St. Paul’s Lutheran Church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. That’s a group of about 3.something million Christians around the country. Like most other church bodies, we are broken into geographical areas that we call Synods, ours being the Upstate NY Synod. Each Synod’s leader is a Bishop, elected by representatives every few years.
But every six years, those Synod’s come together to elect a national Bishop to lead the entire group. The ELCA’s current Bishop is Rev. Elizabeth Eaton. Bishop Eaton offered to share a sermon for this past weekend’s Holy Trinity Sunday worship so that pastors could have the week off from having to prepare a sermon.
However, the timing didn’t work for our worship service because we record the service earlier in the week. So I’m offering it to you here so you can hear her thoughts on the Scriptures and current movements in the culture. Click HERE to view the YouTube link.
As the whole church continues to search for the new ways that God is calling us into the world, please continue to search as part of St. Paul’s or whatever church you belong to. Join us this Sunday at the Zoom Coffee 1/2 Hour to welcome the New Missionaries at St. Paul’s that are joining this weekend.
What’s your statement? Your mission statement you might say. With all that is going on in our culture right now, what statement does God need you to make?
It’s a fairly profound question to ask yourself seriously. Last night, we started to do just that. I met in our Zoom discussion with folks from St. Paul’s.
The topic of “how are you doing” quickly turned to what can we do as individuals and the church to speak to the injustice and pain happening around us? And we remembered that, despite not being able to gather inside our church right now, we do still have space in a prominent location on Main St to be able to make a statement to the community about God’s love, grace and hope.
So we are all praying about the next “statements” that we need to make using our church property. At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus sends the disciples and the church to: Go, make a statement by baptizing, teaching, leading and pointing to God, remembering the Holy Spirit will be with us as we do it. It’s called the Great Commission. So, how do we point to God right now?
I would ask you to join in the discernment and contemplation. Maybe your statement is firmly planted and rooted already and that is awesome. Or maybe you’re just beginning to think about it. If you are, join with others trying to figure out what we can do to bring healing and hope to all who are hurting, victims of racism/abuse and a system that is inherently broken right now. We’re meeting again next Tuesday (St. Paul’s), Wednesday (Parkside) and Thursday (Zion). Join us. Zoom links will go out again on Monday for all those gatherings.
But until then, keep asking: what is the statement that God needs you to make to live into the Great Commission? Where are you being sent to? And how can you help point toward God?Lord, help me hear clearly the statement you need me to make. Amen
Good morning! My coach reminded me this morning that today I could live into being great. He didn’t say perfect. He didn’t say mistake free. He said great. Better than good. Using all the talents. Pouring myself into the run, the day, to make it better than it was before I hit the starting line.He asked me to think about the people in my life now or in the past that pushed me to be great. It was an interesting mile or so realizing that I didn’t/don’t have that many people that have done/do that. A couple great volleyball coaches/teammates that worked with me. Pretty short list. (Doesn’t mean there wasn’t/isn’t a ton of support/love, but being pushed is something totally different.) And now my work in “church life” seems to too often confuse humility, peace and meekness with mediocrity, lazy and too easily satisfied. Good is too often accepted where great is needed.But everything I read in Scripture and have experienced with living into my faith says that we are created by a Creator to be great in the world. To show greatness, compassion, vision, love, forgiveness great-fully. Full of greatness. Better than good. I think this is why I love to run. There’s always a new chance to be great. One mile can feel like you just dropped the tree into the wrong spot but the next one give you a chance to do it better. To be great. Even for 200 meters. For a half mile. For a half marathon. Whatever distance you can do it for.As we all figure out the new normal and re-open our selves and our lives, this seems like a awesome opportunity to be great today. For whatever distance you can do it for. There will be so many new chances to do it as we recreate life and cultural norms.So if no one has pushed and encouraged you yet today, let me tell you that you can be great today. You can love a little more deeply. You can forgive a little more boldly. You can dream a little bigger. You can risk a bit more. You can be more honest with your own prejudices. You can change one life which might change the world. You can be great. Take that starting line today and for whatever distance you can, run with greatness. You are designed for it. Lord, help me run your race of greatness today. Amen
Still in One Peace, PS
(Photo creds to Chief Billy Major, official photog for Fire Church)
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