6/9/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

Every Monday morning for the past four years at 9:00 sharp (actually a few minutes before 9, she’s always early) the church key has turned in the lock and Ester Garner has arrived to see what help she might can offer me that week.  She has folded bulletins, typed minutes, mailed out enotes to church members who do not have email accounts, decorated bulletin boards, searched for lost and found items, hand painted drawings for bulletin covers when I wanted something special and couldn’t find it, made photocopies, addressed church mailings, compiled the annual church handbooks, ran to the Post Office, ran other errands, helped me plan church activities, served as a sounding board when I needed one…and these are just a few examples. Beyond this there are all the things she does as membership committee chair – organize the church kitchen, take care of the little food pantry outside, lead meetings… you get the idea.

In the 4th century, St. Anthony of the Desert said “In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it.” Someone asked Abba Anthony, “What must one do in order to please God?” The old man replied, “Pay attention to what I tell you: whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes, whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.” (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers)

            The first two are clear to us.  The third one probably comes as a surprise, considering how globally we travel and how busy and distracted our lives can become.

            But when we look closely at the lives of people who become pillars of a Christian community – monasteries in the case of those who followed St. Anthony, local congregations in the case of you and I - we see that “pillars” take upon themselves tasks that they can be depended upon to perform over and over again, without being asked or reminded. Because they are always physically present to take care of their designated responsibilities, they also start to notice other little things that need doing – and they begin to take those on too.  Before long they build up a knowledge base others depend on (where do we keep the extension cords around here?) and become the image by which the church is recognized in the world (You mean Mr. Doe?  The one from that church that does Breakfast with Santa?) 

            But these things don’t happen without stability.  Without constant presence, awareness, and willingness. Without standing with your church through fun, easy times, and refusing to leave for “greener pastures” in hurtful, challenging times. 

 Ester’s dedicated Monday morning work in part has helped pave the way for a part-time Church Administrator.  Her key may or may not turn in the lock at 8:55 this Monday morning – but I’m not worried.  She will be around -  because she totally gets it:  “in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it.”  

Thank you, Ester, from all of us.

Grace and peace,

Beth

6/2/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

And so Pentecost comes around again - the time we remember Peter’s newfound courage in the Spirit, taking to the streets to tell anyone who would listen “Jesus is Lord!” Gone was his fear of begin found out by Roman soldiers, gone was his doubt that the time with Jesus had all been for naught- in the grip of the Spirit he rose to become that which he had always been called to be: a disciple, a preacher, a church builder.

It would not be all sunshine and roses for Peter, or anybody else for that matter.  There would be hard, hard questions to grapple with in the newly forming church, and doubtless many heartaches to go along with them.  I think of the opposition Peter faced when he came back to Jerusalem after having baptized Cornelius, the first Gentile convert:  the astonished looks, the “you baptized who?”  I think of the showdown in Antioch when Paul confronted him in front of the whole assembly for Peter’s inconsistency in regards to eating with Gentile converts (eating with them at first, then withdrawing to a separate table when the hard core circumcision party arrived from Jerusalem). I happen to have a lot of compassion for Peter in this - he felt the calling of the Spirit and courageously pushed forward to offer baptism to the Gentiles, yet unlike Paul, he did not face those who disagreed with him with righteous indignation but instead sought to meet them half way.  It is possible he was just wishy washy, as Paul denounces him for being - but my gut tells me he was trying to hold both positions for the sake of unity in the newly forming church community.

Unity is such an elusive creature.  It can only be achieved when all parties involved believe it is more important to be one in the Spirit than to be separated into factions - what else could possibly hold together such polar opposites as Jews and Gentiles?  Yet Ephesians insists:  “…he is our peace.  In his flesh he has made both groups one and broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

“If I only love those who love me, what good is that?”  Jesus once asked. “Even the Gentiles are capable of that kind of love! And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? No, you are to be perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  In other words, we are to live by a higher standard.

If we only associate with those who look like us, what good is that?  If we only worship with people who believe like we do, what more are we doing than what everybody is doing?  No, we are called to go the extra mile:  to pray for those we dislike and disagree with, to seek common ground with those we are so different from, to try to understand those who believe and feel differently from ourselves be it due to issues of faith, politics, social awareness or cultural expectation.

It seems like an impossible task.  But we will gather to worship this Sunday only because the early church rose to that challenge and completed that task, overcoming their differences and moving out into the world united in the Gospel.  In our generation, in our time - may we do the same.

Grace and peace,

Beth

5/26/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

Today on Memorial Day we pause to offer a prayer for this nation – our home – the United States of America. We remember those who serve us through our armed forces and we remember those who have died in that service.  We pray for the families who have lost loved ones; we pray for those who have worked and fought side-by-side and lost a comrade so dear.  We pray for all those who remain alive but are forever wounded, physically and mentally, by the sights and sounds of war.  May we never take a single human life for granted.  May we never rush towards war, but always cherish each person who cherishes and defends our country.

Grace and peace,

Beth

5/13/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

How anyone could dislike a Canadian goose is beyond me.  Yes, I have been honked at, hissed at, and chased when I have strayed to close to a nest in hatching season, and yes, I have had to step around large piles of poo left behind. But these are minor inconveniences compared with the miracle of these creatures.

  Canadian geese navigate long migrations by forming an upside down  “V” pattern in the sky,  reducing the air flow each goose has to exert itself against as they fly.  Everyone in the pattern at some point takes a turn in the lead position, the position requiring the most exertion, then falls back into a less strenuous position when they grow tired. By working together, they travel further distances with less fatigue.

Geese also mate for life.

They exhibit behaviors of intense attachment, and at the death of a mate or a gosling exhibit behaviors of grief:  hanging their heads, losing interest in food, and exhibiting apathy and confusion.

Male and female pairs share responsibilities in raising their young, protecting them from predators and teaching them to fly. Moms sit on the eggs and the rest of us better not get to close because dads are standing guard. 

And the reason I am thinking about Canadian geese today, this Monday following Mother’s Day weekend:  geese lose their flight feathers at the same time their young hatch.  This means for the 6 weeks it takes to grow back their feathers, geese are completely flightless - exactly like their young, who take 6 weeks to learn to fly. Born to be free to fly, geese parents must surrender their freedom and join their defenseless young on the ground -  a constant presence of nurture and protection.  In short,  their freedom is briefly limited in order to insure their children become free.

I think about mothers and fathers who intentionally slow down their careers in order to be close to home and focused on their families.  I think about parents who volunteer in schools and coach Little League.  I think about band parents and soccer parents and scout parents and Sunday School parents. I think about mothers who prioritize family time over “me” time and fathers who have buddies complaining “we never see you anymore!”And I remember the geese.

Limiting our freedom is not something that comes easily to us:  we so much love to fly. But from my current vantage point I am very aware that flight feathers grow back in the blink of an eye.  Children are young for such a short while, and soon we all fly again together.

Grace and peace in the season of our Lord’s Resurrection,

Beth

5/5/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

Last week I saw a billboard advertising a church with the slogan “Small enough to know you; large enough to serve you.” It’s a great slogan for a bank, but please forgive me, a horrible slogan for a church.

People already go church shopping like they go grocery shopping:  searching for the location that offers the widest selection for the cheapest prices.  Translated into church life, that means looking to join a church that can offer the widest variety of programs we are interested in for the least amount of commitment on our part. And that is the polar opposite of discipleship.

Discipleship is learning to walk closer and closer to the way of the cross.  It is learning to pour ourselves out in love as Jesus poured himself out, giving of our time, our talent, our commitment because we love God, not because we expect a certain percentage gain on our investment. 

And the miracle of it all:  the heart poured out in love for the sake of Christ actually does receive measure upon measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.  But not because we joined a church large enough to serve us.  Instead, we simply learned to open our heart. 

Grace and peace in the season of our Lord’s Resurrection,

Beth

4/28/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

Ok I have to tell just one more.

Yesterday our Holy Humor Sunday celebration was full of joy and laughter - thank you all for the bright hats and clothes, and the bloopers!  They were great!!  

And now one last blooper: 

This one happened to me years before I arrived at FCC.  At the time, I was the Minister of Youth and Children at Hillyer Memorial Christian Church in Raleigh.  It was the tradition of that congregation for the Youth Minister and the youth to lead the 5:00 pm Christmas Eve service, which was primarily for families with young children, and then the Senior Minister and Associate Minister to lead the 11:00 pm worship.

The youth and I had worked hard to design an elegant service with scripture, carols, a little skit about Christmas night and the Lord’s Supper.  They were nervous but excited, especially when it was time to start and that huge downtown sanctuary was packed to overflowing. Everything started out well and was going beautifully until a precious high school junior named Laura stepped into the pulpit to read Luke 2:28-32.  This scripture passage in part reads “a light for revelation to the Gentiles”… only Laura, in her nervousness, read the scripture “a light for revelation to the genitals.”

For just a moment a hush descended upon the place.  Then the laughter began to break out.  First the youth started laughing.  And laughing. Laura, when she realized what she had said, got so tickled she couldn’t stop laughing even with tears running down her face and struggling to breathe.  The whole congregation was rolling in the aisles and nothing could get things back under control until I put on my best preacher face and went into the pulpit to finish reading the scripture myself.   

Never since have I read Luke 2:32 without the memory of that unforgettable Christmas Eve night.  

And I believe our God, who was a child himself at Christmas, joined right in with those youth in their fun and their holy laughter.

Rejoice! Our Lord is Risen!

Grace and peace,

Beth

4/14/25

Pastor’s Pondering

UNC CH Morehead scholar and graduate Frank Anthony Bruni, after a long and distinguished career in journalism, now serves as Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy of Duke University (quite a statement on unity and cooperation in and of itself!)

Last spring about this time he wrote a guest essay for “The New York Times” entitled “The Most Important Thing I Teach My Students Isn’t on the Syllabus” (“The New York Times” Opinion, April 20, 2024.)

So what is the most important thing? The first thing he mentions is grammar.  “I am a stickler for it” he writes.  Why?  Simply this: We do not get to make up our own rules.  

The second thing he mentions is the importance of getting to hear every voice in the class. But - and he emphasizes - “I don’t want to hear anybody’s voice so often and so loudly that the other voices don’t have a chance.”

And the third thing he mentions is how often his students will hear him say “It’s complicated.” He writes, “I’m going to repeat one phrase more often than any other: ‘It’s complicated.’ They’ll become familiar with that. They may even become bored with it. I’ll sometimes say it when we’re discussing the roots and branches of a social ill, the motivations of public (and private) actors and a whole lot else, and that’s because I’m standing before them not as an ambassador of certainty or a font of unassailable verities but as an emissary of doubt. I want to give them intelligent questions, not final answers. I want to teach them how much they have to learn — and how much they will always have to learn.”

What it all boils down to is humility.  The realization that we are not in charge, we are not the most important voice in the room (no matter who else is there) and we all have things we could stand to learn. Humility, Mr. Bruni writes, is the greatest thing he teaches his students. 

Clearly some of the gravest ills facing our society this spring come from voices who do not believe any of these things to be true about themselves.  People who see no need to follow anyone else’s rules, and that even the laws of our country, much less the laws of grammar, do not apply to them. People who believe they already have all the answers so it is not necessary to listen to what anybody else has to say. People who believe the world can be seen in all black and white and what they believe is obviously all right as opposed to those who disagree with them who are obviously all wrong. It’s an attitude that can be summed up in one word:  arrogance.

There is no greater polar opposite to arrogance than the picture of a Jewish rabbi entering Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, followed by 12 itinerant disciples. This man was nothing less than the very son of God - bowing in complete humility before God.

So holding Jesus close in mind as we journey with him through Holy Week, let us remember these things:  learn scripture and the teachings of Christ’s church, for we do not get to make our own rules. If your voice has been going on and on ’til your listener’s eyes are glazing over, or if you have interrupted and talked over the person you are supposed to be conversing with, it is time to shut up and listen to someone’s voice besides your own.  And remember:  arrogance was blind to truth when it was standing right before him.

Privileged to gaze upon our Savior’s humility with you,

Beth

4/7/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

There is a story in my prayer journal that I found in Thomas Long’s book Whispering the Lyrics: Sermons for Lent and Easter (CSS Publishing, 1995). I keep it for its powerful reminder of the way we are called by Jesus to love one another, even our enemies - a task that does not come easily in the least.  Yet when hatred is resisted by love, sometimes life changing events occur.  Jesus’ point to us is “I have already saved your life - now on my behalf, can you not try to save another?”  But oh, what a hard calling.

Anyway, I hope you find this true account as meaningful as I have, and may it bless you as we walk together these final Lenten steps toward the cross of our Lord.

Many years ago in India, a group of men traveling through a desolate country found a seriously wounded man lying beside the road.  They carried him to the Christian mission hospital some distance away and asked the missionary physician who met them at the door if a bed was available for the man. The physician looked at the injured man and immediately saw that he was an Afghan, a member of the warring Patau tribe.  “Bring him in,” he said.  “For him we have a bed.”

When the physician examined the man, he found that an attacker had seriously injured his eyes and the man’s sight was imperiled.  The man was desperate with fear and rage, pleading with the doctor to restore his sight so that he could find his attacker and extract justice.  He screamed:  “I want to kill him. After that I don’t care whether I am blind the rest of my life!”

The doctor told the man that he was in a Christian hospital, that Jesus had come to show us how to love and forgive others, even to love and forgive our enemies.  The man listened but was unmoved.  He told the doctor that Jesus’ words about forgiveness and love were nice, but meaningless.  Revenge was the only goal, vengeance the only reality.  The doctor rose from his bedside, saying he needed to attend to other patients.  He promised to return that evening to tell the man a story, a story about a person who took revenge.

When he returned that evening, the doctor began his story.  Long ago, he recounted, the British government had sent a man to serve as an envoy to Afghanistan, but as he traveled to his new post, he was attacked on the road by a hostile tribe, accused of espionage, and thrown into a shabby make-shift prison.  There was only one other prisoner, and the men suffered through their ordeal together.  They were poorly clothed, badly fed, and mistreated cruelly by the guards.

Their only comfort was a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, which had been given to the envoy as a farewell gift by his sister in England.  She has inscribed her name along with the message of good will on the first leaf.  This book served the men not only as a source for their prayers but also as a diary, as a place to record their daily experiences.  The margins of the prayer book became a journal of their anguish and their faith.

Those two prisoners were never heard from again.  Their families and friends waited for news that never came; they simply vanished without a word, leaving those who loved them in uncertain grief.

Over 20 years later, a man browsing through a second hand book shop found the prayer book.  How it got there, no one can say.  But, after reading some of the journal entries in the margins, he recognized its value, located the sister whose name was in the front of the book, and sent it to her.

With deep heartache she read each entry. When she came to the last one, she noted it was in a different handwriting.  It said simply that the two prisoners had been taken from their cells, publicly flogged and then forced to dig their own graves before being executed.

At that moment she knew what she must do. Her brother had died a cruel death at the hand of torturers in a run-down Afghan jail, and this injustice must be requited.  She must exact revenge…but Christian revenge.

She was not wealthy, the doctor continued, but she marshaled all the money she could and sent it to this mission hospital.  Her instructions were that the money was to be used to keep a bed free at all times for a sick or wounded Afghan.  This was to be her revenge for her brother’s torture at the hands of Afghans and his death in their country.

The wounded man was quiet, silenced by the story of such strange revenge. “My friend,” said the doctor, “you are now lying in that bed.  Your care is her revenge.”

Grace and peace,

Beth

3/31/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

As Easter approaches and our Bible study on the letters of John continues, I find myself pondering yet again what it means to abide in love, a phrase John uses often in his letter writing. 

Each Sunday you and I gather around the Lord’s Table to celebrate a great mystery:  the mystery of God becoming mortal like us in order that we might gain immortality like God.  It is an act for which we do not know all the answers to “how” but we certainly know the answer to “why”:  because of God’s great love.  

Gathered around the table we are lifted into a perspective that opens our eyes to our new connection with God and with each other.  We feast with all those who are in Christ:  those in our nation, those in other nations around the world; those who have been long dead, those yet to be born. These are the moments when great courage and hope enter our beings on a molecular level as we eat the bread and taste the cup that is a foretaste of the time we will all feast together in the flesh, served by Christ himself.  

Since the Great Awakening in the early 18th century, Christians in the west have emphasized a personal relationship with Jesus encompassed by individual conversion and spiritual growth. This is a great thing when it calls us to personal Christian accountability; this is a very negative thing when it reduces our understanding of “church” to merely a nice thing when convenient but not necessary - I can, after all, worship just fine on my deck. 

Except that we can’t. The Bible study on the sunny deck with coffee, the meditative walk in the woods, singing along with the contemporary music radio station - these are all significant parts of praise and worship, but never to be confused with taking the place of coming into the Body of Christ to abide in the meal of mystery that binds us to God and to each other across all time and space.

The writer of I John reminds us over and over again that to be of God is to love one another. “Whoever does not love, does not know God”.  This love is forged in the fires of staying connected to unlovable friends and family members, even while protecting ourselves against what is sometimes called “toxicity”; learning to love individuals in the church, even the crotchety or out of control ones; learning to welcome the stranger not because we are not afraid but because it is more important to be faithful than to be safe. We practice this love in our fellowship with one another, again as I John reminds, “whoever does not love does not know God.”  We know of this love not because we had it in us to give but because God first loved us and sent his son to atone for our lack of love. 

Sunday after Sunday the Lord’s Table calls us to the new life described by I John:  a life marked by loving one another as we have been loved. The vision set before us is our personal reconciliation as a child of God and our communal reconciliation as Christ’s own body.

I hope to see you there.

Grace and Peace, 

Beth

3/24/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

Christians hear the clarion call and in mountaintop moments of wonder and gratitude enter the baptistry to be reborn into new and transformed lives, determined to be part of a movement to do nothing less than change the world by bearing witness to our Christ.  We come out of the baptistry only to find ourselves tied forever to Euodia and Syntyche.

You remember them, right? The two women from Philippi who have the dubious distinction of being called out in front of the entire church for all time because they could not get along. “I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord” Paul writes in Philippians 4. “Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel…”

Help them?  Help them do what? We thought we were supposed to preach grace and justice to the whole world in the name of Christ, not get caught in the middle of an argument about whose turn it is to lock up the building! Is this really necessary?

Paul and the Elder John agree that yes, it is.  In the first letter of John, over and over the writer calls us to understand if we love God, we demonstrate that love in our love for each other. And that means not just showing up for the preaching but getting involved in the day to day lives of the believers with whom we are in fellowship: Reaching out to one another. Working out the details.  Forgiving one another.  Agreeing to disagree - agreeably.

It’s like the church is one great big laboratory for learning how to love. The longer we can stick together and maintain our love for one another the deeper that love and the stronger the church becomes.  But just as soon as the church divides and separates, the experiment is over and the pieces have to start back at level one in learning to love one another as a community of Christ. Same for individuals belonging to a church.  The longer you remain a part,  the deeper the love you gain for one another in the shared experience of service - but each time you leave a church and begin again, you start all over with new people in love level one. 

 “In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it” wrote St. Anthony of the Desert in the 3rd century.  The author of I John says it this way:  “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.”

Grace and peace,

Beth

3/17/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! 

In honor of Ireland’s patron saint, I offer one of his best-known prayers, recorded in his Confessions:  

Christ be with me, Christ within me,

Christ behind me, Christ before me,

Christ beside me, Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort and restore me.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in the hearts of all that love me

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

And also, a prayer from the ancient Celtic Christians (A Celtic Psaltery):

The virtues of the star lit heaven,

The glorious sun’s life giving ray

The whiteness of the moon at even,

The flashing of the lightning free,

The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,

The stable earth, the deep salt sea

Around the old eternal rocks.

Grace and peace,

Beth

3/10/25

Pastor’s Ponderings

We sat in the Adult Sunday School classroom, coffee cups and Bibles in hand, quietly thinking together.

We were in the midst of the second chapter of I John, the part where Elder John reminds his readers our new commandment is the commandment of Christ:  “Love one another as I have loved you.”  While the new commandment does not eradicate our responsibility to the law of Moses, it does change it. The old commandments of the law spell everything out for the believer:  what to eat, how to wash hands, what to wear, when to worship, how to worship, how much walking on the sabbath is OK, how much constitutes work… Now we live in the age of the new commandment, a time when the law is not cast aside, but reinterpreted in the light of how we have experienced the love of Jesus.  This age is a huge responsibility for the believer and full of grey area (what exactly would Jesus do?)

Matthew Sleeth, MD has a marvelous story in his book 24/6 that cuts right to the heart of the matter.  Working the ED call shift of a small rural hospital one night, a man comes in with severe pain. His prostate gland had swollen, rendering it impossible to empty his bladder. Sleeth writes that in the old days the night nurse would have just cathed the patient without even calling the doctor, but these are the days of endless paperwork and protocol.  The nurse called Dr. Sleeth to report she had a 57 year old man who needs his bladder catheterized but two blood pressure cuffs that were not working, therefore she was going to have to leave the ED to locate one before she could fill out the chart.

Something told Dr. Sleeth to get on over to the ED.  By the time he got there the patient was in agony, tears rolling down his face, considering anything to stop the pain including giving up. He writes “My eyes must have gone wide when I realized that Lois had left this suffering man without putting a catheter in him so she could wander around looking for a machine to record his blood pressure.”  He immediately inserted the catheter.

The average human bladder wishes to empty at 12 ounces of fluid or less.  Dr. Sleeth had drained 96 ounces and still going strong when Lois arrived triumphantly with a working blood pressure machine so that she could start the process.  Dr Sleeth continues:  “ ‘If you didn’t want to cath him without the vitals why didn’t you just call me to to do it?’ I asked.  ‘Because I knew you would want the vital signs!’  She was just doing her job - even if it killed Bill.”  (24/6 pp. 30-31.)

Sleeth tells this story to illustrate “concrete thinking” and draw our attention to how we can fall into concrete thinking when it comes to reading scripture.  He warns us against taking the letter of the law and losing sight of the intent behind it. This is Elder John’s point made clear:  The law of Moses exists to give us a general idea about what is best.  The ultimate decision of how to act in any given situation is the new law that overshadows all of the old, the law given to us by Jesus:  “A new commandment I give to you:  Love one another as I have loved you.“

One of the members of our group quietly looked at the others.  “So in a way it all boils down to why you do something, instead of what it is that you actually do.”

John the Elder would agree.

Grace and peace,

Beth