March 25, by Creighton University’s Online Ministries Fifth Week of Lent
This is the last full week of Lent. We can feel the conflict and struggle developing in the readings. As we read about the drama that surrounded Jesus’ last days on earth and reflect upon its meaning, we experience how the drama that is going in our own hearts in more intense the closer we get to the end of Lent. The Spirit of the Lord is really trying to help us be more open and more free, to receive the graces our Lord wants to offer us. There is another spirit that is fighting just as hard to distract us, discourage us, and prevent us from being open and attentive to God’s gifts. The closer we get to the mystery of our Lord’s passion, death and resurrection for us, the more we can experience struggle. If I experience myself somewhat “at war” with myself, then these are very important days to keep deliberately asking our Lord to help me. It is also a great time to begin to prepare to renew the baptismal promises at Easter. We can reject the unloving choices we’ve made, all that is unjust, dishonest, disrespectful and violent. We want to refuse to be mastered by empty promises. Declaring our desire for freedom is a great preparation to receive this great gift. If we are celebrating the Scrutinies with the RCIA candidates and catechumens, this is a wonderful time to pray for them as well, for their protection from the evil one in the last days of their journey. If we have developed the habit of naming a desire the first thing each morning, and carrying on a conversation with our Lord in the brief background moments of the day, we are already comfortable with letting the Word or the Season interact with the concrete events of the week. This way of finding intimacy with our Lord, through our daily interaction – even in a very busy life – is so appropriate for the Fifth Week of Lent. We can discover areas that are still resistant to God’s grace. We can ask for help to practice new ways of being free, or new ways of loving. We can find ways to make financial sacrifices to give to the poor this week. Each night this week, we can give thanks. The closer we get to celebrating Holy Week and the events that brought us our salvation, each of us can express our gratitude, realizing this was all for me. Taken from the “Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer” on the Creighton University’sOnline Ministriesweb site: http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html Used with permission.
March 26, by Rodney Duke Repentance and Holiness
Lent, Holy Week, and Good Friday bring up the subject of sin and repentance. I am not comfortable when preachers talk about my sins for a couple of reasons. The first reason, though, is something of a misperception. Talk about sin reminds me about being a child and the shame I felt when I was punished, particularly publicly. But that is not what good sin talk is about. God does not seek to humiliate wayward people, but to reveal what is of Life and what is of Death. The call to repentance is a call to turn back to Life. The second reason I feel uncomfortable is legitimate. Talk about sin, when empowered by the Holy Spirit, confronts me with a Holy God. I realize that I, His creation, have lived in violation of His will and character. I have missed the mark and have fallen far short of His glory. So, in this case, a true sense of sin is directly proportional to my sensitivity to the presence of Jesus. It is a heartfelt knowledge of God’s holiness that reveals my utter lowliness. Good sin talk is a call to holiness, a call into Jesus’ presence. I remember reading sermons of some of the great Wesleyan holiness preachers. In response, I wanted to be holy just because the sin in my life is always such a pain. It makes such a mess of my life. But that is the wrong reason to want to be holy. Jesus is holy. And only that which is holy can be in His presence. I want to be in His presence. Lent is a good time to repent and draw close to Jesus.
March 27, by Lenten Devotions from the Society of St. Andrew John 4:7-42 New Possibilities
Lent is a time to meet Jesus anew and discover unrealized possibilities in our faith journey. When the Samaritan woman came to the well, she was leading a life that seemed to have no other possibility. She was stuck in a rut, repeating the same choices over and over again. Her choices had led her to be marginalized in her community. How surprised she must have been to have this man, a Jew, a stranger, talk to her. But she was not a stranger to Jesus. She came for water that would be consumed, but she received water that would change her life. When she left her home, she could not see the possibility of such a change. She could not anticipate that she would have a positive influence on her community. She had no idea that she could move out of her marginalized status. She had no hope for new possibilities for her life. She expected that her life would be the same when she returned from the well as when she approached it. But Jesus was at the well. He saw her with eyes of concern and acceptance that looked past who she was, who she had been. He offered her new possibilities for her life. And she accepted. Will you be the same at Easter as you were on Ash Wednesday? Seek new possibilities. Meet Jesus anew. ~ The Rev. Dr. Youtha Hardman-Cromwell Taken from the Society of St. Andrew’s Lenten Devotions http://endhunger.org Used with permission.
Maundy Thursday, March 28, by Jana Duke
The Mystical Supper, Icon by Simon Ushakov (1685)
Maundy Thursday is the day in the Church that we remember Christ’s Last Supper with his disciples. In some churches around the world this day is named, “Thursday of Mysteries.” The word, “Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum, “commandment” and refers to the commandment Jesus gave to his disciples at the Last Supper:
“A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.” John 13:34
On this day in the Church year I try to enter into the mystery of the Last Supper — the sadness, the sorrow, the knowledge that Jesus will be taken away to the Cross. We symbolize this in our church as we take down the altar cloths, strip the altar bare and leave a dark sanctuary. As we go through the symbolism of the mystery I must ask myself, do I obey Christ’s commandment? Jesus said that the world will know that we are his followers if we love one another. I have fallen short on this mandate. If I am to participate in Christ’s mandate to love others, this means I need to allow Christ to make a radical transformation in my life. How is it people will recognize me as a follower of Jesus? Jesus says it is simply by how I treat others. I pray to our Sweet Lord Jesus to help me to love as he has loved to help me to see others as He sees them and to help me to live his mandate.
Creator and Loving God, you kneel to wash my feet, yet I am reluctant for you to see all the places I have gone in my attempts to escape you. Forgive me, Holy One, and have mercy on me. As you have broken your heart for me, may I open mine in service to others. As you have given your life for me, may I offer mine to bring healing to the world. As you have called me together around your Table, may I go forth to feed a world hungry, not only for food, but for your Spirit which brings peace and reconciliation. Amen
(Revised Common Lectionary)
Good Friday, March 29, by Rodney Duke Never Forsaken
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’– which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of those standing near heard this, they said, ‘Listen, he’s calling Elijah.’ (Mark 15:34-35, NIV) Those people misunderstand what Jesus said, and we sometimes do too. Jesus is starting to recite Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is the epitome of the Psalm of the Innocent, Righteous Sufferer. Jesus’ cry from the cross is a cry of despair, but not of total despair. Jesus’ cry is grounded on faith: “For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (Psalm 22:24, NIV). Jesus’ cry from the cross reminds me deeply of the Incarnation, that God took on our humanity. We will never know the depth of Jesus’ despair and suffering on the Cross; but, Jesus in his humanity does know and understand the depth of our despair and suffering. We will experience times when God does not seem to be present and when we seem to be engulfed in darkness: times of crucial decisions, times of lost relationships, times of depression and anxiety, times when we feel beaten down. I am convinced that in these times, Jesus not only gives us permission to cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me;” but our Risen Lord Jesus is there to intercede for us and cry out those words for us and in us and through us. But, when Jesus cries out those words through us, they, like those of Psalm 22, will also be words of faith, words that proclaim down to the very last breath of life that God is sovereign, that God is there, that God is for us. And we also have this perspective: When Jesus cried out those words from the Cross, it looked like all was lost, that the Son of God was dead, that the Kingdom of God would not come, that Satan had triumphed. But we know that those words and the bleakness of the Cross were followed by Resurrection and Life.
Holy Saturday, March 30, by Creighton University’s Online Ministries
Today we contemplate Jesus, there in the tomb, dead. In that tomb, he is dead, exactly the way each of us will be dead. We don’t easily contemplate dying, but we rarely contemplate being dead. I have had the blessed experience of being with a number of people who have died, of arriving at a hospital shortly after someone has died, of attending an autopsy, and of praying with health sciences students over donated bodies in gross anatomy class. These are blessed experiences because they all brought me face-to-face with the mystery of death itself. With death, life ends. Breathing stops, and in an instant, the life of this person has ended. And, in a matter of hours, the body becomes quite cold and life-less – dramatic evidence that this person no longer exists. All that is left is this decaying shell that once held his or her life. Death is our ultimate fear. Everything else we fear, every struggle we have, is some taste of, some chilling approach to, the experience of losing our life. This fear is responsible for so much of our lust and greed, so much of our denial and arrogance, so much of our silly clinging to power, so much of our hectic and anxiety-driven activity. It is the one, inevitable reality we all will face. There is not enough time, money, joy, fulfillment, success. Our physical beauty and strength, our mental competency and agility, all that we have and use to define ourselves, slip away from us with time. Our lives are limited. Our existence is coming to an end. We will all die. In a matter of time, all that will be left of any of us is a decomposing body. Today is a day to soberly put aside the blinders we have about the mystery of death and our fear of it. Death is very real and its approach holds great power in our lives. The “good news” we are about to celebrate has no real power in our lives unless we have faced the reality of death. To contemplate Jesus’ body, there in that tomb, is to look our death in the face. Today’s reflection will lead us to the vigil of Easter. This night, communities from all over the world will gather in darkness, a darkness that represents all that we have been reflecting upon today. And there, in that darkness, a fire is lit. That flame is shared around the community until its light fills the room. Then, a song of exultation is sung, proclaiming that Christ is the light of this night. And, there, in the light of Christ, we will read the scriptures that prepare us to celebrate God’s revelation. This is the story of our salvation – how God prepared to rescue us from the power of sin and death. The God who created us, who led a chosen people out of slavery, raised Jesus from death. We can rejoice that death has no final victory over us. We can celebrate our faith that we have been baptized into the death of Jesus, so that we might be baptized into his life. As we behold the body of Jesus in the tomb today, and as we contemplate the mystery of our death, we prepare our hearts to receive the Good News of life. We know that tomb will be empty and remain empty forever as a sign that our lives will not really end, but only be transformed. One day, we will all rest in the embrace of Jesus, who knows our death, and who prepares a place for us in everlasting life. Our reflection on this holy Saturday, and our anticipation of celebrating the gift of life tonight and tomorrow, can bring immense peace and joy, powerful freedom and vitality to our lives. For if we truly believe that death holds no true power over us, we can walk each day in the grace being offered us – to give our lives away in love. Taken from the “Weekly Guide for Daily Prayer” on the Creighton University’sOnline Ministriesweb site: http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html Used with permission.
Easter Sunday, March 31, by Jason Byassee “Not one of his bones will be broken.” – John 19:36
This is one of several prophecies in the Old Testament that we Christians hold to have been fulfilled in Jesus. But it is a puzzling one. Jesus was tortured to death in the most gruesome form of execution that the quite-gruesome Romans ever came up with. If one is beaten and then affixed with nails to a tree to die either of asphyxiation or blood loss, what virtue is there in the resulting corpse having no broken bone? The gospel of John is echoing the Psalms. The hymns of Israel often lamented deep suffering. Yet the psalms hold out a promise that God will be faithful. Suffering is horrible, but temporary. It will not last. One of the promises of the limitation of suffering comes in Psalm 34:20, “Not one of his bones will be broken.” The psalm praises the way of the righteous. She will face many afflictions, but “the Lord rescues them from them all.” When ancient Christians were trying to make sense of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, they turned back to their bibles. In a time when the New Testament was not yet written, all the scripture they had was what we call the Old. And they saw this promise in the psalm–that the righteous are afflicted, but God keeps their bones from being broken. Somebody remembered that after Jesus’ death the Romans broke the bones of the thieves on either side of him. This was done to keep the crucified one from standing up straight enough to draw a breath. But when the soldiers came to Jesus they saw he was already dead, and did not break his bones. And they remembered the psalmist’s promise of many afflictions and one point of mercy; Good Friday preparing the way for Easter morning. Still, it’s an odd promise isn’t it? What do we make of it? In this last year I’ve gotten to know some of the bones of this church. Some of the fiber in the spine of Boone Methodist that keeps the body from puddling to the floor in a pool of mush. We lost some of them this year–Bill Dixon, World War II veteran. Bette Hodson, longtime lover of children’s ministry and UMW. Jennie Lee Deal, who loved to play games and never met a stranger. Tom Cottingham, who went on our church’s first mission trip when he was in his 80s. These bones of our church may have died this year. But they did not break. They held the rest of us up and allowed us to stand tall, breathe, and worship. I’ve also been privileged to get to know some of the newest members of our church. James Lorello and Brandon Nelson, who are trying to help the Appalachian State students they work with to see masculinity differently than the macho and womanizing image in much of our media. Jessica Lorello has planned weddings and Adryona Nelson works in distance ed on campus. Joe Bradford, the retired real estate agent keen to see us more engaged in helping the poor. Rhys Hester, who plays a mean guitar. Courtney Moretz, who grew up in Boone and has found good friendships in us. Bob and Lisa Campbell who have worshiped with us for four years and just now made it official (some engagements last longer than others!). These folks are each a gift–each a bone in the body of Christ that will not be broken, that will hold the rest of us up. This is the mystery of the church. We are always in a precarious state. You have heard predictions about the church in the US–that we are too old, giving less, less committed, showing up less often. There is truth in those claims. Here’s a greater truth: we exist only because the crucified one is raised. That’s a thin thread on which to hang our entire hope. But just like the bones of the savior, the bones of the church, that thin thread will not break.
Dear Friends,
“We think every rupee is as precious as every child.”
So claims Chris Heuertz, founder of a terrific mission agency called Word Made Flesh, and our missions celebration keynote this spring. I so hope everyone can participate all weekend, April 19-21. He is the best of Wesleyan evangelicalism (a graduate of Asbury College) with Catholic care for the poorest of the poor (he spent months at Mother Teresa’s home for the dying in Kolkata). Word Made Flesh founded the first pediatric AIDS care home in South India. They treasure children. And they strive to treasure their funding just as much.
We do too here at Boone UMC. Last fall seemed to be shaping up like a hard one for us. We made budget plans for 2013 on the assumption that money would be even tighter than in 2012. We have since had several pieces of good news.
One, we finished 2012 in the black financially. This was due to some remarkable giving by each of you. Some of you told me “I dug deep, did we make it?” We didn’t make what we budgeted, but we did cover what we spent. Our future work here is to spread our giving out over the course of the year so we no longer have to pray for a “Christmas miracle”!
Two, we have been working to refinance our mortgage. Harold Tilley, Jennifer Whittington in my office, Jason Triplett and others did the work to put our loan out for bids and four banks came back with terms that would all have improved on what we were paying. We decided to refinance with Wells Fargo, since they offered the best rate and the most flexibility we could get. Our new rate will free up thousands of dollars in monthly cash flow. Harold gave this happy news to the administrative council this week. Let me reiterate what I said then: let us not say that finance committee is always the frowning body of “no”!
Three, we have received a significant gift from a bequest of a church member, Bette Hodson, who died in 2012. She loved our church, our children’s ministry, and our life together pursuing Jesus on this mountain. This is a game changing gift for our church. For now we will use it to pay off our smaller mortgage, provide funding for the visioning process and the creation of a capital reserve fund. The rest will be placed in our endowment fund to bless future generations.
Just to be clear, the giver of this gift wanted no part of it to go to regular operating expenses. She was wise to stipulate that. We need to cover our own bills through the spiritual practice of giving and investing in God’s work in this church and community. What the gift does do is set an example of the way one member’s giving beyond her death can bless her church for years to come. She did not have to ask her family to sacrifice to do it–on the contrary they made out far better than they would without this investment. Please see me or Jim Deal in our endowment committee for more about how you can do likewise.
Final note on our finances for now: with the recent arrest of a community member for embezzling from another local church, it is a good time to say that we have practices and people in place to prevent this here. We have two check signers for every check that goes out. Two people have to count our Sunday offering together (only one can be a staff member and they cannot both be check signers, or family members). We hire an external accountant to go over our expenditures. Our finance committee is moving us toward a full audit of our finances. We are bonded against any potential embezzlement. What happened is terribly sad. No one should be so naïve as to say “it couldn’t happen here.” But we have practices in place to make it exceedingly difficult. If any of you would like to discuss anything about our finances please see me or Harold, our finance chair, we can tell you more than you’d ever want to hear.
Let us all move toward treating children and dollars as the treasures they are.
Dear Friends,
A lay leader here whom I trust deeply recently came to me with some advice. “You ask a lot of us,” he said. “It wouldn’t hurt to thank us, say ‘attaboy’, every now and then”.
He couldn’t be more right. I spent oceans of words and worry last fall on our finances. Y’all heard about it, I lost sleep over it, it hung over lots of our conversations, in worship and far outside. I honestly felt last fall sometimes like the wheels were coming off. I know we have a history of catching up at the end of the year with our giving, but what if this is the first time we don’t? On my watch? (sorry to overpersonalize these matters…).
Then we did catch up. Money kept coming in into 2013 (apparently you can give well into January toward the year before and get tax benefits. Who knew?!). One noteworthy gift came from our own Preschool, which sent a gift of $2,000 to the church, bless them. And we realized in our accounting that $50,000 we set aside for repair was being counted as an expense, when it’s still in our hands, waiting to be spent (we removed it from our profit and loss sheet). So with an avalanche of generous year-end giving we met our expenses for 2012. I still can’t believe it when I think about it. Several of you have come to me and asked, “Did we make it? Our family stretched, dug deep, and did all we could.” I can’t say this enough: thank you. That end of the year giving is not to be presumed. It took all of us digging deep and giving generously–in response to a God who gives us everything in Christ.
Another of you suggested I more often give thanks for folks in lay leadership, serving on committees, stretching our church in mission (do you see a common theme in the feedback I’m getting?!). I told her I hesitate to thank people because no one is serving for me. Any service, any giving, any time offered, is done out of love for God, the church, and our community. For me to say ‘thank you’ hints that I’m the recipient, and I never am. She corrected me: “It’s not for you, sure enough. But you’re the leader of our church. Your thanks means something.”
With this first round of committee meetings at our church in 2013, with eager new members and wise longer-time participants, I’m staggered at the level of creativity and hospitality offered in leadership in our church. I hear stories about the elbow grease and skill with which we rebuilt our church building after the fire in 1982. Lots more of our leaders are around who built this current site in 2000. We have more community leaders than I can count, in all sectors of society, who are part of our congregation.
And we have real needs. One group is talking about what our vision as a church should be. They talked before about our financial situation, our debt, our long term financial prospects, and possible need for a capital campaign. Another group is working on our welcoming practices. We have a confusing building, hard to read for outsiders, leaving, say, parents with kids who turn up to church 15 minutes late unsure where to take their kids, where to find worship, where they left their car. Another group is trying to tend to a building that is aging and having expensive repair problems to HVAC’s. Another wants to make our prayer space more beautiful, on the way to attracting more participation in our prayer practices. Others spend all their time and effort in designing creative and exciting ministry with our children, our youth, in missions in our community. Still another is launching new endeavors in mission internationally and locally and among the poor. If you count the hours and the worn shoe leather and the chewed up pencils you’d run out of time.
This church is such a gift. It is offering its life to God, who offered his life to us first in Christ. The kingdom of God inches slightly closer when we do these things. As leader of this church on its behalf I say, thank you, more profoundly than I can ever articulate on my own. And as your friend and fellow church member, your fellow sinner being saved by grace, I say “Let’s get back to work.”
Foot Washing Service at 7:00 pm in the chapel we will have a time to remember Christ washing of the disciples’ feet as an act of servanthood.
The Stations of the Cross will be on exhibit in the sanctuary from 9:00 am until 6:30 pm.
