The Saints: Your Spiritual Support Group

“For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.  And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is God not of the dead, but of the living…”  --- Mark 12:25-27

            She was looking for help.  She suffered from physical pain, emotional trauma from the suicides of both her husband and son, spiritual distress at being abandoned by other family members, and social anxiety at being judged by people who couldn’t understand her.  After multiple suicide attempts of her own, she was reaching out in search of someone to listen, understand, and encourage her.  “How is it you’ve gotten through all that?” I asked.  “How have you made it this far without a support system?”  “I believe in Jesus.  He’s my support system,” she told me.  “Without Him in my life, I wouldn’t be here.”

            When people wonder why they should pay attention to a 2000 year old religion, or what difference the teachings of an ancient rabbi make in this modern world, here is an answer.  Jesus makes all the difference.  Not just the difference between getting up and going to church on Sunday or sleeping in – no, we’re talking ALL the difference – the difference between life and death.  All the arguments about the failures of churches and the hypocrisies of Christians fall away in the light of the fact that Jesus came to love the world from death to life.  Jesus is Lord and he loves you, and that makes all the difference. 

            It is said that when the Turkish hordes were threatening Constantinople, their armies beating at the gates about to take that great city, the Christians inside were holding debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  Even today we are guilty of squabbling and complaining about inconveniences and arguing over insubstantial issues in the midst of people’s life and death struggles with doubt and sin.  Somehow, despite the ways we distort his message and incompletely imitate his service to the world, in spite of our warped witnessing and inadequate ambassadorship to the Lord, Jesus still makes all the difference.  Those who know him know the one who “came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  For this above all, we are thankful.

            Being the month of the Thanksgiving holiday, we are highlighting the theme of Thanksgiving during our 5pm Saturday Godify services in November.  We will start off with our thankfulness for God’s creation on Nov. 3 and explore different reasons and opportunities for responding in thankfulness for what God gives us.  On Thanksgiving weekend, I’ll be talking about thankfulness for one of my favorite things – food! – on Nov. 24.  Please remember also that our annual “Home for Thanksgiving” service is Sunday, Nov. 25 – and we will be taking our 2018 “Family Photo” of everybody who joins us after worship that day.  The following Sunday, December 2, is the first Sunday of Advent and start of a new church calendar year.  We begin the 8:30am “Rise and Shine” services that day, and hold our annual congregational meeting at 11:30am.

            November is also the month of All Saints’ – a holiday we celebrate on the first Sunday of each November, but it actually falls on November 1.  All Saints ’ Day is when we remember that “great cloud of witnesses” who are the spiritual support group for all Christians, the communion of all people of faith alive or dead.  As Jesus points out, even those who are dead are alive in Christ, for God is the God of the living.  The Pharisees’ question to him about a picky technical point (in heaven, who will be the spouse of a woman married 7 times?) gives him the chance to cut to the heart of the matter – the dead will rise again in a new creation.  We can count on eternal life with God through our faith in Jesus Christ.  All Saints’ Day is our reminder of this – that all our loved ones who have died in Christ are not lost to us, but they surround us as an invisible community of encouragement and love. 

            This All Saints’ Day, Thursday Nov. 1 at 2:30pm, you are invited to join us in a special worship service as we remember all the saints, particularly the loved ones in our own lives who have gone on to heaven.  You are encouraged to bring pictures or mementos that remind you of those special saints in your life.  We will sing together, light candles and pray together, remember their life on earth and celebrate their eternal life with Jesus.  All are welcome.

            I encourage you to make use of these special November worship opportunities we are offering this month.  Bring your thankfulness for the One who made you, blesses and keeps you now and in the world to come!

 

Peace,

Pastor Scott

We Love to Tell the Story!

 “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”       -- John 20:30-31

            Ever seen a movie re-make that should never have been made?  Why does Hollywood take classic movies and redo them, minus the magic that made them classic in the first place?  I guess the answer is money, as usual – they figure people will go see it.  But why tell a story over and over again when it has been told so well in the first place.  I’ve seen it with movies from my childhood – Willy Wonka, Clash of Titans, Karate Kid – and my pet peeve, Planet of the Apes—have all been made into far less wonderful imitations.  And then there are those great books that are made into movies time and time again, proving again and again that great books don’t always translate well to the silver screen.  The immense power of Melville’s Moby Dick just can’t be squeezed into a movie, so why do filmmakers keep trying? 

            Maybe because there is something in the story that bears repeating, rethinking, reworking.  The beloved well-known versions of the Maltese Falcon, The Ten Commandments, Wizard of Oz and Ben Hur were all remakes.  Barbara Streisand remade A Star is Born from a classic Judy Garland version that itself was a successful re-make.  And now, get ready for Lady Gaga’s version!  The original 1933 King Kong was a technical masterpiece of its day, but modern special effects have made more recent versions if not better, at least impressive in new ways. 

            So when you’ve got a good story, it bears repeating.  Besides movies, we get stories in many forms: e-books, graphic novels, musicals, Netflix serials, audiobooks, plays, websites, and once in a while a plain, regular, old-fashioned book with words and pictures that don’t move.  Back in elementary school, our teacher used to read to us.  We were allowed to sit on the square carpeted space on the classroom floor and didn’t have to answer questions or do math problems for once…we could just listen and use our imaginations to give life to the story.  It was relaxing and fun.  Those stories took us to other places, other lands, sometimes other planets.  They got us using another piece of our brains for a while, and got us to slow down and think.  Story time made school seem a whole lot friendlier.  It’s amazing what stories can do.

The gospel writers were no dummies.  They wanted to present the Good News of Jesus in the most inspiring and powerful way possible.  They could have just made a list of ways to follow Jesus – dos and don’ts, good ways to live and evil things to avoid.  They could have given step-by-step instructions on how to evangelize and start churches.  They could have made complicated arguments for different doctrinal positions and ways to defend Christian beliefs against pagan doubters.  There were lots of ways the gospel writers could have gone about presenting Christianity to encourage those early generations of believers.  But what they chose to do was tell stories.

Those stories had probably been told before.  In fact, even after Mark had given a pretty good overview of the ministry of Jesus in his gospel, Matthew and Luke had things they wanted to add.  So we have multiple gospels – each of them a collection of stories about what Jesus said and did…and two of the first three were re-makes.  Then John comes along and gives a whole new perspective on Jesus with a bunch of new stories, teachings, and a more divine take on the Son of Man.  So now we have four gospels, all of them showing us Christianity through the lens of the Jesus story.  But the creation of story-collections about God wasn’t totally new and unheard of.  The Old Testament itself takes many stories and weaves them into one great, continuous story stretching from the dawn of creation through the rise and downfall of Israel.  I’ve heard it said that, page-for-page and word-for-word, over ¾ of the Bible consists of stories. 

It’s not always easy to follow the storyline, but God is trying to tell us something very important, not just in what he says but in how he says it.  That long, continuous story which God started at the beginning bears repeating.  We tell it again and again and are still telling it.  We tell it again and again because it is also our story, yours and mine.  Maybe sometimes we tell it better than others.  Maybe sometimes we get the story wrong.  Maybe sometimes we tell it at just the right moment that hearts are open to receive it in a way that they see exactly how the story is theirs, and they respond by praising God.

When you tell your story, how do you connect it to God’s?  Where does your life history intersect with the history told in the Bible?  One point of contact is through baptism – through that water and those promises, God reached out and touched you and brought you into his story.  What stories about God have been particularly meaningful to you?  Maybe there are parts of that story that caused you to change the direction of your life.  Maybe you’re still figuring out that story and what it means to you.  Maybe you’re well aware that the life you are living right now, at this very moment, is also part of God’s ongoing story.

As we prepare for our new 11:30am Child of God service, we celebrate storytelling in its many forms.  We will be going back to the basic stories in Scripture and tracing how that one continuous story of God’s love has unfolded through the vast ages of time and continues in the very living and storytelling that we do right now.  Because it is God’s story, it is ageless and endless.  Because it is our story, it is personal and poignant.  Although it is told over and over again down through the years, it is never exactly the same.  That’s why it bears repeating.

Peace,

Pastor Scott