In early March, Tom and I made a quick trip to Florida to celebrate my mom’s 90th birthday. We had several surprises planned for her. Birthday cards began showing up at the end of February – 74 at the last count. My niece made an unexpected quick trip from Connecticut. And on the evening of her birthday, she arrived at the restaurant to find her closest friends waiting to celebrate with her.

She was stopped in her tracks, kept shaking her head, saying “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it!” It was joy for me to see her deep in wonder and full of joy.

Wonder – it catches us off guard, evades expectations, thwarts assumptions. It can‘t be packaged, can’t be manufactured. “It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement,” Eugene Peterson says.

Because of the timing of moms’ birthday and the associated trip, this was a “working vacation” for me. I packed more pounds of books than I did clothes, needing to do some study and planning for our Eastertide worship series “Encounters with the Risen Christ: Living the Resurrection.” Besides my favorite commentaries, I packed Eugene Peterson’s “Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life” and chose that as my first read to set a larger context for the study to come.

By the highlights I found as I began to read, I realized that this was a re-read. But that did not lessen the impact of the spiritual two-by-four that was waiting for me.

Having reviewed each of the Gospel stories of Jesus’ resurrection, Peterson notes that despite their differences, there is one element in common – a sense of wonder, astonishment, surprise from those who had come to do the ordinary work of preparing the body for burial. How was it that Mary Magdalene and the other women who were “on their way to work” recognized resurrection and cultivated wonder in their busy everyday? They had spent the previous day keeping Sabbath.

While we don’t know exactly what the disciples did during the 24 hours of Sabbath after Jesus was in the tomb, it seems unlikely that the habits of lifetime as devout Jews would have been discarded. So when they set out for work on the morning after the Sabbath, they were once again formed in a way that they could be free to see and respond to who God is and what God is doing. They were available to experience wonder, “that astonished willingness to stop what we’re doing, to stand still open-eyed, open-handed, ready to take in what is ‘more and other.’”

For all that I have studied Sabbath, I have yet to master the habit of practicing it. But as I worked my way though a vacation and study (again) the journey of the Disciple’s Path through the practice of spiritual disciplines, I give thanks for God’s grace and begin practicing … again.

As we travel the road to Easter Sunday and beyond, may you experience the wonder of Christ’s resurrection and the joy of encountering the risen Christ.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Wendy

Reflect on the statutes of the Lord, and meditate at all times on his commandments. It is he who will give insight to your mind, and your desire for wisdom will be granted. – Sirach 6:37

[Christ] is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being – Hebrews 1:3a 

In the days before our Epiphany worship on January 5, I spent time preparing the Star Gifts that would be given out in worship. I searched for the stars (and ended up with 2 different styles). I researched word lists. And, finally, I prepared each gift – choosing a word and transcribing it on a chosen star. It was a prayerful process, praying for the person who would receive the Star Gift, praying for the work God would do as we “followed our Star (Gift)”. Every once and a while, an errant thought would interrupt as I noticed a word that would be challenging for me, or one I hoped to receive.

I had to smile when I received my Star Gift and turned it over to reveal the word I was given: reflect. That one was definitely in the category of one I hoped to receive, and I even knew its meaning and application. It fit well with my New Year’s intention to continue with the spiritual disciplines of Advent, specifically journaling as a means of reflecting.

Over the following days and weeks, as my Star Gift regularly stared up at me from the back of my phone, I took my own advice, consulted a dictionary and did a search of Scripture to reveal the various ways my Word is incorporated in holy writ. Not surprisingly, there was more to my Star Gift than I had at first imagined. An expanded selection of journaling prompts to include in my Daily Examen began to form:

How have I reflected God’s grace, love, and mercy?

Have I reflected fear or anger or division or…?

How have my words and actions reflected my faith? And when did they not?

As a follower of Jesus, how have my words and actions reflected on him?

How is this scripture reflected in my life?

Indeed, as the magi recognized the gift and the invitation of the star of Bethlehem, and traveled great distances in search of the Christ child, so this Star Gift has been invitation to search for what God has to reveal to me as I follow the risen Christ in this new year.

It has been joy to hear your stories and reflections as you travel with your Star Gift, to see God guiding you, and to hear you reflecting on the journey of searching and discovering. Should you catch me staring off into space, I’ll likely be having a Mary-moment as I treasure the gifts of being your pastor and ponder them in my heart. [Luke 2: 19, adapted]

Grace and peace,

Pastor Wendy

“Happy [almost] New Year!” Or is it? I’ll admit, I get a tinge of the winter blues when Advent becomes Christmas and then Christmas is … over.

Boxing up Christmas and putting it away is its own kind of chore – finding a place to store everything and making sure everything is back in place. All so that life can go back to normal and begin the countdown to next Christmas. It takes more than a minute to get used to a house that’s no longer clad in the trappings of the season, a sanctuary back to its basic beauty.

But is Christmas really over?

Christmas wasn’t over for Mary after the shepherds went home. Christmas wasn’t over for the shepherds, who had a new song to sing and a story to tell. Christmas wasn’t over for the magi, as they went home by another road having found and worshipped the newborn King.

God’s unfolding story of Christmas – the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-us – was just beginning. God’s unfolding Christmas story is not over; it still goes on.

In the collection of writings “Kneeling in Bethlehem,” Ann Weems offers:

It Is Not Over

It is not over,
this birthing.
There are always newer
skies into which
God can throw stars.
When we begin to think
that we can predict the Advent of God,
that we can box the Christ
in a stable in Bethlehem,
that’s just the time
that God will be born
in a place we can’t imagine and won’t believe.
Those who wait for God
watch with their hearts and not their eyes,
listening,
always listening
for angel words.

Merry Christmas, friends! May this new (calendar) year find us as a people watching and listening with our hearts for angel words, a people singing a new song and telling a new story, a people changed as we worship the newborn King. I can’t wait to see where God will be born in the coming year!

Grace and peace,

Pastor Wendy

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:6–7

Every once in a while I stumble upon an idea that opens a window to a horizon I wasn’t even sure was out there and, once the window is open, it cannot be closed.

While in seminary, in a course studying the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, there was a section on the various names we use for Communion. The Lord’s Supper, The Last Supper, Holy Communion, Mass, and The Eucharist are the most common. I learned that “Eucharist” was from the Greek eucharistos, meaning grateful, thankful, or well-favored. Just as the apostle Paul tells the Philippians to make their requests to God with eucharistia (thanksgiving), we offer a prayer known as The Great Thanksgiving as part of our liturgy during Communion. It was a day in class where I noticed a window in a wall and the window opened just a crack.

Then, about a decade ago, I picked up a book by Ann Voskamp titled “One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to LIVE FULLY Right Where You Are.” And the window was flung wide open!

267. Small bouquets of red maple leaves in a sea of green

268. Plaques proclaiming “hope,” “peace,” “love,” “joy”: the remnant of a long-ago Advent

269. The pumpkin spice creamer for my coffee

Voskamp invites her readers into her journey of studying and reflecting on Scripture and life, and her discovery that the “habit of discontentment can only be driven out by hammering in one iron sharper. The sleek pin of gratitude.” Not “a sloppy brush of thanksgiving over everything in my life [which] leaves me thankful for very few thing” but one very specific “nail” of gratitude at a time. The act of naming moments of grace. A habit of listing God’s gifts. I decided to begin my own Gratitude Journal, creating and regularly adding to the list of the things for which I was thankful.

270. The many shades of blue-violet revealed by sun and shadow on my office walls

271. The quiet of an “empty” sanctuary permeated with prayer

272. The faithful witness of a Body & Soul guest

The practice of gratitude is a spiritual discipline that we return to each year as the fourth Thursday of November approaches. I’d like to be able to tell you that my list of thanksgivings reached one thousand, but the written list is still a work in progress. Some days I’m more attentive than others. I can tell you that daring to see and name and give thanks for God’s many gifts has been life changing. And I dare you to give it a try.

273. The snoring of the cat in a ray of autumn sunshine

Praying the blessings of thanksgiving for you and yours, this November and always.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Wendy

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. … Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” – Jesus [John 14:27]

“Let There be Peace on Earth” was one of the hymns that rose to the top this summer as you shared your favorites. As we sang it in worship, I closed my eyes to better soak in the words and melody and it became a prayer. We yearn for peace, and yet … there is chaos. There is conflict.

A recent conversation was with a young adult with lots of energy who likes to keep busy. They made the observation that if they slowed down, all they saw was chaos around them. So, their choice was then to go only faster, thus fleeing the chaos.

Another conversation was with someone who reacted in an uncharacteristic, negative way in a public setting. They were regretful and trying to understand why they had done it. They were frustrated with the chaotic, conflicting information swirling around them and reacted by fighting back.

And, then there are the “conversations” where one person is dominating the interaction and the other person is a silent recipient, unable to flee, unwanting to fight, but frozen in response.

Fight, flee (flight), or freeze. These are our “natural” reactions to conflict and chaos, and serve us well in dangerous situations. But, is all conflict and chaos dangerous?

Conflict and chaos are also “natural” – a part of God’s creation, an integral part of the story of God and God’s people in scripture. The chaos and conflict in scripture are sometimes literal and sometimes metaphorical; for example, the Hebrew people understood water and wilderness to represent chaos.

In the Old Testament, God created out of the chaos of nothingness; Moses parted the sea (chaos) so the people could leave Egypt; then Moses led them for 40 years in the wilderness (chaos) as they learned to be the people who could enter the Promised Land; later generations were exiled to Babylon, a wilderness, until Jerusalem was rebuilt and they returned home. In the New Testament, Jesus was baptized in Jordan river; Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness at the beginning of his public ministry; Jesus walked on water and calmed the storm on the Seas of Galilee; Jesus rode into the conflict of his final Passover on a donkey; … and ultimately, Jesus was resurrected from death, the definitive conflict/chaos.

Scripture gives us story after story of chaos and conflict being the fertile ground from which new life emerges, the canvas on which God creates new possibilities. Chaos is the opportunity for God to do God’s best work.

Thinking back on my own life, when everything was going well and I was happy and contented, those were the times I was least likely to be receptive to a new thing God was trying to do in or through me. (And yes, there are scripture stories about that too; check out the book of Judges.)

So, does this conflict-avoider now love conflict? Nope. No way. But God has shown me that I do not need to be afraid. Jesus bids me to keep focused on him as we walk together through it. The Spirit reminds me, moment by moment, to breathe and to pray …

As we journey this unique time together, may this be our prayer: Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me; let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be. With God, our creator, children all are we. Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony. Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now. With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow: to take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Wendy

A number of years ago, I accompanied a group of confirmands (youth who were participating in confirmation classes so they could make their public profession of faith and join the church as professing members) on a trip to Washington DC where we studied aspects of our faith, visited United Methodist sites, and participated in a mission project with our host congregation. On one of the nights of the trip, we would provide and serve the meal for the persons living in their homeless shelter.

The youth were diligent in understanding how many we could expect to serve and how much food they would need to serve them a simple dinner of salad and spaghetti. The afternoon came and we began to prepare the meal… and it was a “loaves and fishes” moment. It seemed that our provisions were too few, that there would not be enough to feed our guests. I had a new appreciation for the disciples who presented Jesus with 5 loaves and 2 fish when the need was to feed five thousand.

And yet, our God is a God of abundance. God has created all that we could want or need, and charged us with being stewards of creation that all might have enough. Jesus lived out this theology of abundance and taught the disciples to be generous stewards. So it is fitting that when the apostle Paul writes to the young Christians in Ephesus, part of his teaching and part of his prayer for them is of the abundance of God’s provision:

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. – Ephesians 3:20-21

It is easy to look around us and get caught in a scarcity mindset – both personally and as a church. Our figurative loaves and fishes – our finances, our resources, our people, our children/youth – seem to few. There seems not enough to do ministry the way we think we should or we did. Yes, still, our God is a God of abundance.

As we embark on this journey of ministry together, I invite you to join me in praying a new breakthrough prayer for this season. A breakthrough prayer is focused on asking God’s Spirit to break through anything that holds us captive, so that we can boldly move forward and fulfill God’s intention for why we exist as Christ’s church, right now and beyond. This particular prayer is inspired by God’s call to Abram in Genesis 12:1-4 and Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus in Ephesians 3:20-21. I have set a reminder for 12:01pm each day to pause and pray for Sulphur Grove Church and God’s glorious grace in and among us. Will you join me?

Glorious, all-powerful God,

Bless us with your transforming grace, that we might be and do abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine.

Remake us anew that we may be a blessing to others as the heart, head, hands, and feet of Jesus in our community and for the world.

Amen.

 (photo credit to Wendy Lybarger)

Oh, and by the way, we not only had enough spaghetti to feed all of our guests and all of the confirmands that night, there was enough left over for another meal for them at the shelter, which we packaged up and sent home with them. God is able to do abundantly more than we can ever ask or imagine!

Blessings, Pastor Wendy

Do you like things that are shiny and new? Or do you prefer something that is weathered and worn? Perhaps the answer changes depending on the “thing.”

Perhaps the answer is “yes – both/and – both shiny and new and weathered and worn.”

My mom has always insisted that she wanted to remain in her own home, in the community where she and my dad moved when he retired. A widow for the last 9 years, there was no talking to her about moving some place new, away from her home or even closer to family. She preferred what she knew, though weathered and worn, over the possibility of something new.

Then a friend invited her to tour a new “independent living” community close to where she lives. We were all surprised when she began to consider moving someplace “new” and leaving her home. And then we found ourselves living in the transition which included grief in leaving the old and excitement in anticipating the new.

It is transition, the in between and the both/and, that I’ve been living these last months. Saying farewell to my colleagues and the work we have been about for these last years has included fond memories, celebrating accomplishments, and moments of grief and sadness of what is ending. And, beginning to plan for worship at Sulphur Grove and meeting with leaders to begin learning the ministry of the congregation has been exciting as I consider the “new” that will begin in July.

Perhaps you, too, are experiencing this as a season of transition. Summer is often a time of graduations, retirements, getting ready to go off to school or to a new job. And, yes, in the United Methodist Church, it’s the beginning of a new appointment year; and this year, for Sulphur Grove, that means receiving a new Lead Pastor. You’ve been sharing memories, celebrating ministries, and saying farewell; maybe you’ve even begun to imagine new ministry possibilities.

As I’ve prepared to join you on July 1, I’ve pondered the words passed down from Jeremiah in Lamentations 3: 22-23. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

While often in our mortal life, receiving something new means that something else is let go or comes to an end, yet, in God’s kingdom, love and mercy are both weathered and worn and they are new every morning. God’s grace never ends and we repeatedly receive it anew.

As we begin this journey together, may we know ourselves held in God’s steadfast love and mercy and experience God’s grace anew each and every day.

Blessings, Pastor Wendy

Enjoy photos from my adventures

(Photo credit by Wendy Lybarger)