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July 12, 2015
Romans 8:38-39
Invincible Love
There are times in the church family’s life when you have to change the
plans you have made. Today is such a day. When I revisited the text and
sermon I’d planned for this Sunday, I knew immediately that this side of the
heartbreaking news on Thursday of little Will Smithson’s death, we needed
to hear another word. I needed to hear another word.
But what word of the Lord would speak best into the terrible sense of loss
and hurt we all feel so deeply at the death of a child? I found myself
returning to what is for me, and I believe through the centuries for countless
others, a text that speaks most powerfully of the invincible love of God; the
passage we just read from Romans chapter 8.
“For I am convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus.” Nothing – nothing in heaven or earth; nothing in life or in
death.
One of the things we feel when a tragedy like this strikes us is
helplessness. One of our very basic instincts is to protect our children and
by that I mean all our children. Suddenly, we who are so good at so much
come face-to-face with the reality that much lies outside of our control. And
we feel helpless.
So to what can we turn, if not to the invincible love of God in Jesus Christ?
That term, the invincible love of God, is at the heart of our understanding of
who God is and what God has done in Jesus Christ. Invincible means
simply: too powerful to be defeated or overcome. Too powerful to be
defeated or overcome.
The only invincible love loose in the universe is God’s love; the only love
too powerful to be defeated or overcome. As fiercely as we love our
children, our love is not invincible. As devotedly as we love our children,
our love cannot protect them from life’s tragedies. Only God’s love is
invincible – too powerful to be defeated or overcome. When little Will
Smithson was baptized at five months of age, we claimed for him in his
baptism the invincible love of God given him in Jesus Christ. On the day of
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Will’s baptism we also made promises. We promised to love Will and to
nurture him in Jesus Christ. And we promised to support Mike and Susan
and big sister Mollie as they together raised Will.
Our stewardship of Will is now ended. Tomorrow we will gather as a family
of faith and entrust Will into God’s keeping. It is Mike and Susan and Mollie
who need their church family now more than they have ever needed us. I
have been moved by the overwhelming gestures of support, love, and care
that have overflowed from this church family. You have always been quick
to respond to the needs of those who have suffered loss. I’m grateful as
your pastor to see so many pitching in.
More than anything else (as is true in every loss experienced in our church
family) Mike and Susan and Molly need our love. They need our love
because through the love of Christ’s people they can know and feel the
invincible love of God. While our love may not be invincible, it can point the
way to the invincible love we know in Jesus Christ our Lord- that love which
will not ever let us go. And with our love they need our prayers.
A time like this is a time for faith – faith that points to and trusts in God’s
invincible love in Jesus Christ. It’s not the time for a lot of theologizing. But
one thing I do need to say.
The tragic death of a young child can never be called the will of God. The
God who meets us in Jesus Christ does not break a family’s heart in order
to achieve some mysterious, hidden purpose. We live in a fallen, imperfect
world – a world where even children may die tragically. With Paul in his
Letter to the Romans, we can affirm that God can bring good out of even
the most tragic circumstances. But the God and father of Jesus Christ does
not use means inconsistent with God’s love given us in Jesus Christ.
In a few minutes we will come together around the Lord’s Table. There we
are reminded once again that God sent God’s son into a world just as
complicated by tragedy as the world in which we live. God entered into
life’s brokenness and took that brokenness into God’s very life through
Jesus Christ our Lord, God’s own son.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39.)
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The invincible love of God – too powerful to be defeated or overcome. It is
the solid rock on which we stand. Amen
Claude Wilson-Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
July 12, 2015
June 21, 2015
Mark 4:35-41
Fear Itself
At the end of CS Lewis’s children’s classic, The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe, Lucy and her friend Mr. Tumnus are on the terrace of the
majestic castle, Car Parval. They look out and see the great lion, Aslan,
walking down the beach. Narnia has been freed from the White Witch.
Eternal winter has ended and spring has returned.
“He’s leaving,” says Lucy.
“He’ll come back when we need him,” says Mr. Tumnus.
“I wish he would stay,” says Lucy wistfully.
“Well, after all,” says Mr. Tumnus, “he’s not a tame lion.”
It’s no surprise CS Lewis chose a lion as the embodiment of divine power
and majesty when he wrote his children’s books. And not a tame lion by
any definition, but a lion that is both wonderful and terrible all at the same
time.
I thought of that scene from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, when I
read today’s passage from Mark’s gospel. Jesus suggests a night passage
across the Sea of Galilee; a storm whips up; the boat is in peril; the
disciples are terrified. Jesus is asleep on a cushion.
“Teacher,” they cry, “don’t you care that we are perishing?” Jesus awakes,
rebukes the storm, “Peace, be still!” The storm ceases at once; leaving the
disciples to wonder, “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him.”
It would appear that Jesus is no tame Messiah.
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Commenting on this passage, pastor Will Willimon says that there are two
types of fear in this story. The first he calls “Good Friday fear.” The
reference, of course, is to Jesus’ death on the cross on Good Friday. Good
Friday fear is the fear of death. It’s what the disciples feel when they think
the boat they are in is about to sink. It’s what we feel whenever we get a
bad report from the doctor; whenever a loved one is in harm’s way - that
fear that grips our hearts when we see the world as we know it slipping
away and we can do nothing to stop it.
But there’s another kind of fear in the story, as well. Will Willimon calls it
“Easter fear.” It’s there in the story when Jesus stills the storm and the
disciples wonder: “Who is this, that even the wind and the waves obey
him.” When they feared for their lives, they cried out: “Teacher, save us!”
But now Jesus seems so much more than just a teacher. Easter fear is the
fear the women who come to the empty tomb on Easter morning felt when
they realized even death could not hold Jesus and that from that moment
on their lives would be forever changed. And Easter fear is what we feel
every time we find ourselves in the boat with Jesus and it dawns on us that
he’s no tame Messiah. Like the women at the empty tomb we realize our
lives are going to be changed forever.
Good Friday fear and Easter fear.
Jesus releases the disciples from Good Friday fear when he calms the
storm, but then he asks them, “Why are you afraid? Have you so little
faith?” He asks because he sees that their hearts are now seized by Easter
fear. Fear of what Jesus may do with them.
And if we are honest, don’t all of us who follow Jesus feel that same
tension. We want Jesus to wake up and calm the storms in our lives; fix all
the Good Friday fears that confront us. But then that Easter fear seizes us.
What will Jesus do with us?
In The Silver Chair, another of his Narnia stories, CS Lewis captures that
tension between our Good Friday fear and our Easter fear. Jill Pole is taken
by magic into Narnia. Before too long she is very thirsty and goes
searching for water to drink. At last she comes upon a clear, flowing
stream. Writes CS Lewis:
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But although the sight of water made her feel ten times thirstier than
before, she didn’t rush forward to drink. She stood as still as though
she had been turned to stone, with her mouth wide open. And she
had a very good reason: just on this side of the stream lay the lion.
The lion, of course, is Aslan. Jill stands transfixed, unable to move toward
the water and unable to run away. After a long while the lion speaks: “If
you’re thirsty, you may drink.” Jill remembers that her friend Eustace had
told her that in Narnia it wasn’t unusual for animals to speak, yet she can
hardly move.
“Are you not thirsty?” asks the lion.
“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.
“Then drink,” said the lion.
“May I – could I – would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.
The sound of the clear, cool running water is driving Jill nearly frantic. She
tries to extract from the lion a promise he will not do anything to her if she
comes near the water, but he will make no such promise.
“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.
“Then you will die of thirst,” said the lion
“Oh dear,” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and
look for another stream then.”
“There is no other stream,” said the lion.
Jill wants the life-giving water, but she also wants the great lion to promise
he will not do anything to her.
We want Jesus to calm our storms, banish our Good Friday fears – give us
the very water of life itself. But we want him to go away while we drink, and
promise he will do nothing to us.
Gilbert Meilaender, University Professor, Valparaiso University, calls this
the reality principle. Jesus is the water of life. There is no other stream. But
we cannot drink that water and extract a promise from him to leave us
alone – to do nothing with us. The real fear we must overcome is our
Easter fear. For unless we open our lives in faith to him; he cannot banish
all our Good Friday fears.
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We cannot drink the life-giving water and bargain for better terms. Jesus is
no tame Messiah. And Jesus’ question to his disciples still hangs in the air:
“Why are you afraid?”
Claude Wilson- Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
June 21, 2015
June 14, 2015
Mark 4:26-32
Who’s In Charge?
Who’s in charge here? Such a question might be put by an irate customer
in a store or an angry hotel guest; someone seeking to speak to one who is
in authority, one who’s responsible and therefore one who can straighten
out whatever mess or difficulty has arisen. Some years ago I remember a
hassle I had the phone company. My attempts to straighten out the
problem were frustrated until I finally moved through several layers of
management and reached someone in authority – someone in charge who
could settle the issue.
Who’s in charge here? Who’s responsible? Who can straighten out this
mess? These are questions we ask in almost every area of our lives.
But aside from the day-to-day conflicts and problems of life, there is an
even deeper level at which we ask: who’s in charge here? As we look
around us in our world and see turmoil, social unrest, and conflict; as we
watch children starve in a world of plenty and see disasters both natural
and human sweep away precious human life or despoil cherished
resources, are we moved to wonder: who’s in charge here? Who can
straighten out this mess?
And perhaps even more deeply, when we are faced with seemingly
insoluble problems in our families or our personal lives; when illness strikes
unexpectedly and the life of a beloved parent or spouse or child hangs in
the balance; when we have worked hard, played by the rules, yet economic
forces beyond our control have shattered our dreams and clouded our
futures; when relationships and commitments we’ve staked our lives on
have been betrayed; when we have let those we love down, spoken words
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we wish we had not spoken, done things we wish we could undo but
cannot; do we ever wonder: who’s in charge here? Is anyone?
And if from the depths of our faith we answer: “God is in charge!” how,
then, are we to understand God’s working in the ebb and flow of human
events, natural disasters, the affairs of nations, and in the hopes, fears,
ambitions, joys, and failures of our own lives?
The Preacher, the author of that strange Old Testament book,
Ecclesiastes, is deeply concerned with these questions. The Preacher is an
extremely wise man, by his own estimate the smartest person who ever
lived. And he has applied his keen mind and powers of observation to the
events of life and drawn some conclusions. Who’s in charge here? No one,
really, the Preacher answers. Oh sure, the Preacher believes in God. But
God seems far removed from the day-to-day operations of the world and
the lives of people. After all, says the Preacher, just look around you and
you can tell. The wind blows round and round, the water flows down to the
sea but the sea is not filled. What has happened before will happen again.
There’s nothing new under the sun. Everything is empty, like chasing the
wind.
The Preacher looks around him and sees a fixed system in the world. April
showers bring May flowers, and hot tropical waters breed hurricanes that
ravage the coastal areas of the world. Things happen in their natural
season and you can’t do anything to alter it. Human beings live for a while
and then return to dust. In the interim our lot is to seek what satisfaction we
can in our work, our family, and in learning. Such is the lot a distant,
faceless God has given to us.
If we are honest, we must admit that there is much that is compelling in the
Preacher’s view of things. His is a hard-nosed, realistic, look at life. And
certainly much of today’s conventional wisdom would back him up. Not only
do phenomena in nature seem to follow a fixed order, so does the rest of
life. Our economy goes from boom to bust over and over again, our cities
lurch from crisis to crisis, nations and tribes go from conflict to conflict - on
and on through history. And with the Preacher we may be tempted to sigh
and mutter: everything leads to weariness – a weariness too great for
words.
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Who’s in charge here? No one? Or if from the depths of faith we answer:
“God is in charge!” then how are we to understand God’s presence in the
history of nations, the ebb and flow of nature, and in our own lives?
In the two little parables we read this morning, The Parable Of The Seed
Growing Secretly and The Parable Of The Mustard Seed, we gain, I
believe, a profound insight into the way of God with the world. For in these
two short parables, Jesus speaks of the way that God’s power is present
and active in the world and in history; bringing about God’s purposes and
will for all creation: the kingdom of God, the rule of God, the final bringing
about of God’s purposes. And Jesus says the Kingdom is like a seed that
grows secretly at night, by means of which we know not until suddenly the
harvest has come. Or the Kingdom is like a mustard seed, having the
tiniest of beginnings yet ending as a huge shrub.
The way of God with the world is never obvious or easy to discern on the
plain of world history. I remember some years ago a cartoon that showed a
crowded city street and high in the sky a huge hand had come out of the
clouds and written so everyone in the city could see: God lives! And in the
cartoon one man on the sidewalk is turning to another saying, “Well I guess
that settles that one.”
Unfortunately for us, God does not disclose God’s will and purposes to the
world in such a dramatic fashion. None of the great events of the Bible that
are so important to us receive even the slightest mention in the histories of
their time. The Exodus from Egypt, the escape at the Red Sea, the
appearance of God at Mount Sinai – none of these events are mentioned in
the histories of Egypt or the other great powers of the time. They were busy
chronicling the big events of politics, wars, and the economy that were
going on at the time. The birth, life, and death of Jesus receive no mention
in Roman history, except a brief note that some new cult seems to have
arisen after a person named Christus. Jesus’ life and death and certainly
his resurrection just weren’t important enough to the great issues of running
an empire.
It’s as though today we would expect the life of a peasant in a country like
Belize or Laos to somehow make the front page of the New York Times, or
to have a profound effect on the conflict between the West and the Islamic
State.
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But the confession of the church is that in a backwater of the Roman
Empire, far from where the real action of the day was, the life of an obscure
Palestinian peasant tells us everything about God’s way with the world.
The Kingdom of God is like a seed growing secretly, like a mustard seed.
God’s way with the world is mysterious, quiet – indeed miraculous.
Perhaps we look in the wrong places to try to see where God is at work, to
see where God is disclosing God’s purposes and will for our lives. Certainly
the God of all history is in some way present in the crises of our day, in the
upheavals in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe; in the disasters of
hurricanes or earthquakes. But the really crucial events in which God has
revealed God’s will and purpose have never been the big news worthy
events of history: wars, famines, conquest, or even technological triumphs.
No, the crucial events of God’s self-disclosure have always been things like
the escape of some obscure slaves from Egypt, the birth of a baby in a
barn, or the death of a carpenter on a cross; events that are seen as
important, not to the eyes of the historian, but to the eyes of faith.
Who’s in charge here? God is in charge. But faith seeks him not in the
whirlwind, not in the earthquake, nor in the fire; but in the still small voice.
For God’s way with the world is like that of a seed growing secretly,
mysteriously, miraculously.
Today is Communion Sunday. We come once again to the Lord’s table. We
gather to celebrate and confess that in the life, death, and resurrection of
that obscure Jewish carpenter we glimpse the love that moves the sun and
the stars. It is doubtful that this celebration will make the evening news. It
will not even register’s a blip on the carefully monitored screens of political,
economic, and social power. But that testimony is the most important event
that takes place in our world today. It is the hinge upon which history
moves.
Who is in charge here? God is in charge. And in God’s mysteriously
gracious love, God’s inscrutable, hidden, yet invincible power, our world is
held; our lives are held, and the lives of all we love are held.
Amen
Claude Wilson- Stayton
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Covenant Presbyterian Church
June 14, 2015
June 7, 2015
I Corinthians 8:1-13
Strength & Weakness
It is highly unlikely that any of us here this morning spent a lot of time this
past week agonizing over whether or not to eat meat that had been
sacrificed to idols. We might worry about eating too much meat, or even
whether we should eat meat at all. But whether or not our pork chops or
ground beef stopped off at some pagan temple on the way to our dinner
table probably never crossed our minds.
The theologian Karl Barth was fond of talking about the strange world of the
Bible. And it would seem that our passage from First Corinthians this
morning is the poster child for just how strange the world of the Bible can
be. Worry over eating meat sacrificed to idols? What could be a better
reminder that Paul was writing to Christians living in a very different time, in
a very different culture from our own.
So if we are going to listen to this passage today, we are going to have to
get past what a good psychiatrist or psychologist might call the “presenting
problem.” That is we need to get past the immediate issue being discussed
and move to the larger and deeper issue of which the presenting problem is
but a symptom.
And what is the larger, deeper issue at stake in this passage? It is how the
strong relate to the weak; how the confident relate to the less confident. For
the Corinthians, that issue comes up over the business of eating meat
sacrificed to idols. The strong, who’ve had not only the Intro to Bible and
Theology class but have taken the intermediate and advanced courses as
well, are not troubled by this issue. But the newbies, the members of the
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Corinthian church not long out of paganism, who remember well its strong
hold over their lives; they are not so sure. It’s like the difference between an
alcoholic in his 10th year of sobriety and one in his 10th week.
But on whose shoulders does Paul place the responsibility for dealing with
this difference of perspective within the Christian church? Does Paul say:
“Tell those newbie Christians they’re the ones with the problem. Get over it.
Meat offered to idols that are in fact not real gods at all, doesn’t mean a
thing.”
Paul doesn’t say that, but why not? Doesn’t modern conflict management
theory tell us that the different parties in a dispute should “own” their part of
the problem? Aren’t the weaker, newbie Christians the ones who are
troubled and shouldn’t they accept that they are the ones with the problem,
not the more mature Christians?
Well, apparently Paul never read modern conflict management theory and I
have a hunch it wouldn’t have made much difference if he had. No, Paul
places the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the strong. And he
sums up his entire argument in a brief sentence, packed with meaning:
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
To the strong, to the knowledgeable, to the experienced, Paul says: “This is
not about whose theology is correct. It’s not about winning the argument.
This is all about loving your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.” As critical
and important as knowledge may be, it is love that builds up one another,
and it is love that builds up Christ’s church.
One of my favorite movies ever is Forrest Gump. I do not know if the
screenwriter who wrote the movie had First Corinthians in mind, but the
movie is one continuous illustration of how love builds up. Forrest is a boy
of very limited intellectual capacity. But Forrest has an almost endless
capacity to love. He never wavers in his lifelong devotion to his childhood
friend and companion, Jenny. Sent to Vietnam, he cannot abandon his unit
when told to retreat and returns again and again to carry out his wounded
buddies. He honors a promise to his friend Bubba, who was killed in
Vietnam, and starts a shrimp company in which he includes his double
amputee platoon leader, Lt. Dan, whose life Forrest saved. He even gives
away half of the company’s profits to Bubba’s family because, after all, it
was Bubba’s idea.
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At the end of the movie, having married Jenny when she comes back home
to die and let Forrest care for her, we see him sitting at the bus stop with
their son, his beloved Jenny now gone and his love for her poured into their
child. If there is one line in the movie that sums it up it is when Forrests tells
Jenny, “I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.”
A work of fiction, you might say. But Paul would disagree. Yes knowledge
is very, very important, but it is love that builds up. Paul understood this
because in his own life he’d experienced the truth that knowledge puffs up,
but love builds up. Trained as a Pharisee, Paul excelled in knowledge. And
when some Jews in Palestine claimed that the crucified Jesus of Nazareth
was God’s Messiah, Paul was not only quick to take up the argument, but
volunteered to take the lead in stamping out this upstart heresy. But Paul’s
own life was changed, turned around – not by knowledge (though he
certainly gained new insight.) No, says Paul, his life was transformed by the
love of God in Jesus Christ.
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. How different might our lives be,
our world be, if that were a verse we lived out of every day. We worship a
God whose strength has come to meet our weakness, a Lord, who Paul
tells us in Philippians: “Though he was in the form of God, did not think
equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself and became
a servant of all.”
Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Those words take our eyes off our
own strength and focus them instead on our brother and sister’s needs.
They make us less concerned with asserting our rights, insisting on winning
the argument, exhibiting our skill; and instead encourage us to ask: “How
can I build up my brother, my sister, my neighbor, in love.”
Fred Craddock, looking back over a long and very productive ministry as a
great preacher, teacher, and writer captures the spirit of Paul’s words:
“When I was in my late teen,” writes Fred Craddock, “I wanted to be a
preacher. When I was in my late 20s, I wanted to be a [great]
preacher. Now that I am older, I want more than anything else to be a
Christian; to live simply, to love generously, to speak truthfully, to
serve faithfully, and leave everything else to God.”
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Knowledge puffs up but love – love builds up. Amen.
Claude Wilson-Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
June 7, 2015
May 31. 2015
1 Corinthians 12:12-27
Yes, You!
When we lived in Florida, Margaret and I met each month for lunch with a
group of other Presbyterian ministers. We caught up on each other’s
families, swapped stories, heard news about the Presbyterian Church, and
talked about many other things. One of the running jokes in the group was
that one of these days we were going to compile all of the funny, bizarre,
and outrageous stories we heard about preachers and churches into a
book with the title: Christians Behaving Badly.
But wait! That book’s already been written hasn’t it? It doesn’t go by that
title. In fact, it’s really two books. We know it by the name of First and
Second Corinthians. If Paul had lived long enough to write a memoir, his
highs and lows as an apostle of Jesus Christ, it would not be unreasonable
to imagine a chapter entitled: “The Corinthian Church – the Worst Church I
Ever Served.”
We don’t know everything the Corinthians were up to that caused Paul to
reprimand them again and again. First and Second Corinthians consist of
letters and we only have Paul’s side of the correspondence. But we can
pretty well figure out from what he says that at the very least there were
divisions, disputes, infidelities, and a whole lot of other problems. In short
the Corinthians were exhibit A for “Christians behaving badly.”
At bottom, many of their problems seem to have been that the Corinthians
were dragging all sorts of practices from their past life outside the church
into the church’s life. Instead of a life of mutual care, love, faith, and
support, some people were vying for status or position either by claiming to
follow one or another of the apostles and ,therefore, having the real truth or
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through exhibiting various spiritual gifts as if they were merit badges. “I’ve
got five gifts, you’ve got only two. That makes me a better Christian than
you.”
One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strips is when Calvin decides
to form an exclusive club. I don’t remember its full name, but essentially it
was based on the premise that all girls stink. No sooner had Calvin
announced his exclusive club than he names himself the Great Grand
Pooh Bah and tells Hobbes that he can be second in command. Hobbes
gives him a sideways glance and asks, “Why can’t I be the Great Grand
Pooh Bah and you be the second in command?” And immediately a huge
fight breaks out.
Something like that seems to have been going on in the Corinthian church.
People were claiming status based on different things, all vying to be Grand
Pooh Bah. In the letters to the Corinthians Paul’s exasperation almost
leaps off the pages. For chapter after chapter he corrects, cajoles, even
threatens. “You’re getting it all wrong,” he says, over and over again.
But then we come to chapter 12 (from which we read this morning) and
Paul seems to change his tactics. Paul offers the Corinthians a model, an
image of how they should live together as Christ followers; one that
respects their differences; that acknowledges their varied abilities, yet one
that paints a picture of unity and harmoniously living together. “It’s like the
human body,” Paul says. “It’s made up of different parts and each one is
important to the well-being of the whole. Not everyone is an eye or an ear.
Some may be a little toe or even an eyelash. But each part is important;
each part contributes. When one part hurts the whole body suffers. When
one part rejoices, the whole body rejoices.
Then Paul expands the image. “The church is Christ’s body,” he says. “And
that’s how you are supposed to live together as Christ church; each
bringing his or her gifts and abilities – all contributing to the good of the
whole. Do you get it?”
And then we come to verse 27 in chapter 12. And Paul says the most
amazing thing. Paul who has been blasting these Corinthian Christians for
behaving badly says to them: “You are the body of Christ.”
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Astoundingly he does not say (as I’m sure I would have,) “Now start
behaving as though you were the body of Christ.” No – he says to them,
“You are the body of Christ.”
How can Paul say this to a bunch of Christians behaving badly? Because it
doesn’t have to do with their behavior, it has to do with the grace of God
given them in their baptism. For God’s gracious love in Jesus Christ has
made them Christ’s body. They may at that moment be pathetic
demonstrations of that high calling, that identity. But that is who they are by
God’s grace, regardless of how they are behaving.
Didn’t Jesus tell a story about a son who ran away from home rather than
live as his father’s child? And when things turned sour, he decided to go
home, but not as a son. He wanted back in as a servant. But his father
would have none of it. Instead his father restored him to full sonship with all
its benefits and all its responsibilities.
“You! Yes you, are the body of Christ!” How much better would our lives
stay on track if we kept that identity in front of our eyes every day:
members each of us individually of Christ’s body. Claimed by the promises
of God; called to love God and our neighbors.
If that identity defines us, then why are there so many problems in the
churches around the world, so many marriages in trouble, so many families
in turmoil. If that identity defines us, shouldn’t it touch those very
relationships closest to us; those who sit around the dinner table with us at
supper as well as those who sit with us at work around the conference
table?
“You! Yes you, are the body of Christ!”
Jay Leno has been happily married to his wife Mavis for many, many years.
When asked how he dealt with the many temptations to cheat that seem to
be everywhere in showbiz, he answered: “I spent the first half of my life
trying not to embarrass my mother. I spent the second half of my life trying
not to embarrass my wife.” He said more than that, but implicit in what he
said was that there are relationships important enough to us, that we don’t
want to let those people down.
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If our identity is that we are the body of Christ, then isn’t Christ someone
we shouldn’t want to let down?
Two verses from Psalm 69 have meant a great deal to me over the years.
They read:
O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden
from you. Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
O Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to
dishonor through me, O God of Israel.
In 35 years of ministry, I cannot count the number of times those words
have rebuked me because I have been a Christian who behaved badly. But
they’ve also reminded me, and comforted me, and called me back to an
identity that is mine; not because of how I have behaved, but because of
God’s gracious love in Jesus Christ that has claimed me.
Dear friends, by God’s grace in Jesus Christ you, yes, you are the body of
Christ.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Claude Wilson- Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
May 31, 2015
February 15, 2015
Mark 9:2-29
Living With Contradictions
Two stories – one on the top of the mountain, the other below at the foot of
the mountain. These two stories form a sharp counterpoint to one another,
a bold contrast. On the one hand Peter, James, and John, up on that
mountain top, seeing the vision of Jesus transfigured. It’s the very essence
of the “mountain top” experience - a precious moment of clarity and
revelation. On the other hand the same three men come down off the hill
top and are immediately confronted by the reality of life in all its pain and
need.
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We don’t live on the top of the hill – up on the mountain top – although
sometimes we wish we could. We don’t live with the vision ever in front of
our eyes, with a clarity of conviction that we can practically touch and taste.
Oh, there may be times in our lives when we catch a glimpse of the vision –
special times when we experience God’s presence in an effervescent way,
hear God’s voice more clearly. Perhaps worship can be such a moment for
you, if not every Sunday, then at least occasionally - a moment when we
catch a glimpse of the vision. But those moments are fleeting. We cannot
stay on the mountain anymore than we can spend our week living here in
the sanctuary. And more importantly, we cannot live on the mountain
because we have to leave it to go out and live in the world as we know it to
be. We live most of our lives at the bottom of the mountain.
And what’s it like at the foot of the mountain?
Jesus and Peter, James, and John come off the mountain and immediately
they find themselves awash in a sea of controversy and human need. A
man has brought his epileptic boy to the disciples to be healed. The
disciples have given it their best shot, but failed. Apparently some scribes
who were present seize upon this failure as an opportunity to discredit the
disciples. When Jesus asks what’s going on, the man tells him his story:
“My son has an evil spirit. It throws him to the ground. He foams at
the mouth and grits his teeth and become stiff all over. I asked your
disciples to drive the spirit out, but they could not.”
The exchange between the man and Jesus continues and finally the man
asks Jesus: “If it is at all possible for you, take pity upon us and help us.” “If
it is possible?” Jesus asks in reply. “Everything is possible to the one who
has faith.” And then in one of the most anguished cries heard in all of
scripture this tortured man, hurting so desperately for his child, cries out: “I
have faith, help me where faith falls short.”
And Jesus heals the child.
The way of the mountain top may be the way of vision, but not so life as we
live it on the downhill side. Life at the bottom of the mountain often
contradicts our mountain top experiences. At the bottom of the mountain
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another ingredient is essential – for here we walk not by sight, but by faith.
“I have faith,” the man cries, “help me where faith falls short.”
Who of us, when confronted by life’s tragedy, has not cried those same
words a thousand times - 10,000 times? “I have faith. Help me where faith
falls short!” There are those events in life which only faith can make sense
of – those terrible tragedies that befall humankind without deference to age
or race or sex or status. In the face of such tragedy our faith often seems
pitifully inadequate, not up to the job it must perform – to somehow help us
see from God’s perspective how the senseless events of life can make
some sense.
And faith is also the essential ingredient in the lesser challenges of life:
when our dreams go unfulfilled, when our lives lack a sense of purpose,
when middle-age catches up with us - when someone tells us, “You’re over
the hill” and we realize they aren’t joking.
In faith we know that all our lives are in God’s hands: the good and the bad;
when we do well and when we blow it. And in God’s love and grace, our far
from perfect lives will one day be made whole. By faith we know that now
we see in a mirror darkly, but the day shall come when we see face to face.
One last word.
You remember that when Jesus went inside his disciples asked him, “Why
couldn’t we drive the spirit out?” To follow Jesus, to be a disciple is to know
there will be times when we cannot fix the problem, heal the wound, or put
the pieces back together. Jesus responds, “Only prayer can drive this kind
out, nothing else can.”
And what is prayer except turning to God in faith. What is prayer, but
seeking that contact beyond this world of need with the one who can help
us make it through life, especially when we feel overwhelmed by the
problems before us. It is faith that drives us to prayer and prayer that
sustains faith. Over the years I’ve been impressed again and again by the
power of prayer in people’s lives; people who when confronted with a need
too big to handle alone, know that only prayer can give them the strength
they need and nothing else. “Only prayer can drive this kind out, nothing
else will do.” Only prayer can lay life’s burdens at the feet of the one who
has resources beyond our imagining.
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“We have faith Lord, help us where faith falls short.”
Claude Wilson- Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
January 25, 2015
Jonah 3:1-5; 3:10-4:4
When God Disappoints Us
Woody Allen famously once said: “If there is a God, he’s an under achiever.”
That quip, for better or for worse, catches up the attitude many have about
faith in God. God just doesn’t seem to meet my expectations, behave in the
way I want God to behave, or do things in the way I think God should do
things.
One might call the story of Jonah the story of a man who thinks God an under
achiever – a God who doesn’t live up to Jonah’s expectations.
We all know how the story goes. God comes to Jonah and tells him that he,
Jonah, has a job to do. He’s to go to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria,
Israel’s most dreaded and despised enemy. And there Jonah is to preach
repentance to the Ninevites. Jonah turns tail and runs in the opposite direction
from Nineveh. God, as we’ve all known since childhood, arranges some
unusual transportation to get Jonah pointed in the right direction. So Jonah,
after spending three days in the belly of a large fish, finally agrees to go
preach to the Ninevites.
Jonah fulfills the letter if not the spirit of the task God has given him. In
perhaps the shortest sermon in history (a mere five words in Hebrew) Jonah
marches through Nineveh shouting: “In 40 days Nineveh will be destroyed!”
And then the unthinkable happens. The Ninevites repent. From the King to the
cows they all repent. And horror of horrors – God repents and shows mercy
on the Ninevites.
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It’s then that Jonah puts all his cards on the table, vents his spleen of all his
pent-up frustration with this namby-pamby, soft- in-the-head God of his: “I
knew it!” he yells at God. “I knew it when I was back home and that’s why I ran
in the opposite direction. I knew you’d behave like this. You are a gracious,
compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love – quick to relent
from sending calamity. I can’t stand it! Just kill me now!”
Jonah is very, very disappointed in God. How dare God act in such a way –
showing mercy to those (expletive deleted) Ninevites. How dare God abound
in love for “them!”
A generation ago J. B. Phillips wrote a book entitled: Your God Is Too Small.
Phillips believed that far too often we construct for ourselves an image of God
that doesn’t much resemble the God who meets us in the Bible. He lists
various ways God is imagined: resident policeman, parental hangover, grand
old man, meek and mild, heavenly bosom - and half a dozen others. What
they all share, says Phillips, is that they are images of God fashioned to suit
our needs, not the reality of who God is. They all display one common
denominator: they are small. God is much, much bigger.
Ironically, it is precisely God’s bigness that is so disappointing, so infuriating to
Jonah. Jonah wants a God who agrees with him, takes Jonah’s side against
Jonah’s enemies, behaves the way Jonah wants God to behave. A smaller
God would be a more manageable God – less demanding and therefore more
likely to fit readily into Jonah’s view of how things should be.
Fred Craddick once remarked that Jesus said God sends the rain on the just
and on the unjust alike. We, on the other hand, want a God who sends the
rain on my field, stops the rain at my enemy’s fence line, and hops over to the
field of my friend or family member on the other side.
But the real danger of a small God, a God who lives up to our expectations, is
that we will never believe such a God expects very much of us. Following a
small God is easy. Following a big God, a gracious God, a compassionate
God, slow to anger – abounding in love – that God might ask of us more than
we want to do (just like Jonah); expect more of us than we are willing to take
on.
We’ve just come through the Christmas season. We wrap that whole season
in such sweetness that we often forget that at every turn it is a story of how
God fails once again to meet expectations. God’s anointed born in a barn, his
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birth greeted by mangy shepherds and foreign astrologers? God’s son
growing up in Nazareth in backwater Galilee - an itinerant preacher and healer
executed by the Romans as a common criminal?
The apostle Paul, you will remember, began his career as a persecutor of
those who believed such nonsense. Who could possibly believe God would
behave in such a way? Only when he was brought to his knees (like Jonah)
did Paul come to proclaim that such foolishness is the very wisdom and power
of God.
Jonah wanted a small God, a God who would agree with his way of thinking.
God wanted Jonah to come around to God’s way of loving.
It is highly unlikely that you are I will be called by God to go to Nineveh to
preach the gospel. What would Nineveh be for us today – the capital of Syria,
the headquarters of the Islamic State? No, more likely we will be called to
something much nearer home. But it will be something that takes us where we
don’t want to go, takes us out of our safe, manageable faith to a place where
Jesus is calling us.
A preacher tells this story:
So I walk into a church in the inner city that serves breakfast to around
150 homeless every day. Other churches pitch in to help. Still, I was
surprised when I see a man whom I recognize as a member of one of
our city’s most affluent congregations. I thought it was rather remarkable
having a man like him, from a church like his, there, washing the dirty
dishes of people who were homeless.
“I think it is great that you are here,” I said.
“I am glad that you think it’s great,” he mumbled as he continued his
work.
“I am curious, have you always enjoyed ministry to the homeless?” I
asked.
“Who said that I enjoyed this?” he replied. “Frankly, I mostly can’t
stand the homeless people that I’ve met here.”
“Really?” I said.
“Have you sat down and talked with our guests here? A lot of them
are homeless for a reason. A lot of them are half crazy.”
“Well I guess that makes it all the more remarkable that you are
here, washing dishes for them.” I said. “Why are you here?”
He looked up from his work at the sink and said to me with a tone of
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exasperation in his voice, “Because God put me here; that’s why.” And
then he returned to washing dishes.
Jonah could not have said it better.
Claude Wilson-Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
January 25, 2015
John 1:35-42
January 18, 2015
What Are You Looking For?
I want to do a Covenant Presbyterian congregational poll this morning. Just
a few quick questions. All you have to do is raise your hand. Ready?
Question 1: If you were asked to bring canned goods to help with our food
pantry collection, would you feel comfortable doing that?
Question 2: If you were asked to help the Stop Hunger Now ministry pack
meals to feed hungry people around the world, would you be comfortable
helping with that?
Question 3: If asked to sing in the choir, would you be comfortable doing
that?
Question 4: If we announced one Sunday that we were starting a new
ministry of evangelism and we wanted people who felt comfortable sharing
their faith, telling others about Jesus, do you feel like that’s something you
could do, if asked?
Most of us have to admit that when it comes to sharing our faith we are
“challenged” to say the least. But you see, there’s a problem with that. The
problem is this: our founder, our leader, Jesus Christ’s very last words to
his disciples (and to us) have to do with sharing our faith with others. We
call it The Great Commission:
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“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Go make disciples. And there is no disciple making without sharing faith is
there? We’re stuck. Jesus told us to do it! Said we had to do it! But we don’t
know how, do we? Is there anything worse than being given a job to do and
not having a clue how to do it?
If we are to fulfill The Great Commission that Jesus gave us, the church of
Jesus Christ must be an evangelistic church – a good news church – that’s,
after all, what evangelism means.
Look again at the story we read from John’s gospel this morning, the very
first chapter. What I want to suggest to us today is that we can find in this
passage a paradigm of how to be an evangelist. And the teacher is none
other than Jesus himself.
In my little red letter edition of the New Revised Standard Version of the
New Testament, Jesus words are in red. (That’s why they call it a red letter
edition.) In the verses we read this morning, we hear the very first words
Jesus says in John’s gospel, his opening sentence, the first words out of
Jesus’ mouth as John tells the story. Do you know what they are? Does
anyone remember? Anyone have their Bibles open? What are the very first
words Jesus says in the gospel of John?
“What are you looking for?”
Isn’t that amazing! Jesus’ very first words are a simple five word question in
English translation: “What are you looking for?”
And what is the second thing Jesus says? Anyone found it? The second
thing Jesus says is simply three words: “Come and see.”
And there you have it. That is evangelism my friends, evangelism that
everyone in this room: young and old, working, in school, retired, whatever,
can practice. It’s Jesus style evangelism. It is not hitting people over the
head with the Bible or trying to scare them into the church. It’s evangelism
that simply asks the question: “What are you looking for?” And then issues
the invitation: “Come and see.”
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Look at the story. John the Baptist, that scary fire and brimstone prophet, is
standing with two of his disciples. Jesus walks by. “Behold the Lamb of
God,” John says to his disciples who immediately start off after Jesus.
Jesus seeing them simply asks the one little question that cuts right to the
heart of life itself: “What are you looking for?”
“Teacher where you staying?” they reply.
“Come and see,” says Jesus. And they spend the day with him.
Day in and day out, in hundreds of different ways, each one of us is
involved in conversations where, in one way or another, people tell us
about the longing at the heart of their lives. We are surrounded by people
desperately seeking the answer to life’s riddle. They look for that answer in
material possessions, in psychological self-help, in shopping, in television,
in internet chat rooms – all looking for something. Can we train ourselves
as Christ’s people to listen beneath the chatter and ask in a gentle way, in
a Jesus way, “What are you really looking for?” And can we then teach
ourselves to issue that simple three word invitation: “Come and see.” Can
we invite them to come and spend some time with Jesus, whether in
worship, or in a Bible study, or perhaps just over coffee with you.
“What are you looking for?” “Come and see.” Can we train ourselves to ask
that question and offer that invitation? So many people around us every
day are looking for a deeper purpose in their lives - a well of hope to draw
from and a sense of direction. All Jesus asks of us is to bring them into his
company and he will do the rest.
Later in our story Jesus says, “Follow me.” Together those three short
phrases are the three legs of the stool that is evangelism: “What are you
looking for?” “Come and see.” “Follow me.”
Do you remember how our story this morning ends? Andrew spends the
day with Jesus and then what does Andrew do? He goes and gets his
brother Simon and brings him to see Jesus. That’s evangelism. Jesus style
evangelism.
Invite your brother, your sister, your neighbor to come and see too – that
they might find what they are looking for.
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Claude Wilson- Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
January 18, 2015
January 11, 2015
Genesis 1:1-5
Out of Darkness, Light!
40 years ago Margaret and I visited Blanchard Springs Caverns in
Arkansas. It’s a beautiful, fascinating place and if you’re ever in Arkansas I
recommend putting it on your itinerary.
One part of the visit that made a particularly strong impression on me came
about halfway through the tour. The park ranger acting as our guide had us
assemble along the rail beside the pathway running through the main
chamber of the caverns. We were several hundred feet below the surface
of the earth. “For a few seconds you are going to experience total
darkness,” said our guide. Then she took a key out of her pocket, inserted it
into a switch on the wall and with the turn of the key all of the lights went
out.
It was a very strange feeling standing in the middle of a huge cavern
hundreds of feet below the earth in utter and complete darkness. Not one
ray of light, not even a glowing watch face pierced the enveloping
blackness.
After what seemed like much longer, but was actually only about 10
seconds, the park ranger, to my surprise, did not immediately turn on all the
lights. Instead, she turned on her large Mag-Lite type flashlight which she
carried with her. It was a big flashlight with a powerful beam and I
remember how it sliced through the blackness, lit up the cavern ceiling, and
reflected off the shining minerals in the stalactites reaching down from the
roof of the great cavern.
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For 40 years, whenever I read the first five verses of the Bible – the first
day of creation – I think of that park ranger’s flashlight slicing through the
blackness of that cavern.
The very first act of creation is light – light called into existence by the word
of God. In Eugene Peterson’s wonderful Message Bible, God simply says:
“Light!” and light comes crashing into the enveloping darkness and with a
kind of primordial physicality pushes back the darkness to make space for
the light.
It is with good reason that Jesus is called the light of the world – the light
shining in the darkness, as John’s gospel puts it. From the first page of the
Bible light is a metaphor for God’s creating, loving, and calling all creation
into being. Conversely, darkness has also, from the Bible’s first page, been
a metaphor for all that resists or opposes God’s creating love.
This past week we were once again reminded of the reality of the darkness
that is in our world. Not, I suppose, that we need much reminding. The
horrific events that unfolded over three days in Paris and surrounding
territories bore tragic and terrible witness to the power of darkness in our
world. And as people of faith it should be especially troubling for us that,
once again, horrific acts of bloodshed have been carried out in the name of
faith – faith in God.
Why should we care? After all, the perpetrators of these horrible acts were
not Christians, so why does it matter to us that they justify their acts of
terror by claiming God’s favor?
In the first place such acts carried out in the name of God sully all religious
communities – including the Christian community. In an increasingly
secular world where people make few distinctions between one faith or
another, acts of terror carried out in God’s name paint all religious belief
with a patina of intolerance, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, tribalism, and
even hatred.
The late Christopher Hitchens is an example of one who saw in the
extremism of one faith the danger he believed endemic to all faiths. “I hate
the word ‘faith’ railed Hitchens. “More evil has been done throughout
history in the name of ‘faith’ than from any other cause.” Such views have
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even made it into our popular culture. I recently saw a TV episode in which
a character remarked, “My dad always said that all the wars in the world
were started because someone said ‘I want your house and God told me I
could have it.’ “
But what Friedrich Schleimacher called “the culture despisers of religion”
have always been with us, even if it would seem that their influence is on
the rise these days. More importantly, acts of great bloodshed carried out in
the name of God should concern us because we are those who are
charged with being servants of light. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus
tells us. We are those who are called to bear witness to and show in our
own lives the reconciling grace and love of God given in Jesus Christ. As
Paul reminds us we have been reconciled to God and given the ministry of
reconciliation. We are children of God, made God’s children in our baptism.
We are disciples of Jesus Christ called and claimed by Christ.
Such a calling lays on us a much greater responsibility to shine the light of
God’s grace into the darkness that is everywhere in our world. And let’s be
very clear. Shining the light of Christ into the darkness of our world involves
much more than simply adopting the conventional wisdom; more than just
parroting the ideology of our particular political party, or repeating the views
of our favorite political commentator. The Savior who preached the Sermon
on the Mount is not easily conformed to the wisdom of the world – not even
the wisdom of the American way of life which we so cherish. God spoke
and the light shone into the darkness. And as the Letter to the Hebrews
reminds us, “In these last days God has spoken to us through his son.” And
the gift of God’s son was not just a gift to a particular nation, or tribe, or
race. No, “God so loved the world that God gave his only begotten son.”
Many years ago the great preacher George Buttrick likened life on this
planet to being aboard a great cruise ship sailing across a dark sea on a
moonless night. There are those, said George Buttrick, who go to the ships
ballroom, paint over the portholes and live as though the only reality were
life on the ship. But there are also those who go up on deck, lean out over
the railing and peer into the vast darkness, looking for signs of the deep
mystery surrounding us all.
“God said: “light!” And there was light.”
“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not put it out.”
“You are the light of the world.”
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We are those entrusted with the great gift of being witnesses to the light
shining in the darkness. To be servants of that gift is to awaken to a beauty
and hope that will connect us and others with true life – life lived in the
gracious, reconciling love of God given us in Jesus Christ.
Amen
Claude Wilson- Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
January 11, 2015
January 4, 2015
Luke 2:25-35
Memory & Hope
We all know that there is nothing magic about the end of one year and the
beginning of another. The earth continues its journey around the sun as it
has for billions of years and as it will for who knows how many years to
come. From an astrophysics point of view the flip of the calendar from 2014
to 2015 is a non-event.
We, of course, experience it differently. The turning of the calendar page
speaks to us of the start of something new - as we enter the New Year, on
the one hand, and as we lay aside and commit to the past the old year, on
the other hand.
Put a bit differently, the change of the calendar puts us again between
memory and hope – memory as we ponder the year now past and hope as
we look ahead to the year to come.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve had several people tell me that they thought
2014 was a very good year here at Covenant Presbyterian. I think that’s
true. One of the great satisfactions of being a pastor comes when you see
people within your congregation taking the initiative and opening up new
avenues of ministry and service in the church’s life. If I start naming names,
I’ll be sure to miss someone. But in practically every area of our churches
life – fellowship, outreach, mission, worship, music, stewardship, we’ve
seen new energy and new leadership. And one area does warrant special
attention. When our church met the challenge and raised the matching
funds to complete our Director of Christian Education Fund, we had a
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vision of growing our Christian education ministry – especially our ministry
with children and youth. Under Linda Berry’s wonderful leadership, we’ve
already seen growth in that crucial ministry and are excited about the
prospects for the future.
So today, with gratitude to God, we remember 2014 and give thanks even
as we look with hope and faith to the New Year, 2015.
As we stand at the crossroads between 2014 and 2015 I want us to reflect
on our story from Luke’s gospel as a kind of “crossroads” story. It may
seem strange to call the story of Jesus’ presentation at the temple as an
infant a “crossroads” story, but in Luke’s artful telling of the story it is just
that.
As good Jews, Mary and Joseph take their infant son to the temple to fulfill
two requirements of the law: the ritual of purification of the mother following
the baby’s birth and the rite of redemption of the firstborn child. And there in
the outer court of the temple they are met by an old man named Simeon.
Simeon is described as a devout man, one who had looked forward all his
life to the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel – Israel’s consolation – one
to whom the Holy Spirit had promised he would not die until he had seen
the Lord’s Messiah.
Led by the Holy Spirit, the old man finds Mary and Joseph and the baby.
And in a scene fraught with emotion he takes the baby in his arms and
literally sings to the Lord:
“Let me die for I have seen the salvation you have prepared for all
the people.”
Simeon is a powerful figure in Luke’s story. He represents the very best of
Israel’s tradition. He is devout, he is faithful, he understands what God has
done and looks to what God will do. But in Luke’s careful unfolding of the
story, Simeon clearly is the representative of the past – what God has done
– and the infant Simeon cradles in his arms embodies the new thing God is
doing.
It is a moving portrait that Luke paints for us: the past cradling the future –
memory joined to hope in the person of an old Jew and an infant boy; both
standing in the shadow of the temple, the very symbol of the presence of
God with God’s people. God’s people stand at a crossroads like no other
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they have faced before. And Simeon knows it. He knows that this new thing
God is doing will not fit easily into old patterns – indeed it will shatter many
treasured notions of what it means to be God’s people and yet it will also
be true to the best in the traditions of Israel.
The old man, his life now at last fulfilled blesses Mary and Joseph and then
turns to Mary and utters words that could only disturb this young mother:
“This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel and
to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many
will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
It is a disquieting word, one that we would do well to consider as we enter
the New Year and stand once again between memory and hope. When
God does a new thing it will not be without cost. Simeon recognizes that
this infant will be one who brings truth to light and in so doing will throw all
who come into contact with him into a crisis of decision. And in that
decision rising and falling, life and death hang in the balance. Jesus is
decisive for the basic orientation of life – toward God or away from God.
Anyone who turns on light create shadows and that is what is literally
meant by “making a difference.” Jesus makes a difference.
As we stand at the crossroads between 2014 and 2015 we must face
unflinchingly the seriousness of this business we are about. We are those
who would willingly become accessories in the radical alteration of the lives
of others. For those who would claim the light of God’s truth in Jesus Christ
must face forthrightly the fact that much in our own lives and in the lives of
others will be cast into the shadows by that light. If we are to claim the best
in our past and carry it forward into the future that God is giving us, it will
begin by rededicating ourselves in the name of the one who has made all
the difference – to seek to be a congregation that indeed makes a
difference – a difference in the lives of our members, a difference in the
lives of those around us in our community; makes a difference in the name
of Jesus Christ in Wendell and beyond.
Let our resolution for 2015 be that we will be the church that in the name of
Jesus Christ makes a difference.
Claude Wilson- Stayton
Covenant Presbyterian Church
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January 4, 2015