Sighs Too Deep for Words

Sighs Too Deep for Words

I got an email early Sunday morning from a good friend. It said simply, Paris… Kenya… sigh...."

Sigh indeed. There are times and moments when words cannot fully capture what the heart feels and the mind suspects. Some problems defy easy explanation and quick resolution. And so we sigh because we do not know what else to do. I have been sighing a great deal for the past few days because I do not easily know what to say between two polarities: hoping the peoples of the world will stand up to the demonic power of violence, and longing for a day of peace when God's children will war no more. Sigh.

It is good to remember in such moments that the Holy Spirit is with us, even when we are confused or confounded. Romans 8:26 gives me comfort when it says, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." What is implied here? When from exhaustion or from lack of inspiration we cannot pray, the Holy Spirit prays for us, interceding for us, praying when we cannot. This scripture has always given me great comfort.

In our men's Bible study on Monday nights, we have been studying the entire book of Genesis this fall. Genesis is a big, brilliant and amazing book of the Bible. It is tempting to focus on the impact of Genesis and make it about just a few of its 50 chapters, narrowing our gaze upon the opening chapters and the creation story. But Genesis is so much bigger than creation alone. It is also about people and our covenants with God. 

Genesis ends with Joseph speaking to his 11 brothers. They are sure that he, Joseph, who is just about the most powerful man in the world, is going to arrest them and hurt them for their betrayals when he was a teenaged boy. They are sure Joseph will exact revenge. And yet what does Joseph say? "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good" (Genesis 50:20).

One of my Old Testament teachers, Sib Towner, once wrote about Genesis 50, "How good it is to know that God can weave our deeds, even ones motivated by evil intentions, into an improvisation of salvation!"

Kenya. Beirut. Newtown. Charleston. Iraq. Afghanistan. Syria. Paris. Whenever you read the news and a sigh takes hold, remember that a sigh can be prayer enough, for the Holy Spirit prays with and for us. Remember also that God is not done with the world yet. Our deeds and our time can be woven by God for good and goodness we cannot yet see or imagine. After all, God is the Lord who took the cross and used it as a means to shatter the tomb.

Some Good Things

Some good things....

I write to you from Montreat, NC. Montreat is a 118-year-old Presbyterian retreat and conference center near Black Mountain, just 30 minutes or so east of Asheville.  The leaves have already fallen here, and hillsides which were lush and green in July now have the hue of hibernation. 

During November many different emotions and feelings converge. Days get shorter and instincts tell us winter is coming fast. The approach of Thanksgiving means that the year is quickly nearing its end.

My whole life I have heard the expression, ‘All good things must come to an end.” I see the practical, pragmatic wisdom in that phrase. And I think I assumed that it was always true. Now I am not so sure. I've been rethinking.

Take Montreat, for example. Since 1897 it has endured. Institutionally, it has not come to an end. How many other retreat centers founded in the 19th century by Christians or Christian churches have come to an end? Nearly all of them. The key to Montreat's survival has been its adaptability. Conferences come, and conferences go.  New staff, new guests, new program and mission activities are constantly pitched as an effort to keep the ministry fresh and related to the issues of moment. Across the decades and through the changes, Montreat, as a place and purposeful ministry dedicated to the gospel of grace, endures.

Maybe an improvement on the expression is this: “Some good things must come to an end.” Yes...I think that's better.

Perhaps the greatest temptation in church life is to take few risks, make minimal change and always “try not to upset anyone” by aiming to keep everything the same. This is, of course, impossible. In order for churches, communities, families or schools to remain vibrant for present and future generations, “some things must come to an end” and new things must begin. 

Our congregation will soon be 70 years old. Our history has been a good one, rich with ministries which have honored God as they have nurtured disciples. Part of our success is the ability to let some activities go and risk the time and investment to try new ones. Like Montreat, a key to our endurance has been our adaptability. Know this, though: making adaptations is always difficult. Yet in spite of the difficulty of the process, the creative abrasion produced when new forms of gospel ministry and community outreach are born in our midst becomes the fuel for our efforts in years to come.

As 2015 comes to an end and we look to 2016, we have our annual opportunity to assess where we have been, where we are now and where we might be going. Please pray for your church staff and your leaders on the diaconate and the session as we evaluate what we have done and then design plans and budgets to support our hopes. If you have not pledged or made a gift to the 2016 budget, please do so (current data is to the right). And most importantly, if you have an idea—a creative ministry idea for which you have passion or energy—please share it with us. You might be the conduit of the Holy Spirit which points us toward the faithful end which God intends.

Abundant Percussion

The photo above is from our Confirmation Kick-off Retreat, held just east of Raleigh at Milburnie Fish Camp. It is a lively afternoon of young people just beginning their confirmation journeys. These confirmands are dedicating great amounts of time and activity to maturing in the Spirit and moving towards the articulation of a personal faith in the God we worship and serve. It goes without saying that it is a meaningful year: the confirmands are exposed to the great underpinnings of our faith, are called to formulate their personal expressions of faithfulness and share these expressions with our entire church family.

Part of the day entailed conversation about worship and its importance. Our hearts and minds were designed by God to communicate with God. The soul with no worship, song, study, prayer or meditation is quickly a soul in need of treatment and, sometimes, resuscitation. Worship is where our hearts and minds breathe most easily. We talked about falling asleep in worship (and whether that was a good or bad thing—or both!), we talked about not just listening to the songs and hymns which were sung, but really singing them and learning from the words and the vision of the hymn writers. We talked about the importance of prayer and about the beauty of witnessing a baptism or partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Our confirmands will be in the balcony this Sunday, October 4, at 11:00 a.m. as we celebrate World Communion Sunday. If you are around them, be sure to say hello and welcome them into the broader life of our church.

The photo above is of Karl Zinsmeister, our Director of Music, leading the confirmands in song. The kids are playing instruments called boom-whackers—plastic tube-like melodic percussion instruments. When played in groups and patterns, they form notes and chords and are a great way to get groups to sing together. Now here’s the thing: I took the photograph. My vantage point was one where I was watching the youth smack their boom-whackers, make their melodies and sing their songs. I wish you could have seen the joy on their faces. I wish you could have heard the sound, seen the smiles and laughter as they sang and joyfully worshipped together. It was a good moment. It was a Spirit moment. It was an abundant moment: abundant with percussion—abundant with joy.

When you support the budget of our church, when you make a pledge to our common stewardship, you are a part of this abundance. Young people like these confirmands are learning about the faith of our tradition, sharing and serving within the precepts of the gospel.  They are surrounded by loving adults, and they are able to worship with some appropriate measure of abandon. When we speak about abundance, these are the very moments to which we are referring: the life and work of the church to share the faith and shape our community. It is good work. It is our work. And we need your participation if this work is not only to endure, but thrive.

Abundance Part I

Abundance

One of the most interesting moments in the gospels occurs in Luke Chapter 12. Sometimes called the parable of the rich fool, this beautiful piece of scripture begins with Jesus telling the story of a man whose crops produced abundantly. As the parable unfolds, this man takes his bumper crop and fails to share it—he refuses to share it. As he hoards it all for himself, the voice of God calls him a fool, not because of his abundance, but because of his response (or lack thereof) to his abundance.

I wonder: how are we, as modern Christians, doing with our abundances?

This past Sunday I looked around White Memorial and I saw evidence of abundance everywhere.

· A trio sang a glorious anthem in worship at all three services.

· There were nurseries beginning to fill with children coming to church.

· I saw one of our pastors offering amazing pastoral care to a young man who is living through a very complex time in his life.

· We saw some faces we had not seen in awhile—faces more able to be present as summer draws to its close.

· We hosted organizational meetings for youth volunteers and youth advisors.

· We saw new staff moving through the day, helping our members find what they needed and learning more about who we are as a church.

· There was an organizational meeting for Presbyterian Women and their annual retreat next winter.

· Dozens of teachers had orientation and planning meetings with our church staff and with the other teachers in the classes—thinking about the year to come in our church school and ministry programs for children. We saw veteran teachers, first-time teachers, and folks who cannot believe they have been called to teach in the first place.

· Our Associate Director of Music for Alternate Worship search team met.

· I saw members of our Director of Middle School Ministry Search Committee mingling with our Associate Pastor for Youth and Their Families and our confirmation class leaders. 

In a word, it was abundant. And it was only one day. In our church, and in our church family, we enjoy many days like the one described above.

In the coming weeks we will talk about abundance with increasing regularity.  Nearly every day I am made aware of the “bumper crop” of talent, ability, resources and energy at White Memorial. We are truly a church that makes differences in the lives of our members, in the lives of people in our community and in the lives of people around the world. In thanksgiving we’ll talk about the abundances of our church family, and we’ll talk about how true wisdom is found when we share our resources with each other—our church, our community and the world.

In the parable of the rich fool, the fool is foolish because of his refusal to share. This is a good lesson to take to heart. As we look ahead and give thanks for our many abundances, in what new ways can we share with our church this year and in the year to come? With all that we have to share, surely there are ways each of us can contribute from the abundance in our midst

Unknown

      This past weekend I had the privilege of preaching at the New Hope Presbyterian Church annual homecoming service. New Hope Presbyterian sits along Highway 86 between Hillsborough and Chapel Hill. The congregation is 259 years old.

The church, like many colonial churches, owns and manages hundreds of acres. Over the years the acreage has evolved. Along with a camp and a wooded park-like area, the church manages a very large, very old cemetery at the bottom of the hill along the highway. Grave after grave tells a story of family, faith, and trust in God.

In one section of the cemetery there is a succession of graves marked simply “unknown.” In my first look these markers made me sad. Who were these people? Why were their lives and stories unknown?

As I stood there and thought and meditated a little longer, though, I saw the markers in another light. Even though they were unknown people and souls, they were there alongside those who were well known, who were pillars of the community, whose families had tilled and shaped the very soil upon which the church stands. The church was caring for them, even though they were unknowns, in the only way they could be cared for. In this new light I saw that the markers, though they made me sad, said something important about the faith and perseverance of the church itself.

A church is called to be a steward of many things. At White Memorial, we believe we are called to be stewards of multiple levels of abundance. We enjoy an abundance of resources, talents, insights, know-how and abilities in our church. All of this abundance contributes to our stewardship of the future.

Back at the cemetery, I saw for one of the few times in my life that parts of the past could be unknown. While I was in worship, I was reminded that the future is always unknown. Acts of stewardship are acts of faith as the stewards trust God to provide in the days to come. Stewardship is always a future-oriented project. 

Every now and then someone will send me an article from a “churchy” publication.  Most of these articles predict impending doom for the church in North America. Most of these publications draw straight lines between denominational struggles and decline and the diminishing of the centrality of church life in the lives of many Americans. These articles always get my attention.

But then I am reminded that the future is yet to be written. I am reminded that the future is a big unknown. I am reminded that ours is God’s church, and the church endures because God wills it so. It is like that old line from the gospel tradition: “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”

In the coming days we begin to build that future again as our fall ministry efforts get underway. We begin so many wonderful studies, opportunities to serve and chances to grow in faith together. Won’t you join us? In this way we might be known to each other, and in this knowledge contribute to a future worthy of our faith.

Letter to Members of White Memorial Presbyterian Church - Pastoral Prirority

Reading over my sermons from the past year, I can see a trend: in the wake of challenges around race, politics, violence and social change, we hold it to be true that the church is called to continue her mission. At White Memorial we understand that mission to be worshipping, embracing and serving in the manner of Christ. No matter what has been or what may come, we are resolved as a church family to offer our best to God and neighbors.

Over the past 11 months, our church has been engaged in a slow, methodical, honest and deliberate conversation about marriage because our attitudes, as Americans, about marriage are shifting. Conversations about marriage and our changing understandings of marriage are complex. Marriage has always been a very personal part of our common faith. That couples should offer their best to one another in covenantal promise is evident to anyone who studies God’s Word. That families benefit from the stability that a healthy marriage produces is beyond question. Given these truths, the question before us is this: who should be able to marry—only some, or everyone?

This conversation began last August, when I preached a sermon entitled A Pastor’s Prayer During Days of Division. It continued as a small group of elders from our Session (our governing body) met to discuss and pray about the place of marriage and the possibility of same-gender marriage in the Presbyterian Church and at White Memorial. As outgrowths of that working group, we have held a congregation-wide forum, offered a five-week class on marriage, written newsletter articles, distributed packets of resources about marriage, visited and talked with Church School classes and had hundreds and hundreds of conversations about marriage, same-gender marriage and the pastoral and biblical claims which frame the issue. In all of these efforts, we have tried to employ a pastoral priority— we have listened to all perspectives because White Memorial as a church body has all viewpoints. We have cried tears with those who hope that same-gender marriage will not happen in our church, those who hope it will happen at White Memorial very soon and those who wish the pain surrounding the issue would just go away.

I am committed to placing all of my energy into holding our church family together in light of the dynamic and quickly changing conversations around marriage in our culture, in our homes and in our church. This is my pastoral priority.

Last fall your Session voted to suspend any decisions about same-gender marriage at White Memorial Presbyterian Church until the will of the national church was known and the laws of North Carolina and our nation were fully understood. With the passage of new language in our Presbyterian Church Book of Order allowing for same-gender marriages and the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, our Session will once again take up the topic as to whether or not same-gender wedding services will be allowed on White Memorial’s campus. At its stated meeting on August 9, our Session will be engaged in prayer and discussion around the issue. This is to prepare for a decision at its September 13 meeting. Our priority as a church family is pastoral integrity as it fuels an ethos of kindness and compassion. It strikes me that the mark of a healthy family is its ability to love beyond its disagreements and uncertainties. The priority will be pastoral as we care for one another and work side-by-side with one another in our common ministry.

In light of these upcoming Session meetings, I invite you, our church family, to write the Session as you feel called to do so. All signed letters received in our church office by September 1 will be shared with the Session. Letters need to be written and mailed or emailed to me and/or my assistant, Rebecca Turner (our email addresses are available on the website). Should you need to write in pastoral privacy to share your feelings without the Session being copied, simply state that desire in your letter. You know that you may schedule a meeting with any of our pastors to discuss or pray about this very personal and complicated matter. My hope is that this invitation to communicate will be part of our larger conversation—honest, deliberate, methodical conversation—about marriage.

Whether you write or not, please pray for our church. There are many concerned folks in our congregation, on all sides of the question. Families pray for one another in times of stress and confusion. Let us do nothing less, and let us give our best energies to the commitment to embrace one another through patience and compassion.

 May grace abound, Christopher Edmonston

Lavish Grace