Sustaining the Spirit

Dear First Pres SLO Family,

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the inspiration, the model, and the reason for our lives of discipleship.

I freely admit that I’m having some low-grade withdrawals from the World Cup. The competition was exciting, and the chance to see some of the world’s best players playing for their countries was a lot of fun. Even if you don’t like sports, I hope that some of the feeling of being in a world community rubbed off on you.

It was also, as I said a few Sundays ago, a chance to see our nation through the eyes of visitors. It turns out that for that vast majority of World Cup fans, coming to this country, along with Canada and Mexico, was a pretty great experience. We’ve lost some of that in recent years, and it was comforting and inspiring to be reminded of just how welcoming most Americans can be.

Now it’s over, and we need to figure out, as Americans and for those of us who are Christians, how to sustain that feeling even after the stadiums empty and the fans go home.

I think the early church felt something like that. After the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church in Jerusalem, people had to go back to where they came from and try to bring that excitement and energy with them. And the Christians in Jerusalem had to figure out how to keep the momentum of those first days alive. It can’t have been easy.

The hard work of being the church, as I said this past Sunday, is to study and reflect, to keep from being discouraged in times of challenge, and to celebrate God’s presence and love in all things. That’s how we keep the church alive. That’s how we model who Jesus is to the world around us.

This Sunday we’re going to look at a parable Jesus taught about a widow seeking justice from the judge who didn’t want to listen. Her persistence is a model for us of how to hold on tight to what we trust to be true, and never to forget that it’s Jesus who is the Lord of all this…and not us. I think the Persistent Widow, as she’s known, has something to say for all of us.

We’ll have another month or so of looking at people in the Bible, and what they teach us about our faith today. Then we’ll move in the fall to a series on some words and phrases in the Bible that we should know.

In the meantime, enjoy what’s left of this summer season, and I’ll see you Sunday.

Blessings to you and yours,

Pastor John