Pastor's reflections
Monthly faith reflections from the pastor.
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They say you attract more flies with honey. But what if our honey attracts no flies? What if the wicked are not converted? If people in need are ungrateful when we are generous? If we love but our enemies continue to hate us?
Jesus asks us to check the good we do. Both the hows and the whys. As for how: Do we love beyond our tribe? Beyond our own kind? Beyond our party, country, and religion? Do we love God’s own enemies? Of course, for Jesus, love is not a feeling. It’s concrete action that benefits the other, including the enemy. Jesus himself does and wants us (in the words of one scholar) “to break the rule of reciprocity and cost/benefit analysis.” To do that, Jesus goes even deeper: surfacing our hidden motivations for the good we do. We expect something in return. “Let go of that expectation,” Jesus seems to say, naming only one motivation. Do it because God does it. God is good to everyone, and it usually has no apparent effect on the evil. “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus did and does what he commands us to do. So it’s the invitation at the heart of Jesus’ life: “Follow me.” Or, “Do what I do.” The only person I can change is me. The only person you can change is you. And virtue is its own reward. Jesus shows us the way. Jesus is the way. Ask Jesus for the faith to follow and to trust that following is enough, no matter what anyone else does. --PC Once, when I was in the deeply depressed aftermath of a breakup (and my parent’s divorce and my dad’s suicide attempt), a friend lent me a CD: Jeff Buckley’s acclaimed 1994 album, “Grace.” If you know it, you’ll know why she now admits that, all things considered, this may have been a grave mistake.
I was sad, and so is the album. But didn’t so much make me sadder as it gave me a language to express the fullest depths of my sadness. (Psalm 13 did too.) One song stood out: Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Almost a cliché now, it said what I still hold as the truth: And Love is not a victory march It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah It’s the darkness that resonates with me. And also the Hallelujah. Love is both. It’s always both. If it’s not really both, is it really love? Isn’t this what the cross of Jesus says too? That Love is not a victory march? Love is suffering and our salvation. Only love can include both dark and light. Only love bears the darkness until dawn breaks. We Christians should know this better than anyone, and many do. We’re just as good as anyone (and sometimes even better) at insisting on a love that’s only the good parts. Thank God for a Jew who dabbled in Buddhism (Cohen) and a kid raised on Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd (Buckley).--PC “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment,” Jesus taught the disciples.
This is the third consecutive week of reading the Sermon on the Mount in worship. This week, Jesus seems to expect the impossible. If you told me you never get angry ever, I would be suspicious. Anger is a natural human emotion. It’s a sign someone or something you care about has been threatened or violated. I’d worry you were suppressing anger--a sign of a wound, even a traumatic wound. Or I’d suspect you were polishing your record for the pastor. Feeling anger is not the problem; it’s what you do with it. On the other hand, I’ve journeyed a long time with anger, my own and others’ anger. Many things cannot be unsaid or undone, even when they are forgiven. Anger has consequences. I’ve learned that the feelings and reactions that seem automatic and inevitable are not. What seems impossible is possible, through the courage of self-awareness and self-reflection, the strength of discipline, the grace of healing, and the blessing of other people caring enough about us to patiently but firmly holding us to account. What Jesus offers in the Sermon on the Mount is a powerful moral and spiritual vision. Jesus wants to inspire us with hope: more is possible! He does not intend to burden and harm us with unrealistic expectations. Humans are addicted to punishing, not God. Pray with your anger. In God’s presence, ask yourself, “Am I right to be angry? What more vulnerable feelings am I masking with this anger?” Ask God, “Help me do what is right and help me do it with love and holy energy and appropriate urgency.” --PC “We have seen the Lord,” we’ve been singing in worship lately. And we did, yesterday, when we visited Bob, who was dying. We saw Christ on the cross, suffering with Bob and us, loving Bob and us, whispering a promise that today we are with him in paradise. Carolyn reminded us.
Last week (as I write this), we were together at Sandy Birt’s funeral. Not all of us, but wherever there is one of us, all of us are there. All of St. Paul. The whole body of Christ. All creation and the host of heaven. During the service, Sandy’s son, Travis, and daughter, Jenn, remembered their mom. Then came my turn to speak. So I walked down the steps from the communion table, past Sandy Birt’s white-covered casket, and toward her family to read the Gospel of Matthew. And it came back in a flash: I had done this before. I walked down these same steps toward this same beloved family after Hannah died. And I remembered what my pastor told me just the month before, after Jeanne Etheridge died. She said, “The longer you stay, the more you will love them, and the harder it will be when they die.” In worship a few weeks ago, we heard from the Gospel of John. “Where are you saying?” the two asked Jesus. “Come and see,” he said. And the gospel says, “they came and saw where he was staying, and he stayed with him the rest of that day.” --PC |
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715 South Third Street, Clinton, IA 52732
at the foot of the south bridge
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