hebrew Bible.  He happened to post some commentary recently about one of this week’s Bible passages, Genesis 12:1-4a, in which God sends Abram to what we later learn is Israel.  It’s the beginning of that whole set of stories in which God chooses a people, starting with Abram and his family.  Dr. Tuell writes:

 “It is tempting for us, with the benefit of biblical hindsight, to think that this passage marks the beginning of Abram’s singular, goal-oriented pursuit of God’s promises: that he would find a homeland, become prosperous, and have many children. But our text cannot support such a reading.

I recently read an article which called patience “a long obedience in the same direction.”  The author, Samuel Wells, wants to remind us that patience doesn’t necessarily mean just waiting, passively and inactively.  This is especially important for our Christian lives:  we know the world is not yet right, that sin continues, that wars are happening, that grief affects all of us at some point.  We, as Christians, are waiting for better things, and we trust that they are coming. 

But we don’t wait passively.  We continue to pray, and to act, and to love.