Come to the Well

In this season of trail, it is important to remind ourselves of the promises of Scripture. Throughout the Bible, God and Jesus are referred to in many different ways, using many different metaphors.

Many of those metaphors for the Divine evoke images of God's strength in times of trouble or need. The Bible calls God a Strong Tower, a Rock, a Refuge, a Shelter, a Great Physician, a Healer, the Almighty, and our Deliverer. And of course, this list just begins to scratch the surface.

This Sunday Pastor Lauren and I will be talking about Jesus as our Shepherd, the one who would lay down his life for his sheep. But today, I want to share one of my favorite worship songs with you. In this song, the metaphor for God/Jesus is a "well." In this time when we may be feeling a bit empty, run dry, or just stranded in a lonely desert, this song offers a beautiful invitation to come to our God, the Well. With our God, "those who thirst will thirst no more, and those who search will find what their souls long for." May God be your Well today, and may this short video bless your Spirit.

Easter Reflection from Pastor Lauren

Resurrection Sunday!

We began this Lenten journey with ashes on our foreheads remembering that from ashes we came and to ashes we will return. Then, we took a 6-week journey reflecting on God’s ability to speak right through the middle of our ordinary lives. When entering upon this journey, who would have thought that we would spend over much of this Lenten season fasting from our ordinary lives? Who could have imagined we would be forced to reframe the meaning of practices like worship, prayer, sacrament, food, and community so significantly?

Collectively, we have experienced anxiety, grief, sorrow, and loss this Lenten season. Unfortunately, our Resurrection Sunday celebration does not coincide with going back to our ordinary lives, but will we ever return to life exactly as it was before this Lenten journey? I hope not. Lent should transform us and our relationship with God. For the rest of our lives, we will remember this Lenten journey. We will know where we were this Easter.

When we get to reunite at church, when we can go to the grocery store without masks on, when we can hug each other, and go out to eat, I imagine our hugs will be tighter, our kisses sweeter, and our meals more savory. Our worship will be more connected and our smiles brighter. Coming out of this experience, we will be transformed -- how could we not? And, what else might be transformed? My hope is that the disparity between rich and poor will decrease, healthcare might turn into a right rather than a privilege, and we will no longer take for granted simple things like sharing a cup of tea with a friend. After all, I cannot believe we have gone through this suffering for nothing. God will redeem this time. God is up to something long-term as God also responds today through the doctors, researchers, public health experts, grocery store employees, and other frontline workers.

So today, let us sing boldly in our homes, “Christ the Lord is risen today!” Let us shout, “He is risen!” Let us celebrate the empty tomb. Let us see that God hasn’t failed us yet - God hasn’t brought us this far to leave us now! Indeed, God will be with us throughout this experience and with God’s help we will be stronger, wiser, more innovative, and more collaborative.

So today, I leave you with one final question: What is resurrecting in our world?

Reflection for Good Friday from Pastor Lauren

Good Friday

We began our week singing, “Hosanna!” or “Save us!” What did the people want to be saved from? Perhaps they wanted to be saved from corrupt politics or an unequal pay. Perhaps they wanted to be saved from worshipping the culture of the empire. Maybe they wanted to have better education for their children or more equal opportunity or freedom from bondage. Perhaps there was cohesion in their reason to cry “save us!” or maybe their pleas were as diverse as our own are.

Now, on Good Friday, we look up at the cross and see the very one we sang for hanging. The cries of the people changed from “save us” to “crucify him” in a matter of days. What happened to create such a drastic turn? Did people realize they would lose too much in saying “yes” to the way of Jesus? Was it too scary to stand alongside him and insist change? Was it too risky to say “no” to the Roman Empire?

Good Friday is the awful day when we cry alongside Jesus. The day we mourn alongside the disciples. The day we shake our fists at God and ask, “why?”

William H. Lamar IV, pastor of Metropolitan AME in Washington, D.C. reminds us: “God is not the cause of the suffering and God did not send Jesus here to die... our systems, our government, our politics, our economics killed the one God sent to teach us how to LIVE.” Thinking about the awful death of Jesus points to his innocence and sacrificial love. In addition, it ought to point us to the ones who are losing their lives because of the maintenance of our systems -- by both action and inaction alike.

Everytime someone innocent is killed at the hands of the powerful, we should think of Jesus and the anesthetizing grief of the disciples. When we remember victims of genocide, we should remember Jesus. When we think of Black men lynched by the KKK, we should remember Jesus. When a child dies because they found an unlocked gun, we should remember Jesus.

What are the things you would call out for Jesus to save us from? To save you from? What comforts are you willing to let go of in order to challenge the status quo and let the oppressed be free?

Reflection for Thursday, April 9 from Pastor Lauren

The Bread that Jesus breaks with me

Helps me to truly see

This Bread, which is my life in Christ, who dares me

To be fully in touch with God

It tastes of the grain of heartache;

While, its moist with the texture of triumph

This Bread, which is my life, in Christ who dares me

To eat freely or go to grow stale

The Cup that Jesus offers me

Filled with my Destiny

As one, who like the Christ, takes on the challenge

To be fully in touch with God

It’s bitter with the sting of failure

While it’s sweet with the promise of glory

This Cup, which is my life, in Christ, who dares me

To drink fully, or go to waste

Lucia Chappelle, a fierce Black lesbian who lives in LA wrote these poem that is to be sung to the tune of “The Blood Will Never Lose its Power.” Lucia is still writing and creating, her long grey locks hanging down by her waist. She has been a part of the fight for LGBTQ liberation for decades, her writing and poetry accompanying her long history of activism and prayer.

Today, we remember the last meal Jesus shared with his friends and disciples. The night when he knelt down, humbly, next to each one and washed their feet. He broke bread and blessed wine. He prayed. Almost certainly, he cried. He begged Peter, John, and James to stay awake and keep vigil for him. After a full day and a big meal, they couldn’t. But, who knows? Maybe they wouldn’t have been able to save Jesus from the authorities even if they had stayed awake. He was betrayed and taken into custody. A night that begun in celebration of a steadfast God who brought the Israelites out of slavery ended with Jesus, the king of the Jews, brought into slavery.

As you reflect upon this Passover meal and the celebration of communion in church, what comes to mind today? What keeps your faith from going stale? What is at risk of going to waste if you don’t drink the cup fully?

Reflection for Wednesday, April 8 from Pastor Lauren

Holy Wednesday

Did Jesus know that this would be his last night as a free man? Had he already heard that Judas had been seen talking to Roman officials earlier that day? Was he angry at Judas? Though little is written about what happened on Jesus’s last full day and night of freedom, I wonder what was on his mind. What did he do? What was he thinking about?

I wonder if Jesus was soaking in one last day of life, knowing his death would happen soon. I wonder if he went to the markets to look around and watch people interact. I wonder if he watched children play and gave them apples to snack on while they took a break from the sun. I wonder if he hiked through a wooded area to notice the ways spring was coming forth from the soil and the trees. I wonder if Jesus took a bath and remembered his baptism -- remembered all the places he had traveled and gave thanks to his weathered body. I wonder if he lit candles and prayed for the people he loved, for the people he was leaving his unfinished mission to, for the poor, and for the powerful. I wonder if he laughed with his friends and played the flute for them while they danced.

Thinking about the death of Jesus makes me think of the amazing way he lived his life. It makes me think about the people he healed with his hands, about the places he walked through, about the conversations he had, and the commitments of his life.

How do you think Jesus spent his last day fully free? What are stories of his life you are most grateful for? How do you strive to keep his memory alive thousands of years later?

Reflection for Tuesday, April 7 from Pastor Lauren

Holy Tuesday

“Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.” - Matthew 22:11 (The Message)

What do you think of when you think about service? Perhaps you think about community service projects like cleaning up public spaces or painting a school. Maybe you think about your church’s charity ministries like the free store, winter outreach, food collections, or operation backpack. Maybe you think about people in helping professions like social workers, non-profit staff, medical staff, and public service personnel. Or perhaps you are thinking of the ways you are serving your neighbor in this unprecedented time.

This passage from Matthew invites us to consider that service needs to be rooted in humility. Often when defining humility, we define it as being small or feeling insignificant. But that’s a very limited definition. Humility is really about honest self-knowledge. Humility is knowing what you excel at and what you are challenged by. Humility is the space between ego and self-consciousness. Humility is seeing the big-picture and knowing that you are a part of something much greater. Humility, thankfully, is also knowing the world doesn’t rest on your shoulders.

So today, I invite you to think about the best things about yourself. Give thanks for these things and ask God to guide you in being open to ways these gifts can be used to serve others. Become aware of your growing edges and ask God to help you find balance between the best parts of you and the parts that need to be strengthened. I love how Marianne Williamson helps us to bring together the idea of service and humility saying:

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

Reflection for Monday, April 6 from Pastor Lauren

Holy Monday

After worship yesterday, I was brought to tears by this video of a mom lifting her beautiful voice in song to the accompaniment of a karaoke track with her toddler on her hip, another kid in the background, and boxes of diapers piled high next to the couch. It is chaotic, honest, humble, and delightful.

As I think about the typical Palm Sunday, all the preparation, careful planning, big anthems, and vibrant palms that usually mark this occasion, it strikes me as a very unexpected gift that this week we have none of that. As excited as I was to celebrate Holy Week with MCCGSL in a big way, I am overcome with the presence of God because of the simplicity, not in spite of it.

Our online worship services and prayer calls are modest and humble. It strikes me that our worship was probably like Jesus‘s entry into Jerusalem that we celebrated yesterday. A bit thrown together. Planned, but loosely. Triumphant, but not flashy. After all, Jesus was in a donkey, not a war horse. His way was lined with coats and palm branches. He was protesting the greed and militarism of the world while entering into the last week of his life, preparing for his final lesson.

Eighth-Century Martyr Andrew of Crete wrote, “Let us say to Christ: Blessed is [the one] who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. Let us wave before him like palm branches the words inscribed above him on the cross. Let us show him honor, not with olive branches, but with the splendor of merciful deeds to one another. Let us spread the thoughts and desires of our own hearts under his feet like garments, so that he may draw the whole of our being into himself and place the whole of his in us.”

As we enter into Holy Week, let us open ourselves to the wonder and chaos of the Palm Sunday procession. May we throw down our cloaks, raise our palms and do our best to stay true to the way of Christ: a life of service to one another, and to the poor.

This week, we will be reflecting on the theme of service as we humbly mark Jesus’s last days.