All Things New

I sense a need for a revival in the Christian church -- not just MCCGSL, but the church as a whole. For too long, violence, bullying, and bigotry have been used by the highest office in our country, passed off as an expression of holiness. Threatening genocide, allowing conversion therapy to continue, and stripping rights of trans people are just some examples of ways Christianity has been used as a front for evil acts.

The name of God, the name of Jesus, and the practice of The Way has been co-opted by people who invoke their religion to do nothing but oppress, while gaining riches for themselves. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in predominately white Christian churches or people claiming to be Christian, who have clearly never opened a Bible.

As a Christian pastor, I'm sometimes worried about claiming that place in the world too loudly. I don't want it to seem that I am behind these egregious acts done in my name as a Christian or an American.

This week, I woke up in the middle of the night convicted that I need to claim my faith in a more evangelical way. If you Google "evangelical" the first things that come up are all about the evangelical movement -- one that claims to "follow the way of Jesus and is focused on scripture-study." The word evangelical comes from the Greek and means "Good news." I think it's time we reclaim this word - to offer Good News in our work, words, and study. Progressive Protestants are well educated in Biblical teachings -- let us claim our part in being well-versed in the Bible. It is time to claim where good news comes from -- in human flourishing, in doing our part to mend creation.

Friends, it is time to get serious about our faith and claim it's impact on our hearts. To follow the way of Jesus with wide, expansive love and earnestness. To claim who we are in the world.

Even though I may be hesitant to claim my Christian faith with the way "Christianity" is thrown around to bless hideous behavior, I often end up in long conversations after “coming out” as a Christian minister. Just today when getting a coffee, someone complimented my necklace. I told them about our church, and she said she has never met a pastor before. After saying more about us, she said she might have to come sometime — as we are doing something different than the Christianity depicted in the news — and that IS good news.

This season, we will be exploring the theme All Things New, examining stories of beginnings, conversation, and fresh starts. How might we use this time to cultivate our hearts and create space for good news? How might be prepare our lives to embody a new way, a fresh perspective, a new Christianity.

To help enlighten and prepare us, we have two opportunities to join in study and community:

Join Faye Branum for a poetry writing class. You don’t need to be good at writing! Think of this as an opportunity to open your heart to the seeds growing in you.

Join Pastor Tijuana for a reading of Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. This book will get you thinking about new seeds that need to be planted through a science fiction perspective.

Whatever you do, may this season be a time of exploration as we claim our role in showing the true side of Christianity -- one of kindness, love, and joy.

Blessings,
Pastor Lauren

Today, my bones ached when waking. Perhaps yours did too, seeing the date September 11 on your calendar; thinking about the violence and terror of that day; thinking about the violence and terror in the days, in the years after. For me that feeling only worsened reading more about the assassination of Charlie Kirk yesterday, learning more about yet another school shooting on the same afternoon. In our society that is saturated with violent speech, violent action, and where retaliation seems such a tightly held value, the air feels thick with worry, sorrow, and fear.

As a community of faith, we are people who uphold the values of inclusion, community, spiritual transformation, and justice. We believe that all people should be able to flourish, and not at the expense of others. This week we are reminded of the urgency of these values. This week when the Supreme Court gave legal authority to use racial profiling during immigration sweeps and raids. This week that is marked by political, social, and school violence. So, let us stand firm in our values that are centered on love, not hate. As Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he himself also a victim of political assassination, said, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Even though Charlie Kirk’s words have been used against the LGBTQ community, even though his words incited violence, it is only compassion, it is only love that will ultimately win; the killing of Kirk is wrong. Children having access to weapons is wrong. Racial profiling is wrong.

This week, we are starting a new series: Our Core Calling: A Series on Our Core Values. This series seems timely as we will be invited to consider what it means to live into the heart of who we are and what we believe at MCCGSL. This series will allow us to dive deeper into what it means to be a community rooted in radical inclusion, nourished in queer community, transformed by God’s liberating love, and to be a people embodied in justice. In this season of worship (and always) we will celebrate a faith and a God where everyone belongs at the table, where love resists exclusion, where lives are renewed by Love’s deep and warming presence, and where worship overflows into action both within and beyond our church walls.

Friends, wherever you are in your sorrow, your rage, your questions, know you are held in community and you are not alone. In these violent times, let us not turn toward violence ourselves, but increase our capacity for compassion, kindness, and love. Perhaps the sign at a neighboring church sums our charge up best: “Do small things with great love.”

Blessing in a Time of Violence
by Jan Richardson

Which is to say
this blessing
is always.
Which is to say
there is no place
this blessing
does not long
to cry out
in lament,
to weep its words
in sorrow,
to scream its lines
in sacred rage.

Which is to say
there is no day
this blessing ceases
to whisper
into the ear
of the dying,
the despairing,
the terrified.
Which is to say
there is no moment
this blessing refuses
to sing itself
into the heart
of the hated
and the hateful,
the victim
and the victimizer,
with every last
ounce of hope
it has.

Which is to say
there is none
that can stop it,
none that can
halt its course,
none that will
still its cadence,
none that will
delay its rising,
none that can keep it
from springing forth
from the mouths of us
who hope,
from the hands of us
who act,
from the hearts of us
who love,
from the feet of us
who will not cease
our stubborn, aching
marching, marching

until this blessing
has spoken
its final word,
until this blessing
has breathed
its benediction
In every place,
in every tongue:

Peace.
Peace.
Peace.

May our hearts burn with love,
Pastors Lauren & Eli