Seeing Some Light

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Dear Church Friends:

Two things happened this week that I hope warm your heart:
1. It actually got physically warmer in the neighborhood, and
2. our Trustees voted to resume in-person worship.

First things first.
It’s warmer. Best we can tell in our conversations with you all, this winter storm was nothing like last year’s Snowpocalypse. And so, before we move on with our lives, let us offer prayers of gratitude…for electricity and heat that stayed on…for homes that, today, are as secure as they were last week.

Thanks be to God that nothing more serious happened this year. And continued prayers to any of you —and to our several local United Methodist Churches— that are still suffering from last year’s storm.

During the freezing snap last week, you came through big time to help our unsheltered neighbors. Kessler Park provided more than 3,000 hot breakfasts from Norma’s Cafe in our neighborhood. You all came through with generous contributions to this effort and you were joined by many North Oak Cliff neighbors and friends of the church who live beyond who also contributed generously. We’ll end up raising about $15,000 to assist our homeless neighbors in this time of emergency. (And, recall, you raised $18,000 to help them last winter…)

Thank you for your genuinely remarkable generosity to this cause. You truly place your time and treasure in line with Jesus’ calling to love the least and the lost.

Finally, the Trustees voted this week to allow in-person worship to resume this Sunday, February 13.

The 14-day COVID case averages in Dallas County have plummeted to 52% of where they were just a few weeks ago. The hospital bed numbers are also easing. So, it’s a reasonable assumption to believe that we can resume in-person worship as safely as it is possible.

Please understand what we are saying here: We’re not declaring victory over COVID or suggesting that coming to worship is a completely safe choice for everyone. We know and understand that some of you will continue to watch online, and if you have any concerns at all as to the safety of coming, we most certainly invite you to keep doing that.

But, with our continued mask use and social distancing coupled with the falling numbers, we feel as if this is a decision that balances both the risks and the need for incarnational community.

So, I hope your hearts are warmed by all of this, just as our souls are warmed by the continuing presence of God in our lives.

Very soon, we’ll all be singing St. George of Harrison’s song: “Here comes the Sun…”

Or better yet, Zechariah’s song in Luke, Chapter 1:

"By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Grace and Peace,

Eric Folkerth

Being the Church

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Dear Friends:

As I write this midweek, there is much happening in our church and world right now.

As we wrote you earlier this week, we lost a saint of our church, Nell Lind. Nell was family to so many of you, and I know the loss of her is great in your hearts. Nell was always so keen to see the church be the church and especially to love and serve the least and the less fortunate.

Her ministry with children is the bedrock foundation on which our current Parents Day Out Program is built, and without her it’s very unlikely it would be the program it is today.

But it was her “young at heart” spirit that most inspired me again and again. She kept up with news of the world and, in her gentle-yet-firm way, would express her powerful sense of the importance of the church reaching out to the next generation and to the less fortunate.

Simultaneous to all of this, it’s about to get very cold today…and for the next few days. I hope and pray that you have made preparations at your house to deal with the cold weather. And if you need anything, please do reach out and we’ll see what we can do to assist you.

Finally, the same church and non-profit coalition that has been helping the homeless throughout this winter will be ramping up their efforts greatly this week. Plans are underway to house up to 1,000 homeless persons (if needed) at a building at Fair Park.

KPUMC will again be driving the streets of North Oak Cliff to try and help our homeless neighbors to safety.

Additionally, because of the size and scope of this effort, we are again inviting you to contribute to funds to help pay for meals for these homeless friends this week. Please look elsewhere in this newsletter for information on how you might contribute. Your contributions to this important work will help keep our neighbors safe this week.

With all this, we prepare for memorial services, we serve the less fortunate, we love neighbors as ourselves by preparing for the winter storm.

In other words, the church is being the church.
Thanks be to God for this.

Grace and Peace,

Eric Folkerth

Love Will Connect Us

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Here at Kessler Park, we were all deeply troubled by the recent hostage situation at Beth Israel Jewish Center in Colleyville. I know you were quite relieved that all hostages escaped safely. 

Even as we continue to learn more about this situation, I wanted to write today about it because there are so many intersecting issues related to faith and public life that flow out of an event like this. I would also refer you to a link in our newsletter this week which leads to a statement from our Bishop.

I hope you will continue to join me in prayer for our Jewish siblings in faith. These kinds of incidents of violence against synagogues and Jewish houses of worship have become far too familiar in modern times.

I am grateful for the work of my dear friend, Rabbi Andrew Paley. Andrew is the leader of our Faith Forward, Dallas interfaith clergy group, but he is also a trained police chaplain. I’ve heard him speak about this work many times.

He provided truly important on-the-ground assistance in Colleyville during this incident.

This violence against faith communities must always be condemned in the strongest terms possible. I do so here today.

I hope you took notice of the comments of Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, the faith leaders of Beth Israel, and his comments immediately afterward. He was asked how he dealt with this situation.

He responded: We trained for it.

This is a troubling truth in our modern times of which you may not be aware. The reality is that many faith leaders and congregations are training their worship leaders and ushers on precisely how they might respond to potential acts of violence and terror. Because, in houses of worship of many faiths, such incidents appear to be on the rise.

We have had some of these conversations at KPUMC, for example, in our pre-pandemic time. And in the past, I’ve been in worship services where we had to have plain-clothed DPD officers present at a time of a specific high threat.

I share this to note this sad development for you and to assure you that many of your Dallas faith leaders have concern about these issues every week.

Houses of worship should be the kinds of places where we can truly let our guard down, to leave behind our worries and cares and focus on God and our gathered communities. But perhaps precisely because of this, worship services can be especially vulnerable places. 

Rabbi Cytron-Walker also noted that he was trained in being “a non-anxious presence.” That is a phrase well known to many clergy today.

Clergy learn and we are trained to understand (or at least we should be) that our own anxiety can infect others. If parishioners and worshippers “read” a sense of fear in our faces and our actions, that fear can infect everyone.

Words and actions actually *do* matter, especially when they are spoken by those purporting to lead others, whether they be preachers, politicians, or high school principals. Anyone in any kind of leadership has a greater burden of responsibility to ensure that their words are not unduly provocative or spread fear.

You’ve heard me say before that this is part of why I have the words “Fear Not” tattooed on my forearm. It’s from a line in the Gospel of Luke in the 2nd chapter, the Christmas story:

“The angel said unto them, ‘Fear Not…’”

It’s a reminder for me to check my own fears and to also remember that how I share my fear with others can affect their actions too.

I hope that if you are in positions of leadership in your life —in your worship community, your business, your family— that you will prayerfully consider how to maintain a “non-anxious presence.”

Finally, as I unpack this event, I am troubled by the words of some television commentators immediately after the release of the hostages. I know where their own emotion came from, but it landed poorly to me.

They talked about the resolution being “hopeful” and “a happy ending.”

I know what they meant, I really do. But I’m not sure I can call it a “happy” ending.
A safe ending, yes. 
But “happy?”

I mean…
… A congregation was held hostage; terrorized for hours.
…The hostage taker was killed, no doubt leaving a grieving family. 
… A fear of copycat antisemitic acts now stays with us
… As does a fear among innocent Muslim friends, who are concerned about their safety.

I’d hardly call the result “happy,” even as we are all grateful and relieved.

Ironically, it is faith itself that can help us deal with all of this. True faith lessens our fears and reminds us not to “Otherize” entire populations by race or religion. True faith understands that we must first look inward to our own hearts and seek a purity of intention and action there.

Yes, by all means we must condemn “bad” actions —and I hope you’ve heard me do this here— but we must also understand just how closely all humans live with each other now. Targeting any individual because of their race or religion runs counter to my faith and, as I understand it, the faith of all the world’s great religions. And I know it does for you too. 

Pray for our entire community. But especially today, I ask you to pray for those recovering from this trauma, for religious leaders everywhere who deal with these issues, and for all those who seek to reduce fear among God’s children.

This Sunday in worship, we will be citing the words of Dr. Martin Luther King. At a prayer service in Colleyville, Rabbi Cytron-Walker also quoted Dr. King in a closing thought that I trust you all share with me:

“Without love, there's no reason to know anyone. For love will in the end connect us to our neighbors, our children and our hearts.”

This is the deep wisdom we must all embrace.