Weekly STAR Reflection 9/6/2020
As we prepare for worship this weekend, consider reading this week’s lessons along with this reflection to ground yourself in the Word. This reflection comes from sundaysandseasons.com and is also printed on the back of the worship bulletin.
Called to Community
Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matt. 18:20). In these Sundays after Pentecost, we are repeatedly reminded that God has not abandoned us and that Christ’s resurrection and ascension are a beginning for us, not an end. The readings this week focus on the practical work of the gathered Christian community: turning from sin to repentance, from conflict to reconciliation. The question is as relevant today as it was for the disciples and the first Christians: how do we live together, work together, as the body of Christ? We have been saved by grace, liberated by God’s love to love one another. What does it mean for us and for our community to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14) and to clothe ourselves in love?
We keep asking these questions because the way we gather as Christians continues to be profoundly countercultural. We do not gather as a social club, drawn and kept together only by shared demographics and interests. If church is only a social club, there is no reason to continue to gather if conflict arises, if uncomfortable issues are raised, or if “the way it’s always been” begins to change. If church is only a social club, there is no reason to do the hard work of reconciliation and forgiveness.
God calls us into community knowing that being in community is hard. In scripture we can find practical guidance for gathering through good and hard times. The Holy Spirit is always at work—in, through, and among us—to gather and regather us again. In community we meet and become Christ’s body in ways that are impossible for us as individuals; all the commandments are fulfilled in this call to neighbor-love (Rom. 13:9).
This column will also occasionally feature reflections or devotions from members of the congregation as one way that we practice discipleship and share ministry together. If you would like to contribute in the future, please contact the church office.
Weekly STAR Reflection 7-12-2020
Reflection from Pastor Amy:
Years ago, I learned about the idea of God’s character. A friend I knew grounded his work in the notion that God’s character was visible in the pages of scripture – God is love, God is generous, God is gracious, God is giving, God is merciful. My friend would read scripture and then ask: What does this story reveal to you about God’s character?
Since God’s character was visible, my friend also taught the people he was working with to ask themselves: what character of God do you know best? The idea at the heart of my friend’s work was that when Genesis says that we are created in the image of God, it is God’s character that each person carries in some unique way.
Psalm 145 says “The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. (vs. 8, ELW translation). In this Psalm and throughout scripture, we see many ways that God’s compassion is visible as well as ways that our ancestors of faith have embodied God’s compassion through their actions. These stories are powerful reminders that God’s character of compassion is something that we can all cultivate to be stronger and more vigorous.
Starting Sunday, July 12 we will spend five weeks in worship Cultivating Compassion. Through worship and activities more intentionally planned to engage a wider range of ages, we will have the opportunity to explore how we cultivate God’s character of compassion in ourselves and our community.
Each week we will explore the theme in a different way. This week we focus on Cultivating Compassion: At the Table. Adults who want to study the Sunday text more in depth each week are invited to join the Deep Dive with Pastor, which will take place at 9:45 on Zoom on Sunday mornings. Families with elementary-aged children and younger who want to do activities at home, or others who like to engage their faith in more tactile and experiential ways are encouraged to sign up so they can receive access to a Google classroom, where each week we’ll upload several videos for you to access at your own pace and on your own schedule.
In this time of great uncertainty and significant change, cultivating compassion for others, for ourselves, and for the world around us is one tangible way that we can more fully reflect God’s character of compassion that has already been planted in us!
Here’s to our growth!
Weekly STAR Reflection 6-21-2020
Reflection from Pastor Amy:
On June 17, 2015, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, the Rev. Daniel L. Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton and Myra Thompson were gathered for Bible study at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. As they studied scripture, these nine welcomed a stranger to their circle and before their study was over, all were dead and three more were wounded. The killer left no doubt about his actions. He overtly and explicitly sought out a gathering of black people because of their race and their commitment to civil rights. The man who killed the Emanuel Nine is rightly imprisoned today.
I was in Egypt on June 17, 2015 when the news of this horrendous event reached me. When I learned that the murderer had grown up in an ELCA church, I was cut to the heart (language we heard in response to Peter’s preaching this past week). I experienced shame at the crime of a person I didn’t know and had never met. It was staggering to realize that someone could hear the same proclamation of Jesus’ unconditional love and grace that I heard, and yet bear such different and destructive fruit. The shame I felt in that moment was born from the realization that formation in the ELCA was not enough to teach him to recognize the image of God in the people who would become his victims. I wondered: where had my faith formation also fallen short? If hymns, scripture, and theology could still allow hate and racism to take root in this baptismal brother, that meant it also could have taken root in me. I began to ask myself: as a pastor in this church, as a believer who has loved and been deeply shaped by the institutions of this church, what corners of my heart and life had also received racist and hate-filled messages and not yet been touched by Jesus’ grace-filled, healing power?
This Sunday’s passage from Acts contains a story of Peter and John healing a man lame from birth. One function this story serves is to remind us that the healing power of the risen Christ wasn’t just at work in Jesus, but is also at work in those who call on his name. And not just first century apostles like Peter and John, but people like you and me who look at the shame we experience in our own lives, or the shame we feel from the world around us, and seek Christ’s power and presence to heal us.
An African American spiritual sings:
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.
Don’t ever feel discouraged, for Jesus is your friend;
And if you lack for knowledge he’ll never refuse to lend.
Jesus is a balm that heals. He never grows tired of lending his healing power to those in need. Sometimes that healing begins with repentance as we seek forgiveness for what we have done and what we have left undone, for what we know and what we remain ignorant of, for our sins of thought, word, deed, and for the sins of our sisters and brothers, our neighbors, our ancestors.
In the humility of repentance, I make room for the balm of Christ’s forgiveness to fill me and continue the work of healing. This healing power is present for all who believe!
May Christ’s peace fill you today and in the days ahead.
Weekly STAR Reflection 5-31-2020
Reflection from Pastor Amy
“I can’t breathe.” George Floyd’s words spoken in the moments before his death ring in my ears in these days leading up to Pentecost Sunday, the festival when we mark the gift of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s church. In scripture, the Holy Spirit is often experienced as breath, wind, or air, reminding us the Spirit of Christ is as near as our breath. When we can’t breathe or when our neighbors can’t breathe, it is God’s own Spirit which is being silenced and stilled.
The news has reminded us again what sorrow, grief, and anger is born when breath is purposely withheld – whether by force or disease. Over the last two months, we have learned again what power and potential danger our breath carries. Filled with this knowledge, out of care and concern for ourselves, and extending love for the most vulnerable among us, we have suspended our usual activities and adopted new practices. We wear masks and physically distance ourselves from others, all in order to minimize the shared air we breathe. Like the disciples in Sunday’s gospel, we find ourselves these days gathered behind closed doors, in enclosed spaces, only mingling with the most intimate gatherings of family.
So much in our lives right now reminds us that the air we breathe matters. But the very same air that can carry deadly disease is also capable of carrying God’s Holy Spirit! And that Spirit-filled breath, given to us in our baptism into Christ, is not limited by the walls that surround us, by the masks that protect our neighbors, or by the practices we adopt in order to extend our love. The stories of Pentecost from both Acts and John remind us that God’s Spirit of truth and life will penetrate all barriers we place in its way in order to enter and fill us!
This Pentecost, I place my hope in the good news that God’s Spirit will not be bound: not by closed doors, not by confined spaces, not by attempts to stop its flow. No! The breath of God comes even now teaching us that the air we breathe is spirit-filled! Teaching us that the freedom to breathe clean, fresh, unobstructed air is just! Teaching us that preserving and sustaining the breath of our neighbors is righteous! Teaching us to proclaim God’s deeds of power on our breath and in our actions as we embody God’s abundant life and love!
~ Pastor Amy
A note about Sunday: The color for the work of the Spirit in Christ’s church is always red! Consider gathering red flowers or red balloons in your worship space at home, wear your favorite red t-shirt, or bring the attached coloring sheet with you as we gather on Sunday to give thanks and praise for the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives! As is the practice at Bethlehem, we will celebrate Confirmation this Pentecost Sunday. This is not the way any of us prefer to celebrate on Sunday – all in our own spaces and separated – but in upholding Olivia, Elizabeth, Katy, Sam and Paige as they (and us) affirm their faith on Sunday, we witness to the God’s deeds of power alive in these young people and active in our world! Be sure to read their biographies in this week’s Star, hold them in your prayers in the coming days, and if you’re able, reach out to them with a card or note to extend your blessing to them! In doing this we nurture the seeds of hope growing in this community of faith
Weekly STAR Reflection 5-3-2020
Reflection from Pastor Amy
For the last seven weeks, poetry has been my reading of choice. I hear of people reading the great novels of literature in these days. I don’t have capacity for much more than a few short, concentrated lines. I’m grateful our ancestors in faith saved their poetry, hymns, and prayers for us in the Psalms, especially at times like this.
In the Book of Psalms, we hear the questions we don’t know how to answer: “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13). We hear trust in God’s presence expressed: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46). We hear people call on God in times of need: “Be pleased, O God, to deliver me; O Lord, make haste to help me” (Psalm 70). In the Psalms we are reminded that there is no thought, no feeling, no expression of our innermost self that is beyond God’s desire to know and hear. This week in worship we will hear Psalm 23 – the poem of a sheep who rests in the care of a shepherd.
God is my shepherd, he gives me all I need.
He gives me wonderful places to rest and sleep.
He lets me splash and play in cool, clear waters.
He helps me do what is right.
I am not afraid even in the darkest nights
Because you are with me, God, and
Your protection comforts me.
When danger comes, you give me strength.
My life is filled with your love, and all I want is to be
With you my whole life long. (Translation, Spark Story Bible)
What do these words call to mind for you?
In these words, I hear the person I wish to be, more than the person I am today. I am sometimes fearful about having enough. I can be afraid and restless when I wake at night or when I hear the news of each new day. I am not always aware of or grateful for all that I have been given.
Psalm 23 reminds us that it doesn’t matter who we are today. Our God is a shepherd who provides for us, helps us, comforts us, strengthens us, protects us, and loves us, no matter what kind of critter we are! Our God is a shepherd who walks with us along every pathway! May you know the presence of the Good Shepherd walking near you in the week ahead.
~ Pastor Amy