Pastoral Ponderings–New Wineskins? 

Pastoral Ponderings–New Wineskins?  

I recently walked into a Veterans organization to ask a few questions—and for an organization that, like many churches, has long been having a decline in seeing newer, younger faces (and in that context, mine is still a younger face!), you would think they would be eager to see and welcome a stranger stopping by.  But it felt much more like an almost hostile environment, as if I was invading some secret ritual (like drinking at a bar??).

Contrast that experience to what I heard of from our currently running United Methodist General Conference dealing with several very contentious decisions.  One of our denomination’s leading pastors, who was giving video updates of the proceedings, said “This Conference is different, it’s special, there’s such a sense of joy and hope” filling the air of the 800 some delegates from around the world—in contrast to the past 8 such conferences he had been a part of across almost 40 years.  Our Bishop’s brief message echoes that same sense.

Among other things, he was reporting last night that a legislative committee’s much-anticipated work pertaining to LGBTQ issues would be going to the full vote this morning that could reverse the past fifty years of restrictive language pertaining to many of God’s children.  He pointed out with his collection of Methodist “Disciplines” (the book containing official UM rules and policy) going all the way back to 1808–spanning more than 150 years of dramatic growth in the denomination–that our Methodist policies never had any restrictive language about gender issues until 1972.  It was in that year that our United Methodist policies changed to include restrictive language pertaining to gender issues—which also roughly corresponds to when the denomination (along with many others) started showing significant and consistent patterns of decline.

The first part of that official vote happened this morning, with some 93% of delegates from around the world in favor of removing restrictions on ordination, and allowing for (though not requiring of any church nor pastor) marriage and full inclusion of church members identifying as being in the LGBTQ+ world.

Many of us, including Karol and I, know, love, and care deeply for persons and family members falling under this umbrella—have you ever thought of these loved ones as less loved by God?  I doubt it!  Please remind ALL of God’s children, that we are ALL welcome at Christ’s table, and welcome to fully be a part of the life of our churches.

Keep being a blessing to all God’s family—Pastor Jim

Bishop Malone’s less than 4 minute update– https://vimeo.com/941746069

UM News article with more detail– https://www.umnews.org/en/news/40-year-ban-on-gay-clergy-struck-down

 

Pastoral Ponderings—1860

Pastoral Ponderings—1860 

In my little bits of down time here and there, what I’ve been doing “for fun” these days is exploring the history of our old farmhouse, starting with being an amateur archaeologist looking at old nails and construction techniques (if hand hewn timber and wood-peg construction doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what would!), and now exploring historical records.  I was thrilled just recently to find a federal census map of the area showing our house—official documentation of its being here at least as early as 1860!

Some of you reading this will readily recognize how exciting that is, while others of you are scratching your heads and wondering, “so what?”  As I recognize that some of you wonder about my excitement, it leads me to ask the same question of myself, of why this might be important to me.  Odd, isn’t it, to get excited about someone else’s history?

Throughout the New Testament, the scriptures proclaim in several ways that as we come to Christ, we become adopted into becoming children of God and “heirs according to the promise”.  That we have become children of God is foundational to my faith, but that part about “heirs,” or more so, being adopted in as “joint heirs” with Christ kind of went over my head.  But now being entrusted with this piece of history in our 19th c. farmhouse, I feel I have become a “joint heir” with the McCorkle family who started building this farm almost 200 years ago, bringing me into a better understanding of these scriptures about being adopted into the family of God.

A pastor I worked years ago was telling me about his love for his son, despite the son’s well-deserved time in prison—STILL loving the son, despite what he had done, because he was his son.  As we have been adopted into God’s family, we are still beloved, despite the messes we’ve made of our lives, and as “heirs of the promise” of God’s transforming power, that history we have with God is foundational to who we are.

Our history matters!  And if it takes being made joint heirs with the McCorkles in this farm to remind me of the importance of being joint heirs with Christ, then maybe my love of history is paying off!  What makes it real to you—or what MIGHT make it real to you to know deep down into the history of your soul, that YOU are truly beloved as a joint heir with Jesus, as a true child of God, of all the promises of God’s transforming love that He has to offer?

Exploring what it means to be such an heir—Pastor Jim

Swamps and Kintsugi 

Pastoral Ponderings—Swamps and Kintsugi 

Part of our relaxation this week in Williamsburg has been geocaching along some of the trails we’ve been hiking.  I’ve not usually thought much about swamps when Colonial Williamsburg has come to mind, but I found out that though Jamestown just down the road, part of “Virginia’s Historic Triangle,” though the first permanent English settlement, was not destined to greatness due to its being nestled in a swampy area.

Though I grew up in FL with the TV series “Flipper” set in the Everglades ever in the back of my mind, I’ve always thought of swamps more as places of decay and mess that I’d rather avoid.  Yet it turns out that swamps are not only one of the most abundant biomes around, that it is a place of decay also means it is a place of abundant renewal of life, that I didn’t really realize until walking along these swampy trails, hearing the abundance of birdsong, and passing a group of excited birders with their cameras and binoculars eager to gab about their many avian sightings.

And in God’s ever amazing providence, I also stumbled this week across an art form I’d heard about long ago, but that I never took notice of, but that is now fascinating me, which goes along with swamps and renewal (at least in my twisted mind), a Japanese art form known as kintsugi.  Kintsugi is the art of mending broken pottery, or the art of creating beauty out of brokenness.  It is also built on a philosophy of accepting what is, and has been a part of finding or even creating beauty again after loss and grief.

You will likely hear more of these intertwining themes from me in the coming months, as these kind of “God-sighting” inspirations tend to bleed over into what I do.  Makes me want to ask the question, where do we find places of decay in our lives that we just want to turn our backs on, rather that seeking to create beauty out of the places of brokenness?  Or why do we find these kinds of places in our lives leading us to question God, rather than seeing God’s wisdom, as a golden thread throughout the Bible, just like the golden threads in kintsugi, showing us that God’s grace is sufficient for us, that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness?

I’m betting we all have these places of brokenness in our lives.  Can we be open to the new thing God might be doing in our lives to help us create beauty in these broken places?

Doing God’s art together- Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings— It’s Raining Again… 

Pastoral Ponderings— It’s Raining Again… 

“It’s raining again…”—that’s all I remember of that old song that keeps floating through my head on the abundant puddles from our incessant rain, though I’d rather the more positive “Singin’ in the rain…” be what I’m focusing on.  I’ve written about rain and dreary drizzles before—it does seem to be a common theme around here this time of year– and even though our El Nino winter forecasts “warmer” prediction held true, the concurrent “drier” part of that same forecast did not hold water this year, if you will pardon the pun (or not!).

It’s too early in the year for me to focus on the joy of rain bringing new life to my garden, but as I woke up this morning with the sound of rain drops and my septic tank alarm continuing to beep for hours on end for too much water, a different thought sprung to my soggy brain—exoplanets.  That’s planets outside our solar system, but more specifically, the ultimate importance of the need for this same liquid water endlessly falling on us, as one of the essential preconditions for any “life as we know it” to exist on any cosmic body (yes, I have strange thoughts in the mornings…).

As much as we complain about rain, it is essential to our lives in so many ways.  We don’t tend to appreciate its importance, though, until we get too dry and drought conditions set in.  Even the ancients who heard God’s voice to describe creation, in the very first thought of the Bible, told of the existence of water before anything else—“1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.” (Gen. 1: 1-2)

And yet we complain.  How’s that for appreciation (says I, in a voice dripping like the rain with sarcasm)?  Why is it so much easier to complain than to show appreciation for the wonderous intricacy of God’s plan and creative engineering?  That water can be liquid, and thereby able to be a fabulous solvent essential for the foundational processes of life, that it can coexist in all three of its forms in the same environment (solid, liquid gas—haven’t you heard how alarming it is when glaciers are melting?), that it expands in solid form, unlike most things that condense in solid form—also necessary for NOT having totally frozen oceans—are all essential facets of God’s creative genius allowing for life, is nothing less than awesome.

How many other of God’s wonderous miracles and amazing grace come in hidden forms like the rain that we so often complain about?  Maybe we should take some time to go out “Singin’ in the rain” about God’s often hidden, but amazing grace, to remind us how important it is to appreciate how great is our God.

Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings— One drip at a Time…

Pastoral Ponderings— One drip at a Time…

Maple tapping like I was talking about last week, is a brief, intense time of year at the end of winter for that short time that conditions are just right, where everything happens right on top of each other.  This is year two of our maple tapping experiment, and we’re thoroughly enjoying the lessons we’re learning about tapping trees, the sweet end result, as well as the way the tasks associated with tapping push us to slow down and get out into God’s great world.

The other day when I was out collecting what is likely the last sap for the season from some of our trees, I got to thinking that if Jesus would have had maple trees in His neighborhood, He just might have had a parable or two based on tapping or making syrup.  The parable oozing out at me today had to do with the collecting process.

To collect the good stuff, as I mentioned last time, first you’ve got to tap into the right kind of trees.  As much as I love our walnut and oak trees, you’re not gonna get much maple sap out of those trees no matter how many taps you put in!  And secondly, even when you do tap into the right trees, it is still an art of quiet patience.  Too often we wait for the big and dramatic to be a sign of God’s voice—but just like with God’s “still, small voice,” there’s also nothing big, loud or dramatic about making syrup.  The sap you collect is just a small bit at a time that, if you’re patient and keep your taps in, the little drips eventually build up to enough to make for quite the blessing.

How often are we too impatient to just wait for the sweet stuff that God has to share and bless us with? Or, we only see a little drip of blessings, and that little bit leads us to think it not much of a blessing after all, or not enough to make it worthwhile to wait for more?  Be thankful every time your mouth is watering for real maple syrup that somebody out there cultivated the patience and trust that those little drips would eventually add up in big and tasty ways!

The assurance that little drips of blessings build up to so much more of God’s sweet grace for those who practice the art of quiet patience, these are wonderful clues from the maple trees to how God works to bring the Good Stuff into our lives.  Sure, sometimes God works in dramatic, glorious ways, but count the number of times we see that happening in the Bible as compared to the number of years of God’s quiet, small drips of blessings, and you might be surprised!  And if we’re called to be Christlike, might this be a clue, too, that the blessings we share with others might more often be shared in small doses?

Keep being a blessing—one drip at a time!  Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings— Sweet Journey

Pastoral Ponderings— Sweet Journey

Thanks to Rick Burt and that great big maple boiling pan, we were able to get most of our maple sap boiled down all in one day this past Saturday!  This is only our second year on our maple syrup tapping adventure, so we’re learning more each time, refining our processes each step of the way.  I’m pondering today how the various steps in making maple syrup might show us a little more about different facets of our life of discipleship.

First off, it’s amazingly simple, yet it takes almost constant attention, from first identifying the right trees to canning the final product.  Our life of discipleship is the same way—once we’ve identified that Jesus is the right one to tap into for the Sweet Life, a life of Discipleship is a life of intentionality every step of the way as we simply love God and love our neighbors.  The sap is free to whomever taps in—but you don’t get the Good Stuff by just standing around and looking at the trees!  So the next step in tapping after identifying the right trees, is to drill holes in the trees and insert the taps to get to the Good Stuff.  Likewise, you can’t get to the Good Stuff with Jesus by just looking at Him—you need to tap into Him in order to “abide in” Jesus and remain in that vine.

The blessings then start to flow!  But not always—the conditions need to be right—below freezing overnight, getting into the 40’s in the daytime. Like the dynamics of the weather required for the sap to flow, our tapping into Jesus is also a dynamic source of flowing blessings, when we stay in the right environment.

The sap then needs to be boiled down—refined by fire.  The Good Stuff is already in the sap, but it is not fully released except through that refining by fire.  Part of our faith journey, too, involves being refined by fire, by hard testing, because while the Good Stuff of the transforming grace of Jesus is already there, the testing brings out the sweet transformation of our Journey with Jesus.

So next time you pour some syrup on your pancakes or whatever, use the syrup as a reminder of how we grow in our faith—simple, yet an on-going, intentional journey.  And then we can enjoy the Sweet Life of abiding in Jesus through it all!

Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings—Bright Spots

Pastoral Ponderings—Bright Spots

“Preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other” in some version or other is a way of understanding our role in the world, variously attributed to Bible great and not so great thinkers.  But the news can be so depressing!  Whether from a newspaper or other news sources—yet the Gospel calls us to be “in the world but not of the world”—not really a quote from the Bible, but a paraphrase of a lot of Jesus ideas.

But Jesus ideas can be twisted—so be careful here!  I just ran across a deeply thoughtful blog dealing with this “quote,” (see link below- well worth your read!) pointing out how a lot of churchy people have created a “Christian bubble culture,” as a way to protect themselves from being infected by the sin of the world.  But this bubble culture effectively takes those who might think themselves Jesus people OUT of the “the world,” in directly opposite direction of what Jesus intended!

The world needs more bright spots, and as this blog pointed out, JESUS started praying for us a long time ago to protects us from “the world,” and if JESUS Himself is praying for us, we’ve got some good protection!  NOT that we’re immune from temptation (but that’s another story!)—but God put us IN this world to be agents of God’s grace and change—something we can’t do from a protected bubble.

Parents often tell kids when they head out the door something like “take care/be safe.”  But seeing how God sent His son out “into the world,” with what lay ahead for Jesus, I don’t think those could have been the Father’s words to Jesus—there’s no “be safe” in Jesus’ life!  Maybe more along the lines of “Go forth and do Great Things”—but that’s rarely safe!

Following the light is not always a direct path, so please forgive my ramblings as I’m trying to find bright spots today.  As our world and news too often shows us, things can be pretty depressing these days!  We all—and everyone outside our “bubble”—need bright spots, lights in the darkness.  And isn’t that what Jesus calls us to do, to “let your little light shine” while we are IN the world!

Shine on- Pastor Jim

(check out the blog mentioned above– https://medium.com/@aaronmchidester/the-bible-does-not-say-to-be-in-the-world-but-not-of-it-ca582fd0d42c )

Pastoral Ponderings- Bloom where you’re Planted

Pastoral Ponderings- Bloom where you’re Planted

I was visiting with one of our church’s angels at the rehab center, where, among other things, she said that between hospital and rehab stays, she’s not been home since the day after Christmas.  If anybody could complain, it might be her, and while she did say she’s eager to get home, she didn’t dwell on that eagerness to leave.  What came up in our conversation much more were the people taking care of her that she’s been able to share God’s blessings with, either from her bed, her wheelchair, or sometimes even while on foot carefully walking around the facility to build up her strength again.

SHE is the one trying to get back in good enough shape to go home, yet she is also the one sharing God’s blessing with those around her!  What a gal!  Would that we could all have that kind of spirit!  As that well-known passage in Ecclesiastes reminds us, there’s a time for everything under the sun, but neither does that text say nor imply that there’s NOT a time to be a blessing for others!  More like regardless of whatever time you’re going through, it’s always a time to be a blessing.  Even in the hospital or in rehab.

So what about the rest of us who are NOT down and out these days—how is it that we would rather play the “poor little ol’ me” game, despite our countless blessings, than use the time God has given us, wherever we find ourselves, to bless others?  Think about it—who was the last person that you found a way to bless today—or was it last week, last month, or further back?  If that little angel can do it day after day from a hospital bed or rehab center, why can’t we, as we interact with others every day?

Our little angel is a great demonstration of the old cliché to “bloom where you’re planted” in a spiritual way, and a great reminder that we can all find ways to bless others wherever we find ourselves.  Perhaps it’s like the God Sightings we talk about at church—it’s not like there’s a shortage of ways God is working in and through our lives every day, it’s more a problem of noticing.  LOOK FOR how God is working every day around you, and it’s then easier to notice as well, ways small and large, for how we can be God’s hands, feet, smiling lips and loving heart for those around us—not JUST on special occasions, but every day.

Keep being a blessing—wherever you’re planted!  Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings—Ice and Discipleship

Pastoral Ponderings—Ice and Discipleship

I’m so glad we didn’t have the freezing rain last night that was expected! I don’t mind the cold that much, and love the snow, and if the ice could just stay in the trees, in pretty icicles, or in my glass, I could be fine with ice, too, but I’m not so excited about ice on the roads or sidewalks!  Even though the prediction for freezing rain did not come to pass, one of the good things about ice is generally how predictable it is.

Nothing fancy there—when it gets cold enough, it freezes, when it warms up, it melts.  We sometimes have that narrow range like last night, when, if conditions are just so, as was likely, we’d get ice, unless it doesn’t turn out that way.  But we generally we don’t live in that narrow range, so when it’s cold enough, it freezes, then it melts when it gets warm.

You might think I’m a little off when I put ice and discipleship together like this, but Christian discipleship, too, is generally pretty predictable— if you follow the formula, you get discipleship: pray, read scripture, love God, love people, make other Jesus people your close circle of influence, and you grow in your discipleship.  Sure, there’s always the exceptional circumstances where the “formula” doesn’t work as expected, but like our predicted freezing rain that didn’t happen, that gray area of variability is pretty small. And since we don’t live the gray area that much, the formula almost always works: do this, this and this, and your grow in your faith.

It’s pretty predictable.  So why do we try to live in the gray and explain away why we’re not growing in our Jesus walk?  The Jesus life also tends to be contagious—not all the time, but very often–just live Jesus, and invite others to join the party, and we see results.

Keep on praying, keep on listening for the voice of God through the scriptures, keep on loving, and when you grow in your discipleship enough to glow—to let your little light shine—invite others to the party!  Or to put it another way, remember the way Jesus put it as we read and talked about on Sunday—“Abide in my love… so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15: 10-11)

Living in the Light—Pastor Jim

Pastoral Ponderings—“Welcome Home”

Pastoral Ponderings—“Welcome Home”- Jan. 17, 2024

We heard the greeting “Welcome home!” countless times in I couldn’t tell you how many different settings when we were at Disney this past week.  Sounds like it must be one of their new things these days.  Despite the fact the I know it must be some kind of marketing ploy, it’s still a powerful phrase that resonates on multiple levels.  But how can you call Disney “home” so that the greeting can in any way make sense, when none of us really live there?  Yet the term still fits in wonderful ways.

The Disney/Pixar movie “Inside Out” talks about “core memories”– those memories that stay with us, and somehow help shape us– to the extent that one of the Disney shirts I saw many times walking around the parks read “This is a Core Memory Day.”  Disney’s movies, and the whole idea of their “Magic Kingdom” that is such a draw for many of us, leads me to want to describe our trips there more as a pilgrimage than a vacation. For many, facets of Disney form huge chunks of the fabric of our lives.  So maybe “welcome home” fits.  At least it does for us, and it certainly has a positive, powerful feel to it.

It takes getting away like this to our Disney “home” to realize that maybe the same is true for the church, and the Kingdom of God that Jesus talks about.  Is it too bold to say that I think Disney in some ways tries to emulate the welcoming grace of the Kingdom of God with their claim to be “most magical place on earth?”  Maybe we could re-evaluate how we think of and how we do church, that it might do us as well as it does Disney, to use the phrase in the same way for our guests, greeting them as well with a warm “welcome home!”

One of my Army buddies in the Cincinnati area is considering starting a church that doesn’t really fit the mold.  He’s toying with ways to describe what he’d like to start, and offered this starting point– “if you are into Jesus, into loving others… a bit more open and a bit less judgmental, let’s talk.”  In our contentious, broken and often offensive world today, shouldn’t a place that feels warm and welcoming, rather than abrasive and divisive, have a wonderfully attractive sense of “home” that we so often yearn for?  I’m SO proud to say that our church family (in all three locations!) DOES exude that kind of welcoming  warmth.

So we are blessed to be able to bring God’s kind of magic into our communities, and can honestly say to those who are lost, hurt, searching, the least, the last, the lost—“welcome home.”  I hope you can feel that reality too, so that you, too, can be comfortable and excited about welcoming others into the warmth of God’s grace in our places of worship.  Keep up the good work, and keep sharing the fantasmic blessing of God’s family that Jesus has welcome us into, and welcomes others into as well! —Pastor Jim