It Only Takes a Spark

Hello friends!

It is a gorgeous early summer day in Fallon, Nevada, and a wild and crazy day at a wonderfully busy church. Our time today has been filled with guests for different reasons, and tastes and touches of different ministries. Sweet little curly-haired kids waiting for their adopted grandma (sorry, that's "Memaw", she says) to finish her (SO appreciated) volunteer work here in the office. Big, strong cowboys setting up for a celebration of life tomorrow afternoon. Volunteers taking inventory to see what we need grocery-wise for next week's community meals. Our long-lost wonderful church secretary, back after months away to get our office life back in order (PRAISE THE LORD). Folks coming in to tidy up inside and out. Folks just popping in to say hello. It has been loud, and a little bit chaotic, as you can probably imagine...and it reminds me what a joy it is to be in ministry here.

This Sunday in worship, we begin a new worship series using movies as modern-day parables. There are a whole lot of reasons why I personally love to do this.

• Jesus gave some of his most powerful lessons by telling stories. So did the prophets before him. It is a great way to broaden our understanding of God, and ourselves...a very effective way to inspire our spiritual imagination to see where God is alive and active in everyday life.
• CS Lewis wrote in his Chronicles of Narnia that he introduced children to Jesus via wonderful stories and magical lands so that they would learn to recognize Jesus when they met him in real life. In the same way, stories can open closed minds and hearts in powerful ways, allowing us to meet Jesus again for the first time.
• I absolutely love it when I am listening to music or watching a movie or reading a story and God speaks through it. Whether the original author intended it or not, I love when God makes God's way in unexpectedly. I love that kind of surprise.
• It's a great excuse to spend time with friends and family! And as a bonus, we get to support the Fallon Theatre, too.

Our movie this week is "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." Star Wars is a funny thing, I am discovering: people seem to love it, or have no interest in it at all. And for Star Wars purists, this particular installment is especially irritating. But wow, does it have an outstanding message! Several, actually. We watched it this week at the Fallon Theatre (which is looking great, by the way, and serving pizza and bagel dogs along with their usual excellent selection of movie snacks and popcorn), but if you missed it not to worry! It's available on Amazon to watch on your computer, and it's for sale at WalMart. Probably it is also available on Redbox. If you can watch the movie before worship on Sunday, that would be great! But if you're not able, or you hate movies, or you hate THIS movie, fear not: it won't detract at all from your experience of worship. Since we are really talking about the Bible, and God in Jesus Christ, you don't have to worry about being able to follow along. The movie is just a metaphor we are using. Trust me.

But if you DO get a chance to watch it, pray first, and keep your eyes and ears open for a few things. Look for themes of power, and self-sacrifice. Success and failure. Destructive and lifegiving kinds of anger. Redemption. Parenthood, and mentoring, and being a student. Obedience and rebellion. Heritage and legacy. The light and darkness in all of us. And the spark that sets the world on fire.

This week is Father's Day, too! So spend some time thinking of the men in your life -- fathers, grandfathers, adoptive fathers, mentors, coaches, teachers of all kinds -- who have helped make you who you are today. Give thanks to God for them, and let their imperfect example inspire you to be the best human being you can be.

Our scripture this week is 1 John 2:7-11. Spend some time in prayer with this passage, if you're able. It will help prepare your heart for worship, and will open spiritual doors for the Holy Spirit to enter in. If you're a writing sort of person, you might like to write down how it feels to read it, or what thoughts or questions come up for you as you turn the words over in your mind. And then, come to worship in anticipation of the presence of God!

See you Sunday, friends.

Love and blessings,
Pastor Dawn

Oh and PS. Don't forget our Emmaus gathering tomorrow (Saturday the 15th) at noon in the Fireside Room! Bring a pot luck dish to share if you can, but most of all just bring yourself. We will sing, and pray for the upcoming Walks in Reno, talk about Emmaus-y stuff, and have a great lunch together. Hope to see you there.

AND PPS. Next week's movie is "O Brother, Where Art Thou." It is really strange and wonderful, with an awesome old timey gospel soundtrack. It's PG-13 for comic criminality, and one suggestive scene. It is one of my all time favorite movies. Come see it with us on Wednesday at 6pm at the downtown Fallon Theatre! And feel free to bring friends and neighbors, the more the merrier. Any snacks you buy at the concession stand go to support the Save the Fallon Theatre project, too, so that's a bonus. :-)

Resurrection and the Upside Down Kingdom

Raise your voices, Easter people, Christ is Risen! 

It is a beautiful spring day here in Fallon, Nevada, and I am still feeling the glow of Easter worship. I hope you are, too. I hope that you have a wonderful, life-giving, Christ-centered church home where you feel welcomed, challenged, and deeply loved both by God and by the people who worship with you. If you haven't found a church like that yet, you are always welcome at Epworth UMC! If you are reading this from farther away than would be practical, then you are always welcome to reach out by email (pastor@eumcfallon.org), or by phone at 775-423-4714, and join us via Facebook live for the sermon every Sunday at 9:30am PDT. And in the meantime, I will pray that you do find a great church home...there is really no substitute for that. :-)

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with the Holy Grail, and all things King Arthur. I loved the romance and adventure of it, the whole "long, long ago" aspect of it, and especially the idea of this wondrous object stashed away somewhere that people could follow clues and actually *find*! There are all kinds of medieval paintings and stories about it, and it's always described (or painted) as golden, surrounded by light, sometimes with jewels and ornate handles, looking a lot like the golden chalices used to serve Holy Communion in enormous old cathedrals. There are relics all around the world that claim to be the Grail, some of them pretty old, but True Grail Enthusiasts know better. There were several times in my young life when I decided that when I retire, I would spend all of my time in dusty libraries and museums and churches around the world and search for the real Holy Grail. And honestly, I still think it would be an outstanding hobby. 

Still, even as a kid, as fascinated as I was with this whole thing, there were aspects of the legends that I thought were pretty weird. I mean, for one thing why would anyone save one of the random cups used at the last supper? Where did  Joseph of Arimathea get it, and why would he have it with him at the crucifixion, and why on God's green earth would he think to catch Jesus’ blood in it? Why would it be all ornate and jewel encrusted, and why would it gain magical powers to provide eternal youth and happiness, and restore blighted lands to prosperity (although the symbolism of that last does kinda fit with the return of Jesus)? And so when Indiana Jones came along and correctly pointed out that something like that would never have been the cup of a poor carpenter, I felt an instant respect for Indy. 

It is a tendency of human life to get things backward. To misunderstand and turn upside down everything that God has done and said so that it better fits our expectations. The Bible is full of the ways, starting from the very beginning, human beings have sought glory for ourselves and have been drawn to every shiny object thinking it will satisfy us, bring us happiness and prestige, defeat our enemies, shield us from every problem. Over and over and over God draws his people to real, true, full, wonderful life by obedience…teaches us that what we seek is found in prayer, worship, generosity, forgiveness, love and kindness to friend and stranger…and over and over and over God’s people reject that idea for the false sense of security provided by shiny objects. 

This season at Epworth, we have been following Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of Luke, which has sometimes been called the Gospel of the least, the last, and the lost. In it, we have been noticing together the ways that Jesus interprets the Law and chooses people, and describes God, and says and does things in the ways that we least expect it. That he prioritizes the poor, the ordinary, the outcast and rejected…and he calls the religious ones, the supposedly righteous and faithful ones, the sinners who need healing. Even his closest disciples didn’t get it, and up to the very last day, at the Last Supper, moments before Jesus’ arrest, they were STILL arguing with each other about who was the greatest among them, who would be in charge, who would sit at Jesus’ right hand when he came into his kingdom. Undoubtedly they still imagined a kingdom of this world, where Jesus would conquer his enemies, restore Israel to being a great and prosperous nation, where Jesus would sit on a throne and wear a golden, jewel-encrusted crown with these his favorites by his side to rule with him. But, as we have been noticing together this season, the Kingdom Jesus was referring to, the Kingdom God is building in and through him, is not that kind of Kingdom at all. It is an upside down kingdom, where the king is born in a manger and attended by shepherds and lives the simple life of a carpenter and a traveling preacher…where the last are first and the first are last, where the greatest of all must be the servant of all…where the wounded find healing and hope and love, and the powerful are humbled and healed, too.

When Jesus was arrested, every one of the disciples fled in terror. Peter followed Jesus for awhile, hiding in the shadows, but then of course Peter betrays Jesus too. This was not how the story was supposed to go. Maybe they hoped Jesus would miraculously defeat his enemies, even now. But he didn’t. At least, not in the way they expected. Later in Luke’s gospel we hear about their despair and confusion and fear, and their eventual shock and wonder when Jesus appears to them, but here all we know is that at Jesus’ death these faithful disciples aren’t there. Just the women. The women are there.

Which makes no sense at all. Except in the upside down Kingdom, where it makes perfect sense.

Most of the women aren’t named, the ones who have prepared the spices and waited impatiently for the very first moment they could go and care for Jesus’ body while not breaking any law about working on the Sabbath. The different Gospel accounts each name slightly different women who went to the tomb in the early dawn, but all of them name Mary Magdalene. Mary of Magdala was a nobody, and partly it is her name that tells us that. If she were married, usually she would be called Mary wife of so and so. If she had children, she would be called Mary mother of so and so. But she’s not. Just Mary, from Magdala. When Luke introduces us to her in Chapter 8, he tells us that she has had 7 demons driven out of her. We don't know anything about that period of Mary's life, but we do know that things we might see as mental or physical illnesses were described in the Bible as demon possession, and so if nothing else we can guess that Mary exhibited some problematic behaviors before those demons were driven out. We can guess that Mary's neighbors remembered her as someone who was troubled. Strange. Maybe this explains why she does not seem to be married, and does not seem to have children of her own. She was a nobody. And yet, in this upside down Kingdom of God it is this nobody -- this single woman who people probably don’t think very highly of -- who is the first person to discover that Jesus has been resurrected.

In Luke’s gospel, Mary and the other women see angelic messengers who tell them that Jesus has been raised, and are instructed to go and tell the others. In each gospel the details are a little bit different, but in every story when the women go and tell the disciples, the disciples don’t believe them. Peter (and in John’s gospel, the unnamed beloved disciple with him) eventually goes to check things out, and all of the disciples meet the resurrected Jesus in the coming days and weeks. They become convinced by this incredible, impossible miracle that God has the power to overcome death, and that Jesus is the son of God come to earth, their long-awaited Messiah. But at first they didn’t believe. It was an idle tale, they thought. Because these were women, and they couldn’t be trusted really. And Mary of Magdala, the one who used to have 7 demons and who they remembered as being not quite right, she couldn’t be trusted either. They weren’t the ones to announce the resurrection. They couldn’t be.

But they were. Because in the upside down kingdom where the last are first and the first are last, where our human definitions of who is good enough, who is worthy, who is welcome are turned upside down and inside out and cast aside altogether, of course they were.

Every one of us is affected by this story, by the truth of Jesus’ death and resurrection. If we accept it and take it deeply in, every one of us is changed by it, because there is something miraculous, something healing, some life-changing truth in it for every one of us.

For the least, the last, the lost...for you who are hurting so deeply that you are afraid you won’t ever feel whole again...for you who have made mistakes that you aren’t sure you can ever come back from, this is the good news for you: you are not as lost as you think you are, you are worth more than you can imagine, and God loves you more than you think you deserve. Your story is not over. For every mistake you have made or think you have made, you are forgiven. God promises you healing, hope, and even joy, and will show you the way to find it.

Remember the thief on the cross next to Jesus, remember the people who mocked and beat and crucified him, who Jesus prayed for and forgave even in the midst of it.

Remember the prodigal son who rejected his family and lived a life of excess and selfishness, who returned home in despair hoping only to be allowed to work as a servant in his father's house, who God in the person of the son’s father ran to meet overjoyed and welcomed home with overflowing love.

Remember all of those outcasts that Jesus fed, and healed, and welcomed, and loved.

Remember the flawed, doubting, fearful disciples who were Jesus’ closest friends.

And know the miracle of the resurrection: in his death, Jesus allowed all of the forces of evil to do their worst, allowed human beings to do all of the very worst things they could do, and defeated them. Because though evil deals in death, God is LIFE and life is stronger, and love always, always, always wins. Your story is not over. In Jesus, you are free.

For you who already know all of this, who know your own value and are already first in this world in so many ways, this is the Good News for you: you are free. You are more loved, more precious than you can imagine. You are free from the world’s expectations on you, definition of you, demands on you, and your demands on yourself to be the master of your own universe. You are free to be last, to take your place in the upside down Kingdom where you will find the way, and the truth, and the life.

You are set free from slavery to all of those shiny objects. You are set free to use all that you have been given to seek out the least, the last, and the lost and set a table for them in the name of Jesus Christ.

You who have been healed, you are set free to be God’s instrument of healing to someone else.

You who have plenty, you are commissioned to be the builders, the makers, the cooks, the enthusiastic welcome-givers, the foot washers at the Lord’s table.

You are set free from the pride, the greed, the self-righteousness that blinds you and stops up your ears, so that you can hear the Word of God and rejoice in the power of the Holy Spirit even when it comes from the most unlikely people and places. 

In 1962, the famed theologian Karl Barth was on a speaking tour of the United States. He had written thousands upon thousands of words about the Bible, about the nature of God, about Jesus, about the meaning of the cross and the resurrection, and about how we human beings should live in response to all of that. On at least one of his stops, in Richmond Virginia, he was asked if he could summarize all that he knew and wanted to teach the world. He answered, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." And that is truly the Good News for all of us, the door through which we can enter the Upside Down Kingdom and the foundation and mortar and bricks with which we can help to build it: Jesus loves us. God loves us. And we are free.

Raise your voices, Easter people, Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Pastor Dawn

Click the link below for a really good contemporary version of the children's hymn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysxtpdnQfxY

Of Protesters and Rebels

We had a protester a couple of weeks ago.

He arrived just before worship and returned around the time we ended. He stood on the sidewalk outside our front doors, with a big sign and a headset microphone and speaker, to "greet" our members and guests as they arrived and as they made their way home. Several of us stood outside to welcome people in and out, to be sure they saw a friendly face and hopefully prevent him from yelling directly at them. We tried to talk with him, but (surprise!) he wasn't interested in conversation. Thankfully, he wasn't saying anything too extremely offensive...just that we were "harboring Democrats and baby killers" and that we supported "the Gay Agenda" and needed to REPENT!!

I won't deny, it did cause a bit of a buzz, a little tension and "what on earth? is he serious?" kinds of bemused conversation. But when I mentioned it as worship began, in order to further ease any discomfort and encourage people to be kind to him, a beloved member of our congregation spoke up and said, "It's OK, he is just telling the world how welcoming we are!" And the wonderful spirit of kinship we share at Epworth was further stoked, warming all of us from the inside out.

Praise God, I just love this place. So much. If he comes back, I am absolutely going to gather the entire church to go outside and circle around him, singing something fun about the love and grace of Jesus at the TOP of our lungs.

As he hollered outside, a thousand things were going through my mind. Things like, who is he? What events in his life have led him to this moment? What is his goal, really? What has led him to believe that this is an effective way to share the Good News? He evidently does this sort of thing a lot, at our summer parades and outside the high school, and has been spoken to by the police more than once. There is a wonderful pentecostal pastor in town named Jean who spends her early Sunday mornings driving to every church in town and praying for all of us (how amazing is THAT, by the way?); apparently she encountered our protester and tried to dissuade him to no avail, and let me know that he had been at Trinity Episcopal the same day, going back and forth between our churches. And, as he stood out there refusing to be in actual conversation, one thought overrode everything else: he doesn't know us at all.

When my kids were young, and before my youngest brothers and sisters had kids of their own and life kinda scattered all of us a bit, we spent almost every Sunday evening at dinner with my parents. It was crowded and loud and silly and joyful. I miss it. Sometimes we would get into very intense conversations about religion or politics, but not for one second do I remember feeling (or anyone else feeling) angry, or having any hard feelings toward each other. There was always laughter, and genuine affection, because we prized our relationships with each other above all else. That experience has given me a sense that people who disagree with each other can have whole, healthy, life-giving relationships.

Maybe that is why I feel so blessed to serve a church like Epworth. We are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians. We are as far Left (whatever that means) as you can get, and we are -- in the words of another beloved church member -- to the Right of Ghengis Khan. We are gay and transgender and straight; we are married and single and remarried and widowed. We are business owners and farmers, administrators and teachers and students, peaceniks and veterans and active military, nurses and musicians and bookkeepers and stay-at-home parents. We are not of one mind, on any pressing issue in our church or in our culture. We are put together in families as widely varied as you could imagine, and are as different as a group of a couple hundred people could possibly be. And we drive each other crazy, and love each other beyond all reason, because we know that none of those differences matter one iota. The things that bring us together are too important.

We share a passionate commitment to the transforming, life-changing power of Jesus Christ.

We love Scripture and believe wholeheartedly in the ability of God to speak through it into every part of our lives, and deep into our hearts.

We have experienced the movement of the Holy Spirit, and seen miracles of healing in bodies, spirits, and relationships.

We have been broken and made whole...we have sinned and been forgiven...we have been lost, and are found.

We have each come here to Epworth with a story, one that is uniquely our own, that has landed us in this place, with these people, in this moment. So we come here to worship, pray, serve, and sing, and learn with each passing day what it means to love one another.

"Here in this place, new light is streaming, 
now is the darkness vanished away. 
See, in this space, our fears and our dreamings, 
brought here to you in the light of this day. 
Gather us in - the lost and forsaken,
gather us in - the blind and the lame. 
Call to us now, and we shall awaken, 
we shall arise at the sound of our name.

Not in the dark of buildings confining, 
not in some heaven, light years away, 
but here in this place, the new light is shining; 
now is the Kingdom, now is the day. 
Gather us in - and hold us forever, 
gather us in - and make us your own. 
Gather us in - all peoples together, 
fire of love in our flesh and our bone."

~ from "Gather Us In" by Marty Haugen

So I pray that God continues to stretch and challenge us. I pray that we continue to learn from each other and teach other, sing together and pray for each other, and work together to serve those in need. Because we never feel the power of God more strongly than when we engage in that kind of holy, outrageous rebellion.

Love and blessings,

Pastor Dawn

The Beginning of the End of the Beginning

Hello, friends! 

It has been a long time since I have been able to attend to this blog, and I am glad to get back to it. Let's talk about Palm Sunday.

All season long, we have been talking together about Jesus' life and ministry as told in the Gospel of Mark. And since Easter falls on April Fool's Day this year, we have been inspired Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 1:25 when he describes Jesus' life, death, and resurrection:

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

It is the ultimate foolishness, coming into Jerusalem, knowing all that would happen. And they did know, at least on some level. Back in Mark chapter 10, beginning with verse 32, we read:

They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”

They might not have understood exactly what Jesus was saying here, but they knew enough to be afraid. They knew that the religious authorities opposed him, and that things were getting increasingly tense. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, at around the same time, Pilate is entering Jerusalem at the head of a military procession. Knowing this, it would have been another reason Jesus' followers were afraid. Because this was something that happened every year at Passover, and maybe at other major festivals as well: Pilate and other Roman governors spent most of the year at Caesarea by the sea, but they came into town every year at Passover to make a show of force. Jerusalem swelled from 40k people to something like 200k at Passover, and the people of Israel had a history of rebellions against Roman rule, so for years governors had arrived in the city in full military regalia. In their book "The Last Week", John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg describe what the scene may have been like: “...cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold…" The sound of “marching feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, the beating of drums” meant to strike fear into onlookers.  And as Pilate led this fierce regiment into town, he did so with confidence knowing that he was backed up by several battalions of Rome’s finest garrisoned on the west side of Jerusalem ready to flood into the city at Pilate’s command. 

But on the other side of town, in something like a counter-procession, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, living out the words of the prophet Zechariah: 

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!  Lo, your King comes to you; triumphant and victories is he humble and riding on an donkey, on a colt, the foal of an donkey.” The people, waving palm branches, spreading their cloaks on the road as the people cried, “Hosanna! Save us!”

No wonder the disciples were afraid. Jesus had told them what they were walking into, and even if they didn’t fully understand it at the time, they certainly must have understood by the time he turned over the tables in the temple as they prepared for this incredibly important festival. It was a festival that celebrated God’s love, forgiveness, and freedom from slavery...and Jesus up-ends their tables, scatters the animals with whips, and accuses the religious leaders of turning God's holy place into a den of thieves and robbers.

It is the ultimate foolishness, isn’t it? For Jesus to enter Jerusalem this way, knowing what would happen. To subject himself to all that was coming, to be betrayed, arrested, beaten, and killed. All to convince us, finally, that the power of God’s love is greater than the love of power. That the power of God’s love is stronger than all of the forces of evil on earth. To teach us to proclaim with Paul in his letter to the Romans that "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

And while Jesus is there in the city these few days before Passover, in sharp contrast to those who are plotting to kill him and those who are afraid, a woman anoints him with oil in the house of a Pharisee. She is this unnamed woman with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume, showing him tenderness and honor. All of the Gospel writers tell this story, so that what Jesus says about it is true: that whenever the Good News is proclaimed, people will tell this story and remember her. And we do. Luke's telling of this story is especially tender: it is in Luke's telling that we hear that the woman is weeping at Jesus' feet, washing his feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. It is an act not just of honor to Jesus, but of repentance, forgiveness, boldness, and tears of life-transforming gratitude.

It is a season of contrasts, this one, especially this week that begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday. It contrasts peace with war, life with death, love with hate. Christmas comes just after the longest night of the year, as the light just begins to shine a bit brighter and a bit longer than the darkness, and we celebrate the coming of the Light. At Christmas, we read in John the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it. Now here, at the beginning of spring, the light and the darkness are just about equal equal. It looks as though they are equally matched at this point, and in the Gospel story the confrontation between the two is at its most intense as we begin this final week with Jesus. There have been skirmishes before now, confrontations that have been building in intensity as Jesus insists on healing, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, peace, hope… and the religious authorities resist. Now, that resistance is at its height. Because comforting the afflicted always afflicts the comfortable.

This conflict, it's not just happening to Jesus. It is inside us, too, and in our own world. There is a struggle between the light and darkness inside us all. We have sins to confront and hurts that need healing, truths to accept and obstacles to overcome, humility to learn, sacrifices to make, and abundant life to claim. It is a lifelong spiritual work, to turn away from darkness and toward the light of Jesus Christ. Stephen Garnaas Holmes, a United Methodist pastor and poet writes:

Earth tilts and spins,

turns another face to the sun, and today, mid-tilt, we all get the same light and darkness.


For we all are the same, light and darkness mixed. “Hosanna!” and “Crucify!” mingle on our lips.

South and North face into autumn and spring. My repentance looks one way, yours another, to face our darkness, or to live in our light.

It's true, isn't it? And so, as you enter into this difficult week, I encourage you spend it in  prayer. Pay close attention to your own heart. And as you do, as you remember the darkness that Jesus encountered and what it was made of, and how it acted, consider your own life and the darkness you need to turn away from. Be encouraged that, as you grapple with your own repentance, you can rely on the strength of the one even death could not defeat. We head into a dark time this week, and it is important that we go there fearlessly…we can do that because even there God is with us, and the promise of the resurrection is that darkness is never the end of the story. Rely on the strength of the one who conquered death, the one who loves you beyond imagining, the one from whom nothing can separate us, the one who knit you together in your mother’s womb, the one whose way always and only leads to life.

I hope that you will join us for a beautiful Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday (March 29) at 7, and the Walk to the Cross on Good Friday (March 30) at noon at Rattlesnake Mountain here in Fallon. And then, I hope that you will join us for an Easter Sunrise service here at Epworth at 7am on Sunday, April 1, and stay for a little breakfast afterward! Or, join us for traditional Easter Sunday worship at 9am that same day, and come early for breakfast. We would love to celebrate this great day with you. 

Have a blessed Holy Week.

In the everlasting love of God,

Pastor Dawn

The Afterglow

Merry Christmas, beloved, and happy-almost-New Year!

I hope that you had a blessed Christmas season, friends, and a restful and thankful post-holiday week. As much as I love Christmas, the week afterward might be my favorite week in the entire year: the long days and frantic pace of the preparations is past; the day itself has come and gone, leaving memories of good meals, time with people important to us, and meaningful candlelit worship in its wake. This week the pace is slower, and feels like a lovely, easy stroll. There is time to put life back in order, to think of something other than Christmas, to (gasp!) read an actual BOOK. It's pretty great.

I wonder what it would have felt like for Mary and Joseph this week. Their long-awaited miracle child is born. The shepherds have come and gone, smelling of earth and animals and work, telling of shining angels filling the sky and singing, telling them:

"Fear not, for I bring you good tidings of great joy for all people. For unto you this day is born in Bethlehem a savior, which is Christ the Lord."

All who have heard the shepherd's tale are amazed, but Mary (Luke tells us), is treasuring these words, and pondering them in her heart.

The time for Jesus' circumcision on the 8th day, with its attendant prayer and sacrifices, hasn't happened yet; neither has Mary's rite of purification, and Jesus' dedication to God as the firstborn son. For Mary and Joseph, it is a time to rest, to ponder, to learn what it is to be new parents, to treasure all of these things. To begin putting things in order, in life and in spirit, as their new life begins. To fear not.

Soon enough, they will meet the Magi, the wise men from "the east", bringing gifts. Soon enough, the family will flee to Egypt at the direction of the loving God who guides their steps. But now is the time to rest, to gather strength, to pray and trust, to treasure. That is what this time can be for us, too. In the afterglow of candlelight and good tidings of great joy, I hope that you can take some time to rest, to gather strength, to pray and trust, to look forward to what God has in store for you, to treasure it all.

In worship, this in-between time lasts through Epiphany -- when we remember the arrival of the Magi -- on Jan 7. And then, back to ordinary life, but an ordinary life inspired and warmed from within by good tidings of great joy. So while you rest, and ponder, and treasure, consider these words from Howard Thurman to guide your life this year:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and the princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among people,

To make music in the heart.

I hope you are able to join us for worship tomorrow at Epworth, in person, on the radio at KVLV, or on Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100015790988604. Worship begins at 9am, and our broadcast begins with the scripture and sermon at 9:30am. Have a wonderful, blessed weekend!

In the endless, miraculous love of God,

Pastor Dawn

Faithful.

Merry almost-Christmas, beloved!

It is a cold and quiet Saturday morning, here at the Blundell house. There is laundry to do, and plans to make, projects to complete and things that need addressing. I am sitting here, wrestling with the temptation to do all of the things, all of them, right this moment.

But a line from a movie keeps running through my head, and distracting me.

Now, that is not an entirely unusual occurrence. But as I sit down to write today, with that line running through my head, it suddenly occurs to me that it is a Christmas movie, though I really hadn't put that together before. In fact, it has suddenly dawned on me that it is a retelling of the story of A Christmas Carol, and Ebenezer Scrooge. The movie is "Hook," starring Robin Williams, about Peter Pan having grown up and become very Scrooge-like. Peter and his family have travelled to England for Christmas, to spend it with his wife's grandmother Wendy (yes, THAT Wendy), but Peter is obsessed with work, yelling at everyone, fearful of everything, barely able to tolerate the visit or the holiday. It becomes clear that his relationships are extremely strained, due to his inattention and rotten behavior. At one point, his frustrated wife says to him (and this is the line that keeps echoing in my head): "It's so fast Peter. Just a few years, and it's over. And you are not being careful. And you are missing it."

I think I need to put that movie on! Be right back.

This movie makes me so happy. 😍

It is so, so easy to miss it, beloved. When things are good and business is booming...when things are difficult, and we struggle to see past the present moment...when we have experienced a major loss or change, and we can't quite figure out how to be...when we are just sort of lost in the ordinary everyday, doing the things we always do and not really paying attention. It's so easy to allow this season to be over-filled with its tasks and events and projects that we miss the point of it entirely. It is so easy to miss the miracle.

But this is Advent. Amidst all of the rest of it, it is meant to be a time of stillness. Of preparing, yes, but of watching, and waiting, and hoping. A time to pay careful attention, to love all of those around us and look for miracles in ordinary things. A time to be still, and know that God is God. To taste and see that the Lord is good.

Tomorrow morning in worship, we will spend some time with Joseph, a man of righteousness, mercy, faith, and love. You'll find his story in Matthew 1:18-25; you might like to read it today, as you prepare your heart for worship. After worship, we will enjoy the kids' Christmas play! I hope you will join us. If you're not able, then I hope you will tune in to KVLV at 9:30, or find us on Facebook Live at my Facebook page (dawn blundell), and join us in spirit.

Life moves so fast, beloved. Be still, pay attention, and don't miss it.

See you in worship.

Steadfast love and countless blessings,
Pastor Dawn

Happy Thanksgiving!

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

It's a good day.

Sitting here in our little room at the Lewis and Clark hotel in Bozeman, Montana at the end of a very non-traditional Thanksgiving with Dennis' daughter Emma-Leigh, talking with my brothers and sisters and kids via text where they are gathered in Reno with my Dad, with a marathon of The Godfather playing in the background for some reason, it is a very good day.

All day long, thoughts of Thanksgivings past. My mom's recipes, and all of us kids gathered around a noisy table. Her in the kitchen all day, from before we were even awake, making the different dishes. the whole house smelling so good. Our first Thanksgiving away from home, when we were living in San Anselmo while I went to seminary, and how sad we all were...but how we made it our own by letting the kids each pick their favorite thing to have for the feast, and laughed about how steak and tomato soup and macaroni and cheese and stuffing really didn't go together, but eating it anyway. How off-kilter holidays have felt ever since my mom died a few years ago, but how hard we have all worked to create a new normal. How happy we all are this year, that it is my sister's first holiday in 2 years that she hasn't been in the hospital!!

I keep thinking, too, of the happiness and love that filled the Wolf Center on Monday, while 250+ people gathered for Fallon Daily Bread's special Thanksgiving feast. I had to seclude my coughing self from most of it, but I wish I had better words to describe how meaningful that all was. The smiles on everyone's faces, feeling so...I don't know. More than cared for, and enthusiastically welcomed. More than gratified by doing a good thing. Just feeling...together.

I ran across this hymn the other day, written (and copyrighted) by a woman named Carolyn Winfrey Gillette for Thanksgiving. I just love it. It can be sung to several different tunes, but she prefers the "Hymn to Joy" by Beethoven. You know, the one that goes "Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love..." Let that tune play in your mind, and sing these words:

All of life is filled with wonder, so we thank you God of love
For the crash of evening thunder, clearing clouds, then stars above;
For the night that turns to glowing as we feel the morning mist,
God, we praise and thank you, knowing every day we're truly blessed.

For the joy of daily waking, for the gift of each new day,
For the smell of fresh bread baking, for the sound of children's play,
For the ways we seek to serve you, as we work and volunteer,
God we humbly praise and thank you, for your presence with us here.

For the ways we're blessed with plenty, love and laughter, neighbors, friends,
Nature's wonders, season's bounty, life in you that never ends;
For the ones who've gone before us, giving witness to your way,
We rejoice in all you give us, every moment, every day.

However you have spent the day today, I hope that you have found something to smile about, something to be thankful for. The Carson river snaking through town. The sun coming through the last few leaves on the trees. Distant mountains with snow on top. Something warm. Something that smells good. Something sweet. Someone who was kind to you today. Someone who was kind to you yesterday. Someone who believed in you a long time ago. Someone who trusts you enough to tell you their troubles. Someone who forgave you. Someone who gave you something that you still treasure.

For your love in times of trouble, for your peace when things are tough,
For your help when hardships double, for your grace that is enough;
For a stranger's gentle kindness, for a doctor's healing skill,
God we thank you that you bless us, and you bless your world as well.

Maybe this Thanksgiving is especially difficult for you. Maybe something hurts, and maybe the hurt makes it too hard to be thankful right now. If that is where you are today, then I want you to hear this truth: the God of love and life hurts with you, cherishes you, and is beside you even now, giving you strength. That absolutely nothing could ever make God leave your side. That this present darkness is not the end of your story, and that as surely as the sun rises tomorrow morning you will find the light just a bit brighter, your heart just a bit stronger, and the love of God just a bit warmer inside you. God has a new gift for you, right around the corner. Just wait, and see.

For the baby in the manger, for the cross and empty tomb,
For each time a searching stranger finds at church a welcome home,
For your kingdom's great surprises, poor ones lifted, lost ones found,
God, we thank you! Hope still rises, for your gifts of grace abound.

It is a powerful thing that the Christian year begins and ends with Thanksgiving. The secular Christmas holiday tries to overshadow and overwhelm everything else, but -- whether the secular world is fully aware of it or not -- the birth and life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ IS THE REASON we celebrate Thanksgiving! So, I hope that you linger here, on this holiday that is rooted in all of that. Linger here, around the table, and remember Jesus eating with saints and sinners...

sharing meals with Pharisees and disciples, as a woman washes his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair,

sharing a few loaves of bread and a few fish, that became enough to feed thousands,

sharing a last supper with friends and betrayers,

sharing a breakfast of forgiveness and miraculous life on the beach,

making himself known to them in the breaking of the bread.

I hope you let a spirit of gratitude infect absolutely everything you do, from this moment onward. May the simply, powerful act of gratitude melt away the stresses in your life, strengthen your relationships, fill you with new energy, and enable you to walk through life fearlessly and joyfully.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Pastor Dawn