Dear Edwards Church Community,

Grace happens!  The bumper sticker declares it. I believe it. I also receive it, and I am glad. More than glad, I am relieved beyond measure that once again, that wondrous love has come back around to “save a wretch like me.”

OK, wretch is a little strong, but John Newton, who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” knew himself to be a wretch. The child of a seagoing father and an attentive mother who schooled him in the Christian faith, as a younger man Newton sailed and engaged in the slave trade, taking captured Africans onto ships and transporting them for sale. He was also a foul mouthed, hard living man who talked other sailors out of their faith, so that he became known as “The Great Blasphemer.”

Until March 21, 1748, when the ship he was serving on was almost torn apart by a storm at sea. Tied to the ship’s wheel for 11 hours, as he steered through heaving seas he  reconsidered his faith and prayed that he and the ship might be spared, and that he might change his ways. They were spared, and he did change, albeit gradually. In the second half of his life, Newton became a committed Christian, then a pastor, composer of hymns, and persistent preacher and advocate on behalf of the abolitionist cause.

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, Rembrant

In more ordinary lives, like mine or maybe yours, grace comes, we know not how, and changes the course of things by changing how we perceive, feel, and make sense of life as we live it. We can cultivate the conditions that are conducive to grace acting, but we cannot force it. The Spirit goes where it will. Simply taking the time to engage in daily devotional  reading, or meditation, or any other practice that feeds you  spiritually can awaken underused instincts and open new possibilities.

In his Lenten book A Season for the Spirit, Anglican priest Martin L. Smith writes of rediscovering in the English countryside a well spring that was the focal point of pilgrims in the Middle Ages. They travelled great distances to seek healing from it. The  location had been lost for centuries, but Smith was able to find it by turning away from the spots favored by seekers in recent centuries, who preferred the  tidier high ground. Noticing the wet earth where the cows gathered in a low spot, after   digging through stinky mud and dung, Smith unearthed an ancient well head to reveal a source of clean, live giving water.

Lent, for Martin Smith, is a time for locating and uncovering the spiritual well spring buried within ourselves, because when we do we become so reconnected with God we cannot help but care more about our fellow humans and the world.

Ross Douthat, the NY Times columnist, is a conservative Catholic and cultural commentator. A consistent defender of traditional norms and social structures, Douthat nonetheless values the unpredictable and ultimately uncontrollable vitality of the Spirit in keeping faith alive. In a recent column, Douthat notes that “religious history is shaped as much by sudden irruptions as long trajectories, as much by the mystical and personal as by the institutional and sociological.” He sees the future of the wider Christian church as depending as much on our being open to the Spirit, as available to grace, as we are concerned for engineering the future of our institutions.

Given the toll the pandemic has taken on Sunday service attendance and other forms of engagement at almost all houses of worship, many wonder how we might court the spark of the Spirt and invite grace to help us regrow. The answer is both simple and challenging. We must practice our faith faithfully, pursuing those activities together that will bring us closer as followers of the Beloved, who calls us all to know ourselves as beloved, and keep turning outwards to the wider community as agents of God’s love and justice, as we come to know it.

And when we do, may God bless our efforts.

In faith, with hope, for love,

Michael

From the Minister of Faith Formation

Dear Beloved of God,

As Jesus arose from the waters of the River Jordan following his baptism, the Spirit descended as a dove and a voice from heaven said: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” In the Transfiguration story, Peter, James, and John heard a voice from the cloud say: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

For years I have begun my Spire letter with the above salutation.  In the churches I have served, members of Faith Formation Committees, ministers, parents, teachers, youth, and children have heard me say: “If there is one hope/longing I have, it isn’t how many Bible verses or stories our children and youth learn or remember, it is that each and every one of them will know that they are a beloved child of God.” That remains my hope…for the children of God of all ages.  It is not to say that Bible verses and stories are not important or shouldn’t be remembered.  The sacred verses and stories in both the Hebrew and Christian Testaments elicit a variety of reflective thoughts, emotions and wonderings theologically, spiritually, and personally. Two hymns, Tell Me the Stories of Jesus and I Love to Tell the Story, are among those that echo my sentiments about Bible stories.

Having entered the forty-day Season of Lent, a season typically characterized as a time of prayer, fasting or taking something on, and almsgiving, my spiritual journey has circled around, yet again (the spiritual path is not linear), to reflect on what being a beloved child of God means for me.  What does God long for me as one of God’s beloved?

I have many “to do” lists; perhaps some of you can relate.  Some pertain to my vocation, my personal life, my spiritual life etc.  I have also drafted many “to do” lists about what living out Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord  require of you but to do justice, and love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? What might it look like for me to live a life personally transformed by the love, compassion and justice that Jesus modeled…love that God has embedded in all of us?  Love realized by Jesus, his disciples, the woman at the well, Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene, and so many more.

This Lent, seeking a deeper intimacy with God, I intend to focus on, uncover, and own my identity as a beloved child of God.  Time spent will not be about creating another “to do” list, rather it will be about “being” with love, in all those places and in those persons I experience the Divine and in unexpected new ones. It will be sitting in silence and stillness listening for God and resting in the love God has for me, to be awed by it, to trust it, and risk to allow that love to embrace and transform me.Blessings, Beloveds, as we continue the journey through Lent to Easter,

Deb

To read full SPIRE click here.