Pastor’s BLOG
A Season of New Life
I am looking forward to the arrival of Spring in a couple of weeks. Signs of this welcomed season are already visible. As the earth moves along its pathway around the sun, it’s the tilt of the earth that makes the northern hemisphere warm up from the winter cold of the past few months. The warming temperatures bring warmer winds to blow away the cold of winter for a new season of green and flowers and kites!
March is a windy month. And that makes me think about our family’s kite. I am not sure which box it’s packed in, but the breezes of this month make me want to dig around in the attic to find it.
It takes wind to make a kite fly, so March is a great month for kites. But wind is only one part of the kite-flying equation. Kites also need a string and a person on the ground holding that string. With that combination, a kite can soar.
That makes me think about the church and what makes us soar. The church needs the wind of God’s Spirit to carry it. That wind hovered over the waters of creation. It blew through the upper room on the Day of Pentecost sending the disciples into the open with good news. And as we work our way through this season of Lent, that wind lifts us steadily toward Easter Day. Like March winds, the Spirit blows into creation bringing a season of new life.
The church also has a strong cord that connects us to the ground. That strong cord is Jesus. He keeps us grounded in a mission and ministry to a world full of hunger and pain and violence. He keeps us grounded in a community defined by his dying and rising.
Is this a Trinitarian image? The Spirit is the wind, Jesus is the string, and God the Father is holding the string and watching and guiding the kite/church as it carries out its great mission.
Together in Christ,
Jon
God is Doing Something New
I am still reflecting on what a great day we had together at church last Sunday. The afternoon service was remarkable, and I am so blessed that many braved the rain to attend in person. We had a good group watching online as well. (Within about 24 hours of the installation service, there were 62 views on YouTube.)
An installation service is a special moment for a congregation and their new pastor. It’s a worship service in which members of the Presbytery formalize the call of the congregation and its new pastor. It’s a service of celebration marking the start of a new pastoral relationship.
The commission from Presbytery was a group I invited to be part of the service. Four of the five were immediately recognizable. Randy Hall, Ken Davis, Cathy Fulp and Susanne are people you already know. The fifth member of the commission was Rachael Brooks. Susanne and I have known Rachael and her husband Michael and their children for about twenty years. We first met them when they joined the church I was serving in Kentucky. That was a long time ago! Rachael followed a call into ministry and is presently the pastor of a small church in Pilot Mountain. It’s great to be serving in the same presbytery.
By my request, Ken sang 10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman. There is a line in that song that I felt spoke to the moment:
The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning;
It’s time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me,
Let me be singing when the evening comes.
Shelley chose the anthem, God Is Doing Something New for the choir to sing. It fit exactly right for the day.
God is doing something new, here among us, let it start.
May it change us, restore our hearts, He’s the way through the wilderness.
In the Desert, He’s the stream. God is doing something new in you and me.
Rachael’s sermon from Ezra 7, was full of encouragement for what God has planned for us together. She gave us a faithful vision for what’s ahead.
These are days full of energy and excitement for the church. And I humbled and grateful to share in the work with all of you.
Finally, I want to share my thanks one more time for the notes and sympathy cards I’ve received since my mom’s death. You’ve sent messages of hope and peace, and that has meant a lot to me over the past month. In February, I am planning some time with my brothers when I travel for the Navy to California.
Peace to you as we are growing together in Christ.
Jon
God’s Rubbish Service
The city where we previously lived in Virginia has a monthly trash collection that was handy. In addition to the weekly trash collection, on the first Tuesday of each month, the town collects almost anything you put at the street. This provides a way to dispose of items that are too large to fit in a rolling bin. (The Lexington City web site describes a similar service for its residents.)
So, on the first Tuesday of each month in the limits of that Virginia town, there is an assortment of items all waiting to be hauled away. The official name by the public works department for these items is “bulky rubbish.” The Martins made regular use of this popular service.
Once we put an old push mower out. Before the town came and took it, however, someone else came by and asked for it. We said yes. It’s possible that some items set out for the town to haul away never make it to the landfill, but become flea market items-and I’m okay with that!
And once when I was driving on a first Tuesday, I saw a gas grill someone had put out. It looked like it still had some life left in it, and I admit that for a brief moment I considered stopping but didn’t. Susanne would not have approved.
There is a theological point here. In our Presbyterian worship service, we offer a similar “bulky rubbish option” every Sunday morning of the year. During the service, there is a time for individual and collective confession. We are all encouraged to push to the street all of the parts of our lives that we don’t want anymore: all of the sinful behavior, all the struggles and anxieties and hassles. And God hauls away all of that bulky and not-so-bulky rubbish. With all of that gone, we are assured of God’s forgiveness, and sing as we make a fresh start for a new week.
To receive the benefit of a town’s rubbish removal service, you must live within the town limits. To receive the benefit of God’s bulky rubbish service, your zip code doesn’t matter; you need only ask-and it doesn’t have to be during a church service. And it’s always available. We include God’s rubbish service as part of our worship each Sunday morning because, we believe, God wills for us to take our human condition seriously.
I appreciate the way January arrives each year with energy about making a fresh start in a new year. Some of you make plans and resolutions and so do I. Whatever plans you make, please consider in these first Sundays of 2023 what you would move to the “street” that you don’t want to bring with you into a new year. God will haul all of it away. Peace to you and…
We are growing together in Christ.
Jon
The Household of God
Susanne and I have been decorating our house for Christmas for the past couple of weeks. This year we started our Christmas decorating by setting up the tree. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago: when it comes to Christmas trees, we are definitely Fraser fir tree people. Rockefeller Center can have their Norway spruce, but the Martins will stay with the Fraser fir!
We put all kinds of ornaments on our Fraser fir. Some of our ornaments are homemade. Some were given to us. Some we gave to Katherine and Jonah. Some came home from school as art projects. They are made of wood, pewter, glass, plastic, metal, wax, ceramic, and some are stuffed. Others need batteries or hold a photo. Some have been on twenty-seven different Christmas trees and one or two are new. Every year we unpack this assortment and hang them one-by-one on the tree.
Our collection of ornaments reminds me of the church. To be more specific, it reminds me of something I really like about the church. We are a gathering of people who are united in the household of God, and yet have varied backgrounds, worldviews, cultural identities, political leanings, work-a-day lives, personal stories, interests, gifts, and much more.
I like this because a diverse body of Christ is God’s idea. Jesus told the disciples to make disciples of all nations, and that’s what they did. They carried the news of Christ’s death and resurrection into all the world. The church is truly world-wide – and what a gathering of people it is!
One window into this diversity is the church’s wide-ranging Christmas celebrations. In Ghana, a fruit tree in a family’s yard or in the center of a village might be decorated with simple ornaments. In Lebanon, a family might spend the week after Christmas visiting relatives (Some of you might be planning something similar.). In Australia, a family might unwrap presents on the patio then the children might cool off by running through the sprinkler on a summer day. In Saudi Arabia, celebrations and decorations are confined to embassies and private homes. Public displays are very seldom seen. In Germany, families open their gifts on Christmas eve.
I like a Christmas tree full of all sorts of ornaments as a symbol of the diversity of the world-wide church. Like the branches of an evergreen tree holding a collection of ornaments, Jesus holds all of us together in our diversity.
The Martins wish all of you a Merry Christmas filled with hope, peace, joy, and love, trusting that we are…
Growing in Christ,
Jon
