Spring Cleaning for the Soul

by Ken Kelley

Signs of the coming spring have already popped up. I welcomed the sight of the first blooms on our paperwhites knowing they are but the first of many beautiful signs of the renewal of life to come in the next few weeks.  Unfortunately, spring also brings a few weeds as well. Now comes the task of nurturing the good and destroying the bad. 

The word Lent comes from the shortened form of an Old English word meaning “spring."  You might think of it as 40 days of spring cleaning for the soul.  Jesus spent 40 days in the desert preparing for His ministry, and, likewise, Lent should be our time to reflect on our spiritual health and condition in preparation for our role as Christ’s body in the world. By God’s grace, we are cleansed through Christ when we confess our sins and ask for forgiveness. 

We need not only have the faith to believe that God will forgive us, but we must also forgive ourselves. We can’t be at peace with God if we’re not at peace with ourselves. We can’t do God’s work in the world to the best of our ability if we’re living our life in guilt for some past deed. 

In a like manner, if we’re not forgiving someone else of their past offenses against us, we aren’t living in Christ’s image and will waste too much time and energy brooding over something that we should have left in the past where it belongs.

Paul was an experienced missionary when he wrote his second letter to Timothy, who was much younger. In chapter 2, verses 20 -22 encourage Timothy to purify himself from what is dishonorable to be a vessel fit for God’s use. They follow verses describing the “Godless chatter” of false teachers and encouragement by Paul for Timothy to endeavor to be a “sound workman” and handle the word rightly.

Today, Godless chatter is as close as the next commercial on television. As an example, I recently saw an ad for an SUV which stated that we can be good – a dear person, a good husband, just generally good, but that’s not good enough. If you drive this SUV you’ll be king of the hill, at the top of your game, all powerful- like a boss. Let’s read what Timothy said after describing the Godless chatter of his day.

20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses [themselves] from what is dishonorable, [they] will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.  22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

In verse 20, we can think of the great house as the church and us as the vessels, and in verse 21 we can become holy by cleansing ourselves from unclean thoughts and unacceptable actions. In other words, we can grow closer to Christ and become more Christlike when we confess our faults to ourselves and to God and ask for forgiveness from ourselves and from God. At that point, we are ready for God to use us for God’s purposes. 

Furthermore (vs 22), we should strive for a pure heart through the pursuit of righteousness (moral thought and behavior), faith (trust in God), love (attitude and action of commitment to God and others) and peace (harmonious relationship with God and others).

Paul’s words encourage us to spend our Lenten journey with Jesus in the desert, sorting out our lives in order for us to follow His example in ministry to the world.

May the spring cleaning of your soul lead to a life lived in peace with who you are, at peace with God, and at peace with others, and may you discover new ways to use the gifts you have to share God’s love with the world.

I hope to see you in worship Sunday.

Come Dine at Church This Sunday Evening

by Eva Englert-Jessen

In the spring of 2016, I began attending a church called Simple Church in Grafton, Massachusetts, about an hour west of Boston by train. 

My close seminary friend Christy, who shared an affinity for local food, cooking, and farming with me, became a part of the Simple Church community about a year before I did and encouraged me to go with her. It became a formative part of my final year of seminary. 

Simple Church's pastor Zach Kerzee, an original Texan (and actually a close friend of our former youth pastor, Matt Bell!), launched Simple Church after his graduation from seminary as a church plant with a radically...well, simple intention: to make the meal the heart of the worship experience. Down the street from Simple Church is an organic farm, whose head farmer generously donates produce to prepare the weekly soups for the service. Bread-baking is another central piece of the service, and bread is used as a metaphor for the communion experience as a whole and as the community takes communion together. Kendall Vanderslice, the former baker for Simple Church who now attends Duke Divinity School, is writing a book about the power of dinner churches in church movements. 

Zach and Kendall were both important friends and sources of inspiration to me during my final year of seminary, and Simple Church an important part of my weekly spiritual life.

While the dinner church experience includes some elements of "traditional" worship services, the energy of the service is much more participatory. Following a short homily, the entire gathered community of all ages is invited and encouraged to share conversation about the topic for the week--often topics that are avoided or glossed over in traditional worship spaces. I left Simple Church each week feeling so grateful for authentic conversation: about faith and politics, the challenges of maintaining a spiritual life in the midst of life's busyness, and more. 

Simple Church is part of an exciting broader movement of dinner churches cropping up across the country (there is actually a New York Times article about Simple Church- check it out!), and has especially drawn young people to its tables.

Like many of my fellow young Christians (and fellow older ones, too), I often long for church spaces to create more meaningful authenticity where followers can be honest about their lives and struggles and be held accountable for their Christian walk in loving community. Generally speaking, I find that we churchgoers so often feel like we have to shed our "baggage" or topics that might seem unpleasant as soon as we cross the threshold of the church door. I don't think Jesus called us to do that. I think he called us like he called his first disciples and the early church that we see in Acts--that radically communal body of believers who shared all in common--to take risks; to be vulnerable; to commit to action and reflection in community. 

Speaking honestly, I tire of the lament I regularly hear about "why young people don't go to church anymore." How do we get curious about this, rather than place blame or refuse to reflect internally? Maybe young people leave the church in part because the church has not created a place for them to experience meaning and authenticity. The church has not done enough to challenge the frantic, money and power-oriented society that shapes us on a daily basis, and which our young people are especially molded by. 

What an opportunity to try something new! I experience Kessler Park UMC's openness to this newness, and I am excited that this dinner church we are trying on Sunday gets to be a small piece of this. 

On that note, I hope you come on Sunday evening-- come just as you are. All ages will be in the same place, gathered at tables to eat bread, soup, share communion, song, and holy conversation. It doesn't get any simpler than that! 

How to Pray About A(nother) School Shooting

I was blissfully unaware of the school shooting yesterday in Florida for much of the day because I was busy with meetings and preparations for Ash Wednesday. When I saw the “Breaking News” alert on my phone, I tried to ignore it as long as I could.

Not until I got home from the Ash Wednesday service last night could I spend any time processing what happened.

Since I have already announced that our Lenten focus will be going deeper in prayer, let me suggest a couple of important things to know about how to pray in the aftermath of big tragedies such as a school shooting:

1. Because the blame game will shortly begin, it’s always good to pray a Prayer of Confession. The usual suspects will be on TV soon — the NRA gun lobby, a do-nothing Congress, the state of mental health services, those who knew the shooter was a threat but did nothing, etc. But we all shoulder a portion of the blame for this national trait of ours. As Americans, we are complicit in a culture that celebrates violence, shames those with mental disabilities, and does nothing to prevent future school shootings. A Prayer of Confession is the only way to approach God in this matter. 
2. Pray for victims, survivors, and first responders by name. As names pop up on the screen or in news coverage, use those names in your prayer. This personalizes the situation for you, and has the effect of deepening your empathy and compassion. It’s one thing to pray for “all those affected by” an event, and quite another to pray for Reginald, Barry, and Leigh.
3. Pray for the shooter. Our natural impulse will be to pray for the shooter’s destruction, or to leave him out of our prayers altogether. He has committed an atrocious and horrific evil. We want to avoid mentioning him, but the Truth-with-a-capital-T is that he is a beloved child of God, as surely as those whose lives he took. He is a human being who deserves dignity and respect, even if he did not extend dignity and respect in kind. Our prayer for this particular shooter ought to be that he finds grace from God such that he is driven to repentance.
4. Very few words rise to the surface of one’s consciousness when trying to pray about a school shooting; thus, it can be a helpful thing to attempt praying without words. One way to do this is to watch news video footage with the sound muted. Let the images guide you; enter the scene with your imagination, and let the emotions you encounter lead you into prayer, either wordlessly or with words. Remain in silence for as long as you need to.
5. Finally, pray for guidance to action. On Twitter yesterday, politicians who offered “thoughts and prayers” for the shooting were mocked endlessly, because this has become the standard response to a recurring problem. If prayer doesn’t lead to corresponding action on our part, then one can rightly question whether our prayers were prayed in all sincerity. Ask God what you can do to counter the rash of school shootings in America.