From the Senior Minister
Dear Edwards Church Community,
Truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. – John 12:24
Jesus spoke these words to make abundantly clear that self-sacrifice, a deeper level of self-awareness and self-control than we often think of, is an unavoidable part of following him. It is not his whole message, but it is intrinsic that to follow him will at times require letting go of our self-interest, our agenda, and our need for control. It will require trusting a power greater than ourselves, and it is a practice that takes a life time to master.
The more success we have experienced in life, the harder this can become, because once we have tasted any measure of success, conventional signs of that success tend to convince us of our own merit. But as spiritual beings, when we consider where to place our ultimate trust, where to look for a standard of “success,” we should look to values deeper and more durable than the normal social standards like recognition, power, or material success. When asked how to live most “successfully,” Jesus answered with the Greatest Commandment, “”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:25-28
And yet, Jesus did not profess to have all the answers. When James and John, two of his closest followers, asked to be recognized for their merit and to have positions of honor in heaven, his response was two-fold. First, he said that as his followers they would need to face the same rejection and accept the same self-sacrifice as he did. So much for recognition in one’s lifetime! Second, he said it was not up to him, but to the one he served, to determine who would have any recognition in the long run. Mark 10:35-45.
Part of preparing the way for resurrection – not just on Easter, but in the seeding, cultivating, and sprouting of new life within our own lives as we live them – is about doing good works, about giving to others and caring for others. This is why Lenten traditions include giving alms and increased attention to the needs of others. The harder part is about taming ourselves, our appetites for what we consume, for control over others or recognition by others.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes put it this way in a daily meditation on his website https://unfoldinglight.net/:
Loving One,
free me from my self-enclosure,
to trust I am fully loved and heard,
so I can love and hear others.
Help me to be fully present, to be aware of myself,
my reactions, my wounds and fears and filters,
and to mindfully, lightly, hold them aside,
so I can be fully present for others,
truly listening, opening a space in me
for them to be safe, to be true, to be free.
May I be a spacious and welcoming presence,
to offer people the precious gift of being heard,
being seen, being witnessed.
If we all gave each other a little more of that presence, there would be new life popping up all over the place. I know that many of you are doing this. And I celebrate the new life I see growing in this community as a result.
In faith, with hope, for love,
Michael
From the Bridge Associate Minister
Dear Faithful Friends,
I am hoping that by the time that you get this letter that springy sounds will be in air. Did you know that the season of Lent is related to the word “springtime?” As the book that we are using for Sunday Friends (Twas the Season of Lent) says “Look outside your window. Maybe it doesn’t look like spring yet. Perhaps the ground is covered with a white blanket of show; the skies above might be gray, and the trees may be bare. That’s because springtime is a waiting time. The bulbs planted deep in the dark soil will be waking up soon. The buds on the trees are quietly waiting to burst into bloom. We know that all the earth is getting ready to grow and to change. Lent is a waiting time too. For forty days we wait for Easter to come. And as we wait, we get ready…”
As a congregation of all ages, we are getting ready for spring, for Easter, and for the new designated associate minister to emerge and be chosen. We are getting ready for whatever is around the corner even while we do not know what is getting ready for us!
One way that we get ready is practicing ways of stilling our restless or anxious minds and hearts, so we are tuned to listen to what God has to say to us. And so, surprise, surprise, this Lent we are focusing some of our waiting time on practicing listening for sounds and sights of Spirit.
We have already begun practicing through Lent. Some of us attended the St John’s Church Taizé service last month. Some of us attended our own church’s Ash Wednesday service. And some of us, by the time you get this, will have gathered to listen to the heart of the book An Altar in the World. Others will have walked the labyrinth together or sat with our own prayer shawl and quilt teams to hear how they, and maybe we, use our hands to still our restless minds and activate our caring hearts.
All this is a bit like looking out the window of our homes and hearts and the big Edwards Church window to see what is hard to see; the still mostly hidden seed of faith that is growing in the dark and slowly reaching the almost warming earth. The heart of our church – faithful friending the world – one person, one small connection, one hand reaching to another.
Sooner than we think, and maybe sooner than we are ready, Easter will arrive and we will greet the Risen Christ but not before we go through the suffering that arises when we do practice listening to Spirit because as we know, Spirit wants to help us lean into the world that we inhabit. The world that is both beautiful and terrible and that is the place that we call home.
Thank you, faithful friends, for practicing waiting, trusting and reaching out as a church. I am glad to be here in this Lenten and soon Eastertide seasons. What a joy! Marguerite
To read the full Spire click here.