by Crawford UMC | Feb 21, 2020 | Conversations
This Sunday, February 23, is Transfiguration Sunday, which is always the Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It is the Sunday we remember Jesus, taking Peter, James and John up a mountain and Jesus being transfigured before them. It is a Sunday that marks a kind of transfiguration for us too. It is the time we set our the intention of our faith in front of us — to make it to that glorious Easter morn after forty days of self-reflection, study and prayer that the season of Lent offers us.
As we move toward Lent, I wonder what you will set aside and what you will take up? What will you look toward to keep you on this journey of faith? Will you look for the evidence of kindness each day or will you commit yourself to at least one kind act, one act of love each day? Will you let go of judging yourself or others and take on letting things be as they are and trusting that God is in it? Will you pause each day and take a moment for gratitude? Will you take a deep breath and know that you are loved?
This is a sacred time in our lives; it is a sacred season in our lives of faith. It is also a transfiguring time in our denomination. I hope that you will take time to join us this Sunday to listen to the letter from the Open Spirit Task Force and to stay for the beginning of another kind of journey — one that, I pray, will lead us all to resurrection.
See you in church,
Hope
by Crawford UMC | Feb 14, 2020 | Conversations
Today I spent time with my spiritual director who left me to consider this scripture passage, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also” (Matthew 6:21). Given that this week ends with the heart holiday, the irony of her request was not lost on me.
When I take time to think about this passage, I think first about my heart and then about my treasure. Where are the places my heart is open? Where is my heart closed? At what times does my heart feel free; when does it feel broken? In those times, when my heart is open or closed, free or broken, what things do I value, what do I hold as treasure? Is my heart filled with joy, curiosity, hope and wonder? Is my heart holding frustration, anger, vengeance, dread? What is the treasure I hold and what does this say about my heart?
Have you ever thought about your heart and your treasure? When you do, what do you find? Is there wholeness and hope? Do you find family and friends? Do you find treasured experience and joy-filled accomplishments? Do you notice community and connections? When you notice your heart and your treasure, where is God?
In my work with the Open Spirit Task Force, as we struggle toward understanding whether and how a new expression of Methodism can be born from our New England roots, I have found myself delighted and heart-sick, joyful and heart-broken. But as we move quickly toward a different Methodism, I pray that we will discover in our hearts a treasurer beyond denomination, beyond institution. I pray that we will discover the greatest treasure of all: The Body of Christ alive, loving one and all. That is where my heart is and my treasure too. What about you?
See you in church,
Hope
by Crawford UMC | Feb 7, 2020 | Conversations
Friends, it has been a week. With all the chaos in our country and in our denomination, yesterday I found myself on my way to church praying for understanding, compassion and wisdom. Not a great psychic or spiritual space from which to move into a jam packed day of ministry.
With my hands and heart full, I walked from my car to the church door and was met with two smiling children from United Methodist Nursery School (UMNS). They greeted me with, “Hello, Pastor Hope.” As they held the door for their classmates, each giving exuberant high-fives to their friends, they told me about their day. I didn’t think I would/could get out of my funk, but there they were evangelists of God’s presence and love.
At the beginning of worship each week, I ask where you have seen or experienced God. Each week, I am blessed to hear about your experience of God in the beauty of creation, playing with grandchildren, sitting with a grieving friend, meeting immigrant neighbors for a cup of coffee and listening to stories of struggle and hope. Each week in church, your God moments feed my soul.
So, here’s my moment: yesterday, God met me in two four year old children who welcomed me with unforced grace and exuberant love. Thanks be to God.
See you in church,
Hope
by Crawford UMC | Jan 31, 2020 | Conversations
When I first meet with people, I am often asked what a typical day in the life of a minister is like. After chuckling, I reply that there is no typical day. Things need to always be fluid and flexible. Nothing is ever set in stone … not even worship.
Last week, my sister Effie was telling me about how someone arrived on the doorstep of the church she serves. It was Sunday morning and a few minutes before worship. The young man was in a terrible state. He was homeless and had walked twelve miles from a detention center to the church. A complication was that he was an immigrant, with very little spoken English and was struggling with his mental health because he had not been able to get his medication.
With a few hand signals to the leadership of her church, Effie sat with this young man who she learned was from Columbia. After phoning a parishioner who was a native Spanish speaker, Effie was able to help him out of the cold and into a safe, welcoming place. All of this occurred as worship was happening. Instead of a sermon, her congregation had an impromptu hymn sing, readings and prayers. What a wonderful witness of a community working and worshiping together, helping and praying for the stranger in their midst.
As I’ve been reflecting on the ever-changing reality of life, I’m more aware of being called in all times and all places to share the good news of God’s love, especially when there is no plan. I’m even more aware of how important it is to remember that worship can happen with or without the ordained person, on Sunday or any other day of the week, in the church building or on the train or in the office or on the playground. Because God is always with us, we can respond (even when we don’t know how or can’t speak the language or feel totally incompetent) with love for anyone and anything that comes our way.
In our lives of faith, just like in the vocation of ministry, there is no typical day. Thanks be to God.
See you in church,
Hope
by Crawford UMC | Jan 27, 2020 | Conversations
At the end of this first month of the year and of the decade, a blessing:
On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.
— John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
by Crawford UMC | Jan 16, 2020 | Conversations
Last night, with too many tragedies and conflicts keeping me awake, I tried a time-tested method sure to put me fast to sleep: I watched television. The show was The Good Doctor, which I never expected to like but there I was well past my bedtime, watching the most recent episode. After the difficulties of understanding how to be authentic and know what one wants in relationship, after being duped by a patient, one of the characters said to another, “There are worse qualities in this world than trying to see the best in people.”
Many Sundays we talk about what I call interpretive charity or believing the better story in one another. This, like any spiritual discipline, requires practice. Reflecting on this past week, how were you challenged to believe the better story in a friend, a family member, a neighbor or a stranger? How have you been nudged to let go of a judgment and accept someone for who they are or for what an action is? How are you practicing seeing the best in people?
Each day I work a little harder to practice interpretive charity. Some days I excel; some days I fail. In all of it, I find God and experience again grace upon grace. Each day I am grateful to have a chance to try.
See you in church,
Hope
