God is Doing a New Thing - And we are Part of It!
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 01/12/23
“In 1922, on the first Sunday of the New Year, two young mothers, Edna Spooner and Gertrude Carlson, brought their son and daughter, respectively, to Sunday School at Phillips Memorial, and having to wait for them, looked for a class suitable for themselves. Only one adult class, taught by Mr. Herbert Durfee, was available - a class in which the members were mostly grandmothers. These two joined a third young women [sic] seated alone in the back seat. Feeling rather out of place with such old people, they introduced themselves to each other. . . . The three women agreed to form a Sunday School class.” Hope Circle History Book, 1922 - 1962. These three women saw a need for Christian education and fellowship for their age group and being open to doing something new founded what became known as the “Hope Circle.” Since then Hope Circle has taken on a number of support and ministry roles at Phillips, including the Christmas Bazaar that we are most familiar with. The history of God’s work in the world is full of stories of God doing new things through willing people. God spoke through the Prophet Isaiah to exiled Israel with these words: “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). Certainly God is a God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8), but that “sameness” doesn’t mean God is static, instead it means that God is consistent. God is consistently here. God is consistently loving. God is consistently doing new, unexpected, and grace-filled things - just like God did through those three women who saw a need and followed the Spirit’s urging 101 years ago. God did a new thing through the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who stood up to racism and Jim Crow by declaring that the Church’s work had to include racial reconciliation and justice. God is doing a new thing through Christians who take seriously the cries of the natural world, knowing that God has declared this creation good and that Christ’s redemption extends even to the trees and flowers (Romans 8:22-23). God is doing a new thing now as we at Phillips wrestle with what it means to bring reconciliation and justice to folks excluded from the body of Christ because of gender or sexuality, for we know that all folks are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). God keeps showing up with love and grace, always doing something new in and through God’s beloved church. How, church, might we be open to being part of doing that new work in 2023? Blessings, Pastor Amy
