Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Dear First Pres Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Risen Christ, the one who lived and loved and died and rose again—all to demonstrate the depth of God’s love for us.
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed!
Finally we get to shake off the fasting season of Lent, and feast on the joy of the empty tomb of Jesus. Death is not the final word—for Jesus or for us—the resurrection showed that God has power over what we fear the most. A new thing is happening, and nothing will ever be the same. This doesn’t suddenly mean our lives will be rosy—we’ve seen too many Easter seasons come and pass to believe that—but it’s a reminder, right there where the unused burial clothes are neatly folded on a stone, that we can trust in the promises of Jesus.
One last reflection from Henri Nouwen:
“Easter season is a time of hope. There still is fear, there still is a painful reminder of our sin, but there also is light breaking through. Something new is happening, something that goes beyond the changing moods of our life.”
My prayer for us as we enter this new season: of the church year; of opening up after the worst (we pray) of the pandemic; into a wider range of ministry and service—my prayer for us is that we’ll embrace this Easter hope with energy and creativity, and with love and joy.
That brings me to my announcement. We have been advised by a medical professional that we can safely take the next step toward full reopening. Last night the session voted to accept this counsel, and so as of this Sunday we are relaxing our mask requirement for in-person worship. The vaccination requirement remains, but wearing masks is now optional. Some will choose to keep wearing them for health reasons and to protect others—we who serve Communion will continue to mask for the serving of the Sacrament. But…they are no longer required.
So let me summarize:
1. Only fully vaccinated people should attend in-person worship and other church events.
2. Masks are no longer required, but can be worn at each person’s discretion.
3. Children who have not been vaccinated will wear masks when feasible.
If you have any questions please contact us.
Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed!
Stay tuned for further announcements about events and ministry opportunities in the life of this wonderful church. See you Sunday!
Blessings to you,
Pastor John
Be Careful What You Wish For
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who walked this journey to the cross for us. We retrace those steps in Holy Week.
On Sunday we celebrated the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. Unfortunately, our livestream and recording technologies all crashed just before the service started. Several people asked me to print the message from Sunday as the Midweek Reflection, and so that’s what follows. I hope it’s a blessing to you.
In Christ,
Pastor John
Be Careful What You Wish For Mark 11:1-11
There is an old Twilight Zone episode where a genie offers four wishes to an elderly couple. They use the first to test him—and he fixes a cabinet. The second wish is for a million dollars, which is great, until the tax man takes it. Third wish is for supreme earthly power. The result of this is that the man finds himself trapped in a bunker in Berlin as the Allies close in—you know who I’m talking about. Finally, they use the last wish to set things back to where they started.
It’s an episode about our tendency to wish for the wrong things.
Why talk about that today? Because Palm Sunday reminds us not to wish for the wrong things. Palm Sunday is a reminder not to wish for a different Jesus than the one who came.
The problem with Palm Sunday is a misunderstanding of the difference between Realm and Reign thinking. A realm is a place with limits and boundaries, like a country or state. Realms are held within certain lines—people are either in or out.
But reign is a word that describes authority and power and presence. In Christian terms we think of the reign of God as the ongoing, limitless demonstration of God’s power over all places and times and things, even death.
When Jesus comes he introduces us to the reign of God, not some realm where God is in some places and not present in others.
In the Old Testament, the people of God lived under God’s reign. They were a people, defined by their relationship to God more than some place. They were called to be a blessing to all the nations, not just one more nation on the block.
But they weren’t satisfied. They saw other nations with clearly defined boundaries and kings, and they wanted the same. God tried to talk them out of it, but in the end God gave them what they wanted.
It was a disaster. Kings were murdered and replaced—sometimes by family members.
The royal houses of Israel were nothing like a blessing to other nations. They were too busy fighting each other.
Even though God tried to tell them it wouldn’t work, the people of Israel wanted a King because they thought it would make them stronger in the eyes of their neighbors.
It was another case of wishing for the wrong thing.
Something like that is happening behind the scenes of our text today.
Text: Mark 11:1-11 (NIV)
11 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’”
4 They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5 some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. 7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Some interesting things to notice here:
Mark’s gospel covers three years in 10 chapters—almost all of Mark’s story of Jesus and his ministry fits into the first 10 chapters. And then Jesus enters Jerusalem, and we get six whole chapters covering this one last week in Jesus’ life. It tells you that this is important. When someone who moves as quickly as Mark decides to slow down right when his story gets to the end, we should pay attention to that.
We start with the strange story about the donkey. Look at the details. Mark doesn’t take the time to tell us about the birth of Jesus, but he can spend a paragraph and a half on how they got Jesus a donkey to ride.
As Jesus entered the city the people laid branches and even their coats down so that even the donkey’s feet would not touch the ground. Jesus enters Jerusalem, the home of the Jewish faith, a city and country occupied by foreign invaders. The Romans were the authority there—the Romans had the power over life and death.
Then we hear the song they’re singing.
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
This song combines naming Jesus as the successor to King David, the great military leader of Israel, and calls on him to save them from the Roman occupiers.
Finally, they thought, God had answered their prayers to cleanse Jerusalem of the pagan Romans who kept them from controlling their own lives.
Finally, they thought, God had come to make everything right.
But we know that’s not what happened.
Let’s be clear. The people who lined the streets and cheered for Jesus expected him to lead a revolution that would crush the Romans and get them out of Jerusalem. Instead, they got the Jesus we see in the gospels.
It wasn’t that God didn’t give them what they wanted.
It was that they wanted the wrong thing.
The point of that Twilight Zone episode is that we should be careful what we wish for.
The key message for us every Palm Sunday is the same:
When we get to the point of realizing that we need God—that we need Christ’s redeeming power in our lives—when we’re finally willing to acknowledge that we need God’s help, we have to be careful of what we wish for.
Because it’s easy to recognize our need, and then want the wrong thing to meet it. It’s easy to call on God for help, only to realize that we’ve made God in our own image, instead of the other way around.
Israel wanted a King so they could be like other countries, instead of taking the harder road of being God’s people and sharing his blessing with their neighbors.
The people in Jerusalem wanted a King so they could drive the Romans out and establish their own greatness in Israel, instead of embracing the Jesus who came and loved and forgave and sacrificed.
What do we wish for?
What are we wishing God would do?
Wipe out our enemies?
Erase people who are different from us so that we don’t have to
love them?
Enforce one way of believing and one way of living and one way of loving on everyone so we don’t have to be bothered by learning to be gracious?
Make our own nation great, no matter who else gets trampled in
the process?
It’s easy for us to make the same mistake as those people waving palm branches in Jerusalem that day. The key is to recognize it when we see it, or hear it, or do it.
Because anyone who tells you that greatness comes from military power, or political authority, or social systems, or national pride—anyone who tells you anything like that is a liar who has perverted the gospel of Jesus Christ and torn it into little, useless pieces.
Palm Sunday forces us to be clear on that.
And so what do we wish for?
That’s the question we’re confronted with every time Palm Sunday rolls around.
What do we want? What’s our wish?
What happens when we wish for the wrong thing?
The Jesus of the Bible comes to us.
Jesus comes and teaches us something different.
Jesus comes and forgives and redeems a world that has gone completely off the rails.
Jesus comes and shows us how to be hopeful and not just optimistic.
Jesus comes and walks a path from sacrifice to victory, and turns the world’s values completely upside down.
The real issue becomes:
Are we disappointed with the Jesus we got?
Is the Jesus we got, really the Jesus we wanted?
Maybe that one is better the other way around.
Do we want the Jesus who really came, or are we hoping he turns out to be more like us than who he truly is?
Palm Sunday is a bittersweet holiday, because we don’t always get the right answer to that question, not always.
Jesus entered Jerusalem and the people who sang his praises were so blinded by what they wished for that they missed the point of the savior who actually came.
Many of the people who sang “Hosanna!” on Sunday were shouting something very different on the following Friday.
The invitation to us as we enter this holiest of weeks, is to avoid making the same mistake.
Here are four ways we can do that.
Learn what we can about Jesus.
Tend our relationship with Jesus.
Shape our lives around the values of Jesus.
Allow ourselves to be transformed by the spirit of Jesus.
Notice who’s at the center of all four of those statements. It’s Jesus.
That’s how we avoid wishing for the wrong things. That’s how we become the disciples Jesus calls us to be.
And so welcome to Holy Week. It’s going to be a bumpy ride, but it’s going to be worth it.
Amen.
God ignores the ledger
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Our journey through Lent is coming to a close. This season of reflection and repentance is meant to clear away any distractions that might take our focus away from God—what God has done for us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I hope you’ve been able to make this season meaningful—there’s still some time!
The way of Jesus leads us to reconciliation—with God, with each other, with ourselves, and with the earth. Reconciliation is central to any authentic Christian faith—it’s not only our goal, but also the energy that makes our lives of discipleship come alive. It’s so important that Paul singles it out as a calling from God…on all of us. In 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 he writes:
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
God gave us the ministry of reconciliation.
God committed to us the message of reconciliation.
All of that is true, but sometimes we see reconciliation more like accountants than we should. The financial definition goes like this:
Reconciliation is an accounting process that compares two sets of records to check that figures are correct and in agreement.
I think we can all agree that we’re glad that God doesn’t use that definition when dealing with us. Who could stand that kind of scrutiny? Whose life could measure up to that kind of precision? I’ll save you some time: no one’s life measures up—no one rests comfortably in the positive side of that ledger on their own. That’s why Jesus came.
So then what’s all this talk about reconciliation in the church?
How do we do it without rehashing and counting infractions and figuring out where the blame lies? How can we engage in real reconciliation if we don’t identify someone to blame?
The key is right there in those verses in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins
against them.
In the end, God throws out standard accounting practices and replaces it with grace—“not counting people’s sins against them”. Then God invites us to do the same.
In our churches and relationships, God invites us to leave the ledger of infractions behind, and get on with the daily business of caring for each other, serving our neighbors, and bearing witness to the good news of Jesus. Why can he call us to such an outrageous and impractical way of life?
Because it’s exactly what God has done for us.
Lent is an invitation that comes every year to remind ourselves of just how much of the ledger God ignores in building a relationship with us. It points us to the Easter miracle, because that’s where all of the old accounting practices get turned upside down.
There’s still a week or so before Easter…take that time to remember just how much of your own slate God has wiped clean, and then enter the hard work of doing the same for yourself, for the people in your family and circles, and in your church.
We’re in the final stretch of Lent. Blessings to you and yours as you complete this journey.
Pastor John
Lent continues…
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who lived and suffered with us and for us, and who offers us rest.
Lent continues…
The world tries to convince us that everything is out of control, that we’re somehow on a runaway train that can only end in disaster. There’s plenty of evidence on its side! We’re inching our way back from the frustrating restrictions of the COVID pandemic; we tense up at the thought of yet another election year; we watch with horror as Europe finds itself in another war. It would be easy to think that we live in a world guided only by chaos—a world where evil wins out over good.
And then we remember the words of a beautiful hymn…
This is my Father's world.
Oh, let me never forget,
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
The Lent disciplines of reflection and repentance aren’t designed to keep our eyes on ourselves, they’re meant to remind us of the grace and mercy and love of God. And when we encounter God in a meaningful way, we find what the Bible calls “rest”. This kind of rest is more than a power nap or a good night’s sleep. The “rest of God” is our refuge from the unrest of the world we live in. Notice that it’s not escape, but rather a sort of time-out that allows us to renew and refresh so that we can go back out and take our places as God’s image in the world.
Henri Nouwen, in his Lent reader, Show Me The Way, said this:
“The rest of God is a deep rest of the heart that can endure even as we are surrounded by the forces of death. It is the rest that offers us the hope that our hidden, often invisible existence will become fruitful even though we cannot say how and when. It is the rest of faith that allows us to live on with a peaceful and joyful heart even when things are not getting better, even when painful situations are not resolved, even when revolutions and wars continue to disrupt the rhythm of our daily lives.”
I don’t know about you, but I struggle every day to live with a “peaceful and joyful heart”. Sometimes I convince myself that it’s just not my nature, but then I remember (and Lent helps so much with this) that I am God’s child, dearly loved, and that my identity isn’t found in money or power or accomplishments or being right, but in the simple fact that God loves me and is willing to put up with my weaknesses to show what true strength really looks like.
The rhythms of our lives will always be challenged by the events around us. The invitation to all of us—the call on all of us—is to trust in the promises of God, and to live into the true rest of God. It may take me all of the Lent seasons left in my life to scratch the surface of that, but I’m grateful for the invitation to live this life of faith.
How about you?
May the remaining days of this Lenten season give you a sense of God’s presence, an awareness of your own need, and a genuine experience of God’s rest. Easter is coming, but for now we wait.
Blessings to you and yours. Stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John
nothing will be the same again
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the one who invites us to join him on this slow journey to the Cross, so that the joy of Easter might be more real and thrilling for you.
During this season of Lent I'm more aware than usual of things that are broken. The invasion of Ukraine has made us witnesses to the destruction of cities and lives. Our continuing wrestling match with the COVID pandemic has revealed the places where our health is threatened, but also our weakened capacity to care for each other effectively and with unity. Closer to home, in this church we still bear the marks of past conflicts, of wounds inflicted and relationships fractured. You may have your own ready list of broken things.
It feels like we have more than our share of broken places these days.
We know we can bring these cracks and splinters to God in prayer. We're invited to pray about all things, and to do it without ceasing. Jesus even provided his disciples (and us) with a template in the Lord's Prayer—some adoration, some hope, some asking for what we need, some confession, and finally more adoration. We know we can pray about these things, and we have an outline for doing it well…but do we? And maybe the harder question is this: When we do, does it matter?
Henri Nouwen wrote this about prayer in his Lent reader, Show Me The Way:
"Now I know that it is not I who pray but the Spirit of God who prays in me. Indeed, when God's glory dwells in me, there is nothing too far away, nothing too painful, nothing too strange or too familiar that it cannot contain and renew by its touch. Every time I recognize the glory of God in me and give it space to manifest itself to me, all that is human can be brought there, and nothing will be the same again."
I love the idea that the presence of God in our prayers can "contain and renew" everything—not some things or most things, but everything. Wow. Think about what that might mean.
Our wounds can be contained and renewed.
Our disagreements can be contained and renewed.
Our failures can be contained and renewed.
Our disappointments can be contained and renewed.
Even our pasts can be contained and renewed.
As we move through this season of Lent, with its call to reflection and repentance, remember that God's invitation to bring our true selves to God in prayer—remember that it has a point. God will hold these things and renew and restore them, and "nothing will be the same again".
Blessings to you as you make your own Lenten journey this year.
Pastor John
Something NEw
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who has walked with us and sustained us during this long season of disruption.
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
As anniversaries go, this one ought to be remembered, even if it’s nothing to celebrate.
Tuesday marked two years since we closed for COVID—it was in between the first and second services on March 15th, 2020. As the virus started to appear in the US we thought we could get one more Sunday in before having to make the decision to close, but we planned to record the services just in case. As it happened the first infections in SLO were reported that Sunday morning, so we cancelled the second service and sent a link to the congregation with the one recording we had.
It was the start of something new. And we continue to learn new lessons and skills.
Lent is the season for personal reflection and repentance where we need it, but it’s not all about us. This season is meant to reorder our lives so that Jesus occupies his rightful place as our deliverer and Lord—it’s meant to be a time where we re-learn how to listen for God’s voice. That’s not easy. There’s a lot of interfering noise.
In his Lent devotional, Show Me The Way, Henri Nouwen wrote this:
“...it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us. Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word 'absurd' we find the Latin word 'surdus,' which means 'deaf.' A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear.”
Among the many things I appreciate about the people of First Pres—the staff, leaders, and everyone who has participated—is the ways we’ve listened for God’s voice and leading over these past two years. We’ve considered questions and made decisions that most churches would take years to act on—we went from recorded services to Zoom to in-person worship, and along the way this church has demonstrated a capacity for creativity, flexibility and adaptability that I’ll bet you didn’t know you had.
The temptation back in early 2020, in the midst of some church conflict and facing a pandemic that threatened our core plans and practices, might have been to make ourselves deaf—to hear only our own voices—to become “absurd” as Nouwen describes it. It would have been easy for the people of this church to retreat to their corners and ignore everyone else. Some did. But the rest of you—the overwhelming majority of you—stayed and listened and learned and even thrived. Over these past two years you’ve developed new ways to gather, to praise, to grow, and even to serve. You should be hearing in that list: fellowship, worship, discipleship and mission—the expressions of a healthy community of Jesus followers.
And so while I can’t wish you a happy anniversary—that would diminish the terrible impact and suffering of the pandemic—I can invite you to be thankful for what God has taught us in these past two years. I can also honor the ways you have listened for God’s voice and acted in response. Well done, First Pres!
Blessings to you and yours. Stay safe and healthy. Our Lent journey continues.
Pastor John
Cleaning House
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Messiah Jesus, who invites us to join him in this Lenten journey to the Cross.
Lent invites us to do a little interior housecleaning—to reflect on our lives and to repent where we need to. All of that is meant to be seen in the context of the whole church year: the expectation of Advent, the joy of Christmas, the events of Holy Week and Easter, and the celebration of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Lent is a part of the year, part of the ebb and flow of the journey of faith. It’s like a spring cleaning for the soul.
But all this reflecting and repenting is designed to point us to Christ—to point us to the one who came and lived and died and rose again—Lent isn’t an invitation to navel-gazing, it’s a call to see who Jesus really is.
We need that. After (hopefully) the worst of COVID, with our domestic politics still in shambles, and with a terrible war entering its third week…we need a little glimpse of the Messiah today, right?
Henri Nouwen was a Catholic priest and writer. He spent part of his life in service at a home for mentally disabled adults—not unlike the God’s Hidden Treasures ministry that we support in Ukraine. It was in that sacrificial life that he learned the most about who Christ was and is.
In one of his Lenten meditations, Nouwen is talking about the way God became human in the form of Jesus. In some thinking, this act of love required God to become less than God fully is—theologians refer to it as the “Great Condescension”. Nouwen isn’t having any of that. He believed that in becoming human, God show us more, not less, of who God is and what that means for all of us. Here’s what he wrote:
“In his servanthood God does not disfigure himself, he does not take on something alien to himself, he does not act against or in spite of his divine self. On the contrary, it is in his servanthood that God chooses to reveal himself as God to us.”
Whoa. Wait just a second.
Did he really say that “it is in his servanthood that God chooses to reveal himself as God?”
What if what we know about Jesus from his life and ministry—the way he loved people, the way he reached out to enemies and the marginalized, the way he railed against the unjust systems of his day, the way he gave himself for the world he loved—what if that’s not just how Jesus was for a few years? What if that’s what God is like for eternity? I’ve used that Nouwen quote during Lent for years now, but only just in this moment did it start to make sense in a new way.
Lent doesn’t disappoint. Pausing (or at least slowing down a little) to reflect and take inventory of our life and faith, helps us get new glimpses and insights into who God is, and who God invites us to be. I hope this season is a blessing to you and to those you love.
Peace to you in the name of the one who shows us what God is like.
Pastor John
Lent
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you all in the name of Jesus, the one who lived and loved and healed, all on his way to his death on the cross. Blessings to you this Ash Wednesday.
Today begins the season of Lent, the forty non-Sundays between now and Easter. Lent is an ancient church tradition describing a season of reflection, repentance, and fasting in preparation for the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. It’s a time to do some inward-looking and confession—it’s no wonder that Lent brings with it an awareness of our own sin and brokenness—even of grief.
Very little of Lent comes naturally to us, and so we often use little strategies to discipline ourselves to embrace the season. Many people give something up. Others commit to spiritual practices to keep the reflection and the repentance front and center. More recently I’ve known people who have added something positive to their daily routine—a commitment to helping the poor, or communicating kind words to friends and family, and co-workers.
Whatever you do, welcome to Lent. I hope this is a meaningful time.
One writer offers this explanation of the season, and I want to share it with you.
“At Lent we take hold of this peculiar Christian calling, to embrace the death of Christ in hopes that this death in us might work the newness of resurrection life in those with whom we come in contact. Lent is not only a remembering of some reconciliation made ages ago, it is an enactment of the reconciliation we bear within ourselves for the sake of the world.” - J.R. Daniel Kirk
That’s a dense and rich paragraph, but it gets at the true heart and meaning of how Lent reminds us that our lives are different because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. I love his reminder that Lent “is an enactment of the reconciliation we bear within ourselves for the sake of the world”. I want that to be true for myself, and I want it to be true for all of you. Our lives of discipleship are meant to be a re-enactment of what Christ has done for us, in a way that shares that gift with the rest of the world.
Wow. That’s a lot more than just giving something up for a few weeks.
In the end, Lent reminds us that the sacrifice of Jesus, in some miraculous way, offers us the forgiveness and reconciliation we need and crave for our own lives and relationships. It’s a death that makes it possible, but the result is new life, and life more abundant.
Over these next weeks, we will be reflecting on the meaning of the cross of Jesus on Sunday mornings. We’ll see that Christ’s invitation to us is to re-shape our lives to the cross, both individually and as this church, to allow the cross to reform and renew our lives so that we can care as Jesus cared, and love as Jesus loved.
May God bless you with a new sense of how Christ’s sacrifice changes our lives. May that be true for you and for me during this special season.
In Christ,
Pastor John
THEN and NOW
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, who invites us to listen to his teachings, and grow more every day into his likeness.
I’m struck by how differently some passages of the Bible sound to me, depending on when I read them. Verses that taught me one thing when I was a child now teach me something different—sometimes a deeper meaning than before, and other times a new thing altogether. It’s one of the blessings and mysteries of reading the Bible.
This Sunday we celebrate the Transfiguration of Jesus. (Leave it to church people to create a holiday using a five-syllable word!) It’s a story that marks an important moment in the life and ministry of Jesus—in our Presbyterian tradition it’s a Sunday with special prayers and readings. I’ve read about this event more times than I can count, and it’s meant something different to me at different stages of life. You can read it in Mark 9:2-8.
After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)
Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.
When I was young I was hooked by the vision of Jesus, shining brightly, having his miraculous encounter with two Old Testament characters. In seminary I focused on what it meant to have Moses and Elijah there—that it represented the Law and the Prophets in full communion with Jesus. Every time I read it I shake my head at poor Peter, who misses the point and can’t resist offering to set up a little conference center with Jesus, Moses and Elijah. When I became a dad I felt the fulness of God’s pronouncement: “This is my son, whom I love!” Finally, it’s the last line that sticks with me these days—I’m aware that I cling to times when Jesus is the only person I’m aware of.
See what I mean? The words don’t change, but we’re different every time we read them. That’s a good thing to carry with us as we live our lives and seek to grow in our faith and discipleship. This Sunday is the final Sunday before the season of Lent. My message will be on a story of Jesus offering the gift of his presence to some frightened disciples—it turns out that just having a glimpse of Jesus can soothe our fears and anxieties. As we prepare for the season to come, let me invite you to read this familiar story again. What jumps out at you? What surprises you? You might have different answers to those questions than the other times you read this story.
We will continue our gradual return to some familiar practices in Sunday worship. We’ll be saying our prayers and creeds out loud together, and in a few weeks we hope to be singing again…still with masks, and still with care for our neighbors and fellow worshippers. Pray for us as we navigate these decisions, and also as we remember how to do things that used to be second nature!
As always, stay safe and healthy. Blessings to you and yours,
Pastor John
PS: Our Ash Wednesday service will be celebrated at 6pm on March 2nd.
PSS: Here are the upcoming preaching texts:
March
6 1 Corinthians 1:18-19
13 Hebrews 12:1-3
20 1 Peter 2:22-25
27 Galatians 2:20
April
3 Colossians 1:15-20
ready to praise God
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus, in whose name we pray and serve and worship.
This is a longer Midweek than usual—stay with me!
I’ve been thinking more about our worship practices lately. As we gradually relax some of our protective measures (the fancy term is “layered mitigation strategies”), I’m looking ahead to what it will be like to sing together again. This past Sunday it was a joy to hear your voices as we said our prayers and creed out loud—if all goes to plan, we’ll be singing together in time for Palm Sunday.
There are few things that cause more discomfort and conflict in churches than the choices of music we sing. If we’re honest with each other (and ourselves), the heat really comes from our defense of our preferences—we like what we like, and that’s what we want everyone else to sing. Sound familiar? Rarely does anyone come to me or send me an email saying that we would be a better church with one kind of music or another (that’s the only winning argument, by the way).
I have a pretty diverse background when it comes to music. I grew up singing in choirs—my high school had a long tradition of excellence in vocal music, and I participated in every genre they offered: madrigals and other classical styles, jazz, musical theatre (ask me about “My Fair Lady”), and even Barbershop. At church I sang in plays and on Sundays, and in the early 80s I sang with an ensemble that turned out to be a prototype for contemporary worship teams. In my London church we had a tradition of performing challenging choral pieces in honor of Remembrance Day, and in 2014 I got to sing Mozart’s Requiem with a stellar choir.
Here at First Pres I talk a lot about blended worship. All that really means is that I place a high value on using diverse styles in worship, rather than being limited to just one. In an intergenerational church, which is truly the only believable future for First Pres, blended worship includes everyone, taking the best of different styles of music and liturgy to tell the story of Jesus in a meaningful way.
Too often we make the mistake of seeing this as a standoff between hymns and contemporary worship music. But why can’t we have both? The two styles do different things. Hymns are great at teaching deep theological truths and at capturing the majesty of God—we want all of that in our worship, right? But contemporary songs add a layer of intimacy and relational depth to our praise that we want and need, whether it’s what we grew up with or not.
This past Sunday was a perfect example (thanks, Scott!). In our opening hymn we heard this verse—there is enough in these eight lines to fill a theology book. Here’s what our ensemble sang for us:
Alleluia! King eternal,
Thee the Lord of lords we own:
Alleluia! born of Mary,
Earth thy footstool, heaven thy throne:
Thou within the veil, hast entered,
Robed in flesh, our great High Priest:
Thou on earth both priest and victim,
In the Eucharistic feast!
There’s so much more to this than I can tackle here, but off the top of my head this single verse talks about the eternal nature of Christ, the incarnation, Jesus and the Temple, the Cross, and Communion. That’s just one verse. It’s deep and rich and important—these are truths that are the foundation of any true worship.
Later in the service we heard a song that includes this chorus:
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves the ninety-nine
I couldn't earn it, and I don't deserve it, still, You give Yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.
In these four lines we learn something essential about the God we learned about in that first hymn: we learn that God loves us relentlessly and sacrificially. Just in these four lines we’re reminded that God’s love never ends, that it borders on recklessness, that it pursues us and fights for us even when we go off on our own (with a nice allusion to the Parable of the Lost Sheep in Matthew 18). None of it is deserved—it’s a free gift of grace—it’s the way God loves each of us, even when we don’t love ourselves.
I don’t know about you, but I need that expression of intimacy and God’s persistent faithfulness every day.
Why wouldn’t we sing about both? My answer to that is that we will.
As we prepare to resume singing together, come prepared to sing the best of the familiar hymns—there’s no excuse from cutting ourselves off from the richness of what we learn in them. But also come ready to sing songs of praise that give us language for the intimacy of our relationships with Jesus. You’ve been hearing the ensemble singing more of these songs over the last year or so, and soon it will be your turn.
Mostly, though, come ready to praise God joyfully and with as much of your heart as you can muster. It’s never been about musical styles—it’s always been about praising the God who made us and loves us, who sent Christ to redeem us and show us how to live and love. If that’s your focus, you can worship to any style, at any volume.
As we watch and wait and pray for this pandemic to release its grip on us, take some time to prepare your hearts for what it really means to worship and praise God together. In the meantime, continue to be careful—stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John
PS: Our texts for the next two Sundays are Matthew 9:9-13 and Mark 6:45-52.
Oh, what a foretaste of glory Divine!
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who sustains us in struggles, and restores us to his shalom.
As I write this the temperature outside is warm enough to make me think of shorts and flipflops…and it’s only February. It’s life on the Central Coast, I know, but still—75 degrees and it’s not even 10am yet? The warmth today is a little glimpse of the seasons to come. Spring and summer lie ahead, and we get a little taste of that future on glorious winter days like this one.
What’s the line from the old hymn, “Oh, what a foretaste of glory Divine!”
That’s a big part of Jesus’ message during his earthly ministry. So many of his parables begin with “This is what the Kingdom of God is like…”. So much of his teaching about himself focuses on how we’re meant to see something about God in the ways Jesus lived and loved and shared. In Christ we get a glimpse of God and heaven and the fulfillment of the promises that give us hope—that’s part of the point.
This Sunday we’ll get a glimpse of something, too.
As I announced at the end of the service, this Sunday we’ll resume saying our prayers and creeds out loud again. I announced it at the end so that people who might not feel safe with a large group speaking would have fair warning. We’ll still be masked and we’ll still try to keep some distance, but we’ll begin the service with a Morning Prayer, we’ll say the Prayer of Confession and the Lord’s Prayer, and we’ll say the Apostles’ Creed…all of it together, out loud. It’s not back to what it used to be, but it’s a good-sized step—it’s a glimpse of how it will be when we’re able to shed these protective measures.
“Oh, what a foretaste of glory Divine!”
OK, so maybe that’s a bit much, but I’m still counting the days until Sunday, looking forward to hearing our shared voices speaking these prayers and affirmations together again.
Here’s our plan—all of it is based on only vaccinated people worshipping in-person, and the other measures (masks and moderate distance) still in place.Over these next four Sundays we’ll say our spoken prayers and readings out loud with masks on as before. We’re going to pay close attention to whether this relaxing of restrictions leads to any infections or illnesses. If it does, well, you know what will happen. But if it does not, we’ll look ahead to singing together on Palm Sunday and Easter—won’t that be wonderful?
And so keep us in your prayers as we make these changes. Continue to be careful during the week, and get an occasional COVID test. If we all do our part, we’ll be able to experience more of what we’ve been missing in our Sunday services.
Blessings to you all—stay safe and healthy,
Pastor John
Upcoming Preaching Texts for the Bible in Community groups.
February
13 Genesis 12:1-3
20 Matthew 9:9-13
27 Mark 6:45-52
Annual Congregational Meeting
To: The Congregation of First Pres SLO
From: Tim Smith, Chair of the Personnel Committee
Pastor John is letting me use his Midweek Reflection to communicate about the process we voted on this past Sunday. If you missed the meeting or if some of the details weren’t clear, this should get all of us on the same page.
The motion we overwhelmingly approved at the Annual Congregational Meeting is this:
“It is agreed the congregation of First Presbyterian Church of San Luis Obispo votes to participate in the Designated Pastor Process.”
This was a vote to start the process of searching for a Designated Pastor, and it allows Pastor John to have his name considered for that role. It was not a vote to hire or call John for that role now.
Here are the steps as the Santa Barbara Presbytery lays them out, and as I shared in my slides on Sunday—you’ll see that we are just at the start of this long list of to-do items.
· Session approves the process. (Done)
· The congregation approves the process. (Done)
· The Mission Study is completed.
· A Designated Pastor Search Committee (DPNC) is elected by the congregation.
· Candidates are considered in partnership with the Committee on Ministry.
· A Designated Pastor candidate is selected by the DPNC.
· The candidate is voted on by the Presbytery.
· The candidate is voted on by the congregation.
· The Designated Pastor is installed for a term of 2-4 years.
· The Designated Pastor can be called as a permanent pastor after 2 years.
As I said on Sunday, there is a long way to go, but we are ready to begin this process as the congregation approved at the meeting. We are committed to working through each one of these steps, and giving regular reports to the congregation on our progress. If you have questions along the way, please send them to me directly or through the church office.
Thank you for your prayers for the church, and for our future ministry.
Tim Smith
Elder and Chair of the Personnel Committee
What will he expect of us?
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who lived and loved and sacrificed and rose again to show us how to be fully human.
Nazareth isn’t much of a place. Even in the Bible, when someone hears that Jesus is from this dusty town in Galilee, they say with sarcasm, “can anything good come from Nazareth?” It’s a sign of God’s power—and maybe his sense of humor—that the Messiah grew up in a town where there were no pretensions of greatness—where nothing good was expected.
I suppose that’s meant to be an encouragement to us. The Central Coast is a wonderful part of the world—with coastline and farming and wineries and a great university—it’s a place to be proud of, whether we grew up here or were smart enough to move here! But there’s a challenge there, too. God turned Nazareth into the hometown of the Savior even though there wasn’t much to work with. What will he expect of us?
A lot, I think.
Comfort and stability and resources are the raw materials for great Kingdom work. We have all three, and in this coming year we’ll gain some clarity about how we’re going to live into the blessings we have, and how God wants to use them through us.
In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, a new disciple named Philip invites Nathanael to meet Jesus of Nazareth, and it’s Nathanael who says, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”
Philip’s response is simple: “Come and see.”
That’s what we can say to each other and to friends as we invite them into this community. Come and see. Come and see a church that is learning to serve in new ways. Come and see a community learning to trust God and each other. Come and see a group of people who are learning to move beyond history and beyond conflict, toward a future with every bit as much promise and potential as its past.
Come and see.
Blessings to you and yours this week. Keep yourselves safe and healthy, and remember to complete your Mission Study Surveys!
Pastor John
PS: The uncertainty of the latest COVID outbreak has forced us to postpone our trip to Israel-Palestine. I’ll be looking for new dates, likely next spring—stay tuned.
The Bible in Community texts for February are as follows:
6 Jeremiah 32
13 Genesis 12:1-3
20 Matthew 9:9-13
27 Mark 6:45-52
reflecting God’s love back to its source
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who shapes us with grace and love and purpose, into the people we are called to be.
Last Sunday I talked about worship as the practice of reflecting God’s love back to its source. I left you all with some homework: to tell someone a story about God, or God and you, or something about how God changed something in your life. I’ve been wondering in the days since how that went for you.
I’ll say that I’ve wrestled with what story I might tell if I had to do your homework. It’s not easy. On one hand the list of things God has changed or shaped in me is too long to consider. On the other, sometimes it’s hard to be sure where exactly God is—what God is up to.
But then I look around at this church, and I see so much of God’s hand at work here.
Over the last year and a half we have had to change just about everything we do: from how we meet, to how we give, to how we worship—and through it all you have come through. The challenge of the last near required three things that I hoped we could live into. We needed to be flexible and adaptable and creative, and that’s exactly what you all have been.
I’ve joked that before this current crisis, church people could spend a year or two choosing paint colors or debating how to arrange the decorations in the Sanctuary (maybe you’ve been a part of some of those discussions). We went from in-person services to recorded services in exactly one week, and over the next year learned new technologies that allowed us to worship together on Zoom, then in-person, adding the capabilities to livestream and still offer recorded service.
You know all of this, but as we think about our stories of what God has done in our midst, it’s worth telling a few more times.
As we enter this new year we’ll continue to embrace new things, even as we preserve and celebrate the traditions that define this place and make it special. It’s going to be a good year, full of challenges and second chances and maybe even a failure or two. It’s going to be a year of serving God faithfully and gaining some new stories of how God is working in our lives, both individually and as this community of faith.
Join us tonight for a new kind of Bible study, taught by Jen Rabenaldt and myself. Come to worship or watch us at home, and take hold of these opportunities to grow. Reflect on the Mission Study Survey—pray about where you think God is leading us in this next chapter of this church’s history.
If worship is reflecting God’s love back to its source, then join with each other to shine that glory in new ways. You’re all in my prayers. May God lead this church into a future that builds on its past, which is just as it should be.
Blessings to you and yours. Stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John
called out ones
Dear First Pres Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who loves us more than we deserve, and who calls us to serve more than we believe we can.
January continues to bring more of the challenges we’ve seen over the last almost two years. The post-holiday surge has forced us to pull back some of our activities again—the choir is on hiatus until February (at least), and we’ve had to resume some restrictions to public access at the church. If you’re tired of reading that, just imagine how tiresome it is to write!
And yet, this gives me an opportunity to thank you all for how you’ve pulled together during this difficult season—you’ve helped to keep yourselves and each other safe, and for that I’m grateful.
As we reflect on what it means to be the church, both in Sunday messages and in the Mission Study Survey, don’t underestimate the importance of pulling together for a common purpose. With COVID we’ve had to do it to keep safe. But it’s always been at the heart of what defines the church through the ages—pulling together to share the Gospel, to worship as a community, and to serve our neighbors. The Bible’s word for “church” is “ekklesia”, which is the “called out ones”—it could mean draftees into the army.
We are a group of “called out ones”—people God has loved and placed in community with a purpose: to love the God who made us, and to love the people and world God has made.
As you work on your Mission Study Survey and think about what it means for us to be the church together, I hope you’re guided by the sentence I’m using each Sunday.
A healthy church is built on a foundation of Jesus Christ, and expressed through fellowship, worship, discipleship and mission.
May we always remember that, and live it boldly in creative ways!
Blessings to you. Keep yourselves safe and healthy.
Pastor John
PS: The themes for the remaining January Sundays are Fellowship, Worship, Discipleship and Mission. In your groups please look around for what the Bible might teach us about each one of those topics. We’ll start with specific texts again in February.
the corner of Marsh and Morro
Dear First Pres Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the Messiah, the one who loves us and calls us and makes all things new…even the years. Happy New Year!
We’re moving into an exciting chapter in the history of First Pres. This week you’ll receive the Mission Study Survey, a tool for gathering information about what individual members and regular attenders think about the ministry of this church. This is an essential step in discerning what God is doing—and what God will do—in the life of this congregation.
This new year is beginning much like the last, with a surge in COVID infections both nationwide and in our community, and with protective measures still in place. I wish that could be different! Like you, I miss the singing and gathering of church life, things which have been limited over the last 22 months. Still, we will continue with our caution and care for our church and for our neighbors—we will update you as things change, either for better or worse.
During January I will be sharing four messages with on what it means to be the church. As I do each year, the series will be built on a sentence that goes like this:
A healthy church is built on a foundation of Jesus Christ, and expressed through fellowship, worship, discipleship and mission.
I believe that our church will thrive when we pay close attention to the person of Jesus Christ—to the teachings and behavior and promises of the Messiah as we see him in the Bible. I also believe that when we focus on Jesus, our communal life bursts out in new expressions of those four critical practices in the sentence above. Church life and health are things that only improve when we’re intentional about them—when we give our time and prayer and effort and financial support to our shared life as the church on the corner of Marsh and Morro.
It begins with trust. It begins with knowing that we’ll never know all the answers, but that we believe God holds us together in a meaningful way. We church people can spend a lot of time trying to be right, and trying to convince others that we’re right. I think that misses the point of who we’re called to be. Pete Enns says much the same thing in his book, The Sin of Certainty.
“Life’s challenges mock and then destroy a faith that rests on correct thinking and the preoccupation with defending it. And this is a good thing. Life’s challenges clear the clutter so we can see more clearly that faith calls for trust instead.”
As we enter yet another uncertain and disrupted year, maybe we can clear some of our clutter and learn to trust God just a little bit more. Maybe as we reflect on the church and consider the questions in our Mission Study Survey, we can set aside the harder edges of how we think it should be, and put that effort into loving God, loving our neighbors, and learning to trust that Jesus is who he says he is, and that he’ll do what he promised to do.
Maybe I’m a dreamer, but if I can borrow a line from John Lennon, maybe I’m not the only one.
And so I mean it when I say Happy New Year to you. Whatever happens in 2022, we’ll face it together, sharing our skills and resources, and trusting that God has a future for this wonderful church that is even better than its past. Join me in praying for exactly that.
Blessings to you. Stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John
PS: The themes for the remaining January Sundays are Fellowship, Worship, Discipleship and Mission. In your groups please look around for what the Bible might teach us about each one of those topics. We’ll start with specific texts again in February.
no matter what the world might throw our way
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus, the one who redeems us and calls us into faithful service. That is not just good news, but the best news!
So much has happened in this past year. We rose to the challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, moving from Zoom services to in-person worship, with additional ways to participate. We’ve seen new people join the First Pres family, which is always a source of joy. And most of all, we are enjoying a renewed sense of unity in fellowship, worship, discipleship, and our mission. These are all good things!
As we come into the Christmas season and the end of this challenging year, we’re using this Midweek Reflection to encourage a little extra giving.
Here’s why. In 2021 we were able to manage our expenses because of COVID restrictions on our services. As we’ve reopened (cautiously) for more in-person services and events, our costs have increased a bit. We will need to make up that gap before the end of the year.
The other main reason is that we’re looking forward to offering a fuller range of ministries and services in 2022—more student ministries, more opportunities for spiritual growth, increased areas of service in our community and in other places.
All of that is good news. Some of it will require some extra support.
So we’re inviting you to consider a special year-end gift to First Pres SLO. If you have a retirement account with a Required Minimum Distribution (and you know who you are), please consider giving part or all of that to the church.
The coming year will be full of its own challenges, but the last two years have taught us that we can continue to worship and serve no matter what the world might throw our way.
Blessings to you this Christmas season! Stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John and Don Green, Chair of Budget and Finance
How long, O Lord?
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Messiah Jesus, the one whose coming we celebrate, and whose return we long for.
As I’ve been saying, Advent is a season when we learn again what it means to wait—to cultivate a sense of longing and expectation as we prepare our hearts for Christmas. I’m feeling the need to wait for Jesus this week—I have a confession for you, but that’s for after this story.
When I was five years old I spent the summer with my family in southern Italy. We lived on a farm where my cousins lived—they didn’t have much, but I remember it being such a magical time of food and laughter and animals and other kids that I got to play with.
As the time came for us to leave and come back to California, my parents wanted to give a gift as a way of saying thank you for their hospitality. They decided on a television. Now there was no cable then, and so getting the antenna and wiring set up was quite a project. On the first night that the TV was operational, the whole family sat silently to watch the news. There were the usual world stories—I remember there being so much unrest in places like Paris and Rome. In the news that first night was a breaking story about a school bus crash, with the loss of a handful of precious children.
The program ended and my parents stood up to go to the dining room for dinner, but none of our Italian cousins moved. They were weeping at the news they’d just seen. There were only a few kids in their village, and that last bulletin about the bus crash upset them deeply.
As an adult looking back on that memory, it taught me something about the ways we can be desensitized to the repetition of sad or tragic events. The more times something happens, the less it impacts our hearts and lives. My parents had seen tragedies on the news before. My Italian relatives had not.
I say all of that because I feel sad about something I didn’t do on Sunday.
The town of Oxford in Michigan lost four high school kids to gun violence last week, and I forgot to mention it or lead our church family in prayer when we gathered for worship. I’ve been thinking about that, and beating myself up a little, to be honest. How in the world did I get so callous about events like that? How could I forget to pray for the families who lost kids who were only a few years younger than my own? What happened to my soft heart?
Of course, one answer is that it’s happened so often that I managed to forget about it. Gun violence in our culture is a stubborn problem, and our leaders have been equally resistant to finding any meaningful response. But politics aside, Sunday was a reminder to me that I can’t allow myself to forget to grieve the losses and offer prayers, no matter how repetitive the rhythm of shootings and death might be. Honestly, I can hardly keep them all straight.
That leaves me with an Advent challenge to myself, and to all of you. In Advent we’re meant to remind ourselves of our need for a Savior—the absolute necessity of God’s hand in confronting the evil in our culture and in our world…and in us. We’re meant to join with the Psalmist in the cry, “How long, O Lord?”
But we’re also called to act. If there could be one issue that drew all parties and views together, why can’t it be this one? No matter how futile it seems at times, it’s our calling as children of the Prince of Peace to try to bring some of that peace to the people who need it most.
For now, though, I’m sad about the hardness of my heart.
I know some of you will want to comfort me and say that it’s not my fault, that I have so many things to remember on Sunday mornings. But…I’m OK with feeling the sadness and guilt of what I see in myself. It’s a part of my Advent process to see the gaps and broken places in my own life of discipleship, and to learn to wait for God’s healing even there.
Maybe that’s something that would help you, too, as you move toward Christmas Day. Where do you need to be reminded of your need for a Savior? Make that question part of your own journey this Advent season.
We’re almost there, but we’re not there yet.
Blessings to you, and do everything you can to keep yourself and your neighbors healthy.
Pastor John
Some Important Updates
1. We continue to abide by the SLO County Guidelines for public gatherings, including churches. We will not be singing during services this season, though I do encourage you to do some serious humming!
2. There will be two Christmas Eve services, at 5pm and 7pm. Please make reservations in the church office. BOTH SERVICES WILL BE LIVESTREAMED AND AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE.
3. Please watch for announcements in the Peak and on the website.
And then along comes Advent
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
(There are some important updates at the bottom of this letter.)
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Messiah, the one whose coming we celebrate, and whose return we expect.
Advent is a season the goes against most of how we live our lives. We push elevator buttons more than once. Most of us have not only microwave ovens, but a whole arsenal of timesaving kitchen tools. I would be embarrassed if you knew how easily I honk my horn. We don’t like waiting very much at all.
And then along comes Advent.
This first season in the church year is a time of learning to wait—of cultivating a sense of expectation and even longing—it’s meant to recreate the way 1st-century Jews felt, after centuries of waiting for the promised Messiah to come. It’s meant to give us an even greater sense of joy at Christmas, because we worked too long for it.
Even after Jesus came, though, not everyone grasped what was happening. In the traditional Advent Gospel reading for today, we find Jesus speaking with his disciples. The powerful people had missed the point, he says, but his followers should feel blessed that their openness allowed them to recognize a different kind of Messiah than the one they might have expected.
In Luke 10 we see this:
23 Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
What is it that we see and hear this Advent season? So much of the last two years has been about distance and masking and closing—none of those really lend themselves to seeing something special and new.
And yet…as another year comes to a close, I’m amazed at what I have seen God doing in the life of this church. Fellowship is still happening. We’ve learned new ways to worship together, even when we’re in different places. We continue to grow in our faith through conversations and reading books and participating in classes—even by reading and reflecting on the preaching texts ahead of time. Through it all, we’ve continued to serve the community around us. The meals at 40 Prado haven’t stopped. We still support mission work around the world. Our Blessing Box is quietly replenished like oil in a miraculous lamp.
I hope you see in that last paragraph the vital expressions of the church: Fellowship, Worship, Discipleship and Mission.
We see all of that in the life of this church. Lots of people—apparently even some prophets and kings—wish they could see this in their domains. It is a blessing that we have set aside some of what has divided us in the past, because it allows us a clearer look and what God is doing in us and through us in the present. In that way we’re living into the Gospel reading for today.
“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
Amen to that.
Blessings to you this Advent season. Stay safe and healthy.
Pastor John
Christ the King Sunday
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ the King, whose life and ministry shape us and call us to faithful service in this world.
This Sunday is called Christ the King Sunday in the church calendar. It’s a day when we celebrate the ministry of Christ in its fullness—the fulfillment of prophecy, the ways he lived and loved, the sacrifice to redeem the world, and his teaching on the Kingdom of God. All that we understand and believe about what Christ accomplished for us is what we remember this week, before starting over again with Advent on the following Sunday.
These rhythms are important for us, even if many of them pass by without our notice. In times when human life was marked by seasons of planting and harvesting and festivals, the church calendar organized those events around the story of Christ. From God’s promise of the Messiah, which is what we remember during Advent, through to the events of Holy Week, the Ascension, and Pentecost, the whole year is marked out for us as a way to remember Christ’s love and sacrifice on our behalf.
Our congregation has its rhythms, too. We’re coming to the end of one this week—the Stewardship Season. We’ve been in a very gentle discussion of our ministries and partnership over these past weeks, and this Sunday we’ll offer a prayer of commitment for the pledges we’ve received (and will receive!). If you need a pledge form, just let me know.
All of this is taking place as we struggle and fidget against the continuing restrictions on our lives due to the COVID pandemic. I feel that way, too.
As we look ahead to the Advent and Christmas seasons, and even farther into the New Year, know that we are planning for a freer and more open 2022. We will not put you or our staff at risk, but as we learn more about what is and isn’t dangerous, we’ll make adjustments to the ways we do things. I’m grateful for your patience this far, and ask for just a little bit more.
In the meantime I leave you with this. The contemporary English poet and folk-rocker—and Anglican priest—Malcom Guite wrote this sonnet for Christ the King Sunday, with an eye clearly on the Matthew 25 passage we’ve been wrestling with. Make it a part of your own prayers this week.
Our King is calling from the hungry furrows
Whilst we are cruising through the aisles of plenty,
Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows,
Our soundtracks drown his murmur: ‘I am thirsty’.
He stands in line to sign in as a stranger
And seek a welcome from the world he made,
We see him only as a threat, a danger,
He asks for clothes, we strip-search him instead.
And if he should fall sick then we take care
That he does not infect our private health,
We lock him in the prisons of our fear
Lest he unlock the prison of our wealth.
But still on Sunday we shall stand and sing
The praises of our hidden Lord and King.
With Blessings,
Pastor John