With All Your Soul

 February 2, 2021

 Hello, church family!

 

Well, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning. 6 more weeks of winter! Since we didn’t get any real snow until last week, that’s probably a good thing.

 

Where this whole Groundhog Day silliness came from God only knows, but it goes back to at least 1887. It involves an actual groundhog, a bunch of tophat and tuxedo-wearing people called the Inner Circle who are the only people who understand “groundhogese”, and thousands of “phaithphil phollowers” who gather to hear the prediction and enjoy a wonderfully silly festival. It all sounds hilarious to me.

 

But what Groundhog Day always brings to mind for me now, since the mid 1990s, is the Bill Murray movie by the same name. It’s a ridiculous and then surprisingly meaningful story where Bill’s character is somehow forced to live the same day over and over and over and over again until he unlearns his boorish and selfish ways and learns to love selflessly and honestly. There’s a whole salvation story in that, about how the initial pleasure of selfishness and sin bring us only misery, and generosity and self-sacrificial love free us.

 

There is a book on my nightstand that I started reading some time ago and then got pulled away from. It’s called “The Way of Love: Recovering the Heart of Christianity” by Normal Wirzba. I only got through the first third of it, but nearly every other page of it is marked. It’s wonderful. I just picked it up again from the beginning, so that I can re-read it and finish it. Here’s one part, where I put several markers:

 

“I think it’s possible to show up in a human life and not really live it at all. I mean, you can have a good life on paper, but then discover that what looks good on the page has hardly been lived from the heart and with a sense of the significance of what is going on...

 

“[T]o live a compelling life requires that you give yourself wholly to life’s depth. You have to let life’s goodness and sanctity take hold and move you from inside...That is what Christianity provides. It gives us entrance to a life in which the sanctity of things is front and center, a life that is truly worth committing to and cherishing...

 

“Christianity at its deepest level gives us a vision of the world as the manifestation of God’s love, and then provides us with the practices by which we can respond to this gift. It is an invitation to experience a life in which gratitude and contentment, peace and joy take their place alongside the difficulty and pain that will invariably come our way...Christian faith that is working properly produces people who nurture and cherish life. It produces people who are fully alive rather than comfortably numb.

“From a Christian point of view, love and life are inseparable, because divine love is the pulse and power at work in everything. Nothing is possible and nothing makes sense apart from God’s love. It is God’s love that first creates the world. It is God’s love that daily sustains life and heals it when it is wounded. It is God’s love that knits creatures together into a membership or communion of life when things come undone, and it is God’s love that redeems and resurrects the bodies of creation that have been degraded and wasted by violence and death.” pp 18 and 35

 

Movies like “Groundhog Day” and stories like Beauty and the Beast and many others preach a piece of the Biblical truth that selflessness, honesty, generosity, and love are better ways to happiness than self-indulgence. But we as Christians believe that consistently making those choices isn’t really possible without the power of Jesus Christ working within us. And even when we do make selfless and generous choices, there remains a major missing piece without God in our life. Because ultimately, it isn’t just about the choices we make, but about the soul-deep need for God in us and in the world. When we nurture our relationship with God, the Living Water fills us up and pours out from us unbidden, healing and transforming the world.

 

It’s what the world needs. It’s what we each need. And it’s what God offers in Jesus Christ, absolutely free for the asking.

 

Praising God from whom all blessings flow,

Pastor Dawn

 

Worship at Epworth and at Home

 

Sacred Vessels, Part 4: Soul.

“For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God, and does not come from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:6-7

And that is the key, beloved. We are clay vessels, molded and made by a loving God for the purpose of sharing God’s miraculous grace with the world. And that grace, that Light, that Living Water...it belongs to God, not to us.

 

Join us this Sunday as we continue our series about loving God, each other, and ourselves well so that we can be filled up to overflowing with grace. This week, we will talk together about a love that is soul-deep, an agape love that only comes alive when we are in touch with the Living God.

 

And then next week, on Valentine’s Day, it’s Scout Sunday! We always look forward to the scouts of Troop 1776 joining us and helping to lead worship. They will be doing a bunch of stuff on video, and some will be able to join us for in person worship, too.

Worship with us at 9:00am in our sanctuary for those who prefer, and on Facebook and KVLV at 9:30am. Tell your friends! And then, after worship we will pray together and enjoy coffee hour in the sanctuary and on Zoom. The link will be in your email; if we don't have your email, just reach out to us at office@eumcfallon.org or 775-423-4714 and we will make sure you get it.