Hello, beloved church family and friends!
This week at Epworth UMC we finish our worship series about...well, the entire meaning and purpose of life, I suppose. The wonder of God’s good creation, the way everything got broken, God’s power to fix it, and our place in it all. On Sunday we will give thanks for all of that, and consider our own place in God's world and God's plan...our own little piece of creation that we get to care for; our corner of the Kindom of God that we get to help build. Our scripture this week comes from Jesus' final message to his disciples on the eve of his arrest...you'll find it in John 15, verse 5. As you get ready for Sunday, you might like to take some time praying with and reading this passage and the chapter around it:
"I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."
Last Sunday was World Communion Sunday, which is one of my favorite non-holiday things. We didn’t spend a lot of time in worship talking about it this year because we had other things we needed to focus on, but it is a great joy to me. I find it inspiring to be in fellowship with people of vastly different faiths, and to see how other Christians around the world worship and express their faith. I can count scores of times when my own faith and the practice of it has grown and deepened thanks to time spent with people who believe and worship very differently from me. That’s why it’s so important to me to find ways to work together with the other churches and pastors here in Fallon, Christian or not, and to fellowship and serve together in whatever ways we can. It warms my heart in a way that few other things do, and I feel the presence of God in it powerfully. As you read our column in the Fallon Post (click here to find the latest one https://www.thefallonpost.org/news/2377,faith-and-life-a-column-from-local-faith-leaders) or participate in different ecumenical or interfaith projects, I hope you are inspired by it, too.
World Communion Sunday was begun in 1933 by the pastor of a little Presbyterian church in Baltimore. As they described it at the time, it was their “attempt to bring churches together in a service of Christian unity... to know how important the Church of Jesus Christ is, and how each congregation is interconnected one with another.” Paul’s description of the body of Christ in his several letters (1 Cor. 12 is one example) doesn’t just apply to individual members in a particular congregation, but also to the different expressions of the Christian faith across time and around the world. No church or denomination is perfect in its understanding of God nor its practice of faith, including our own; rather than being in competition with or opposition to each other, we gain a great deal when we remember that we are all vital parts of the Body of Christ with our own corner of the Garden to cultivate and care for.
One of the things we talked about on Sunday was the example of a woman named Wilma Mankiller, who served as the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in the 1980s and 1990s. In reading about her life and her unshakeable Christian and traditional Cherokee faith, I was reminded of a beautiful prayer in our United Methodist Book of Worship that comes from the Lakota people. You may know it as the Great Spirit Prayer; it was translated into English in 1887 by Chief Yellow Lark. I know you will hear the echoes of our own Christian faith in it, and I hope that it inspires your time in prayer this week as it does mine.
“Oh, Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind, whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear me; I need your strength and wisdom. Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people. Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards me. Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. Help me seek pure thoughts and act with the intention of helping others. Help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me. I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy: myself. Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes. So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.”
Especially as we consider what part of the Garden we have been given by God to cultivate, I find the peace and wisdom and humility of this prayer deeply meaningful.
Have a wonderful week, friends. I pray that God is blessing you richly, and that you find yourself surprised by touches of divine grace each day.
In faith, hope, and love,
