Thursday Thoughts

As I was preparing to move to Rhode Island last year, someone told me that this tiny state has the most coastline of all 50 states. A few weeks ago when the young-ish adults were gathered at my house, we decided to source check this claim. It turns out that little Rhody does not have the most coastline - in fact it turns out that we aren’t even second: we are state 20 out of 23! Of the 23 ocean coastal states, only Maryland and Delaware have less coastline than do we.  What we do have is the greatest coast to inland ratio. I think this means you can’t get far from the coast and still be in Rhode Island….

Number 1 or number 20, it doesn’t take long to be within sight of a river, creek, pond, lake, bay, or the Atlantic. Ask my pastoral search committee, they will tell you that when I came for my initial interview what I specifically asked for was to see the ocean. I wanted to imagine myself living so close to my favorite kind of place - a large, open body of salt water. 

Water is therapeutic for many people, whether swimming in it or watching its surface undulate with the tides. You can even buy noise machines with the calming sounds of waves or falling rain. Water heals and water calms. 

In our Lent family practice this week, using the Bless this Mess materials, we were asked to use water to remind us of our baptisms. Whether making a pot of tea, washing our faces, anointing ourselves with water, or washing dishes, we can feel the baptismal waters again. One of the recommended practices is to sit down with our beloveds and to talk about our baptism memories. Then we are to name three things we are proud of about ourselves. 

Isn’t that an interesting combination: remembering our baptism and bringing a little bit of love to ourselves. I like it. One of this week’s texts came from Matthew 3:17, where following Jesus’ baptism God speaks from the heavens: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Baptismal waters and affirmation wrapped up in one important story.

This week, perhaps you might use the water that comes your way, be that through snow, rain, the ocean or Narragansett Bay, or even just the washing of your hands, to remember your own baptism and to let God speak from heaven directly to you: “This is my child, with whom I am well pleased.” 

Baptism means newness and life. It means putting off the old ways of being burdened down and broken and being that which God has called and created us to be. 

God has called and created us to be loved and to love.  You are God’s child. With you God is well pleased.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

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This past week I was blessed to visit one of our much loved house-bound members. While there, she gave me the stained-glass cross in the image above. With it was a typed note that reads: “The stained glass used in your cross was salvaged from the original [1901] Phillips Memorial Baptist Church building during the renovation to create our present Children’s Center. It is at least 100 years odd [sic] and a most suitable memory piece for our 100th year celebration. October 15, 2000.”

I was struck when taking this picture at seeing Dave’s Market through the color of the cross. Not just the yellow, but the idea of letting the cross itself shape my perception of the world around me. Muriel Lester, one of my favorite Baptist theologians, shifted her life from a comfortable middle-class existence to the poverty of London’s East End at the beginning of the 20th century. In her work she showed great respect for the people of the East End and called on the rest of the church to do the same. Reflecting back on her transition she wrote that you can either go down the streets of the East End in fear and disgust toward the poor, or you can go down the same streets “with God” - in which case you see the beauty in the people. This is from her book, Dare You Face the Facts, in which she is urging folks toward pacifism in the face of WWII. Love your enemies, especially those who have been made enemies by someone else, she declares. 

Essentially - see them through the color of the cross, a color that destroys the category of “enemy.”. The old Sunday School memory verse of John 3:16-17 is a good reminder to us of what it means to walk “with God” through this world. 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, 

so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 

Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, 

but in order that the world might be saved through him.

God’s intention toward this world and all who live in it is love and salvation. God’s love even extended to Christ’s living a full human life - all the way to the grave - a life of service, faithfulness, compassion,  humility, and love. 

As we enter next week into the Lenten season, let us together remember to look at the world around us through the color of the cross; with love, compassion, service, faithfulness, and humility. And let us remember to look at ourselves through the same lens - for even we are part of God’s good creation!

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

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Rev. S. M. Lockridge (1913-2000), pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego, preached one of the most memorable sermons of the past century: “It’s Friday. But Sunday’s Coming.”

He concludes the most shared portion of this sermon with the words, 

It’s Friday

Jesus is buried

A soldier stands guard

And a rock is rolled into place

But it’s Friday

It is only Friday

Sunday is a comin’!

I suspect one of the reasons this sermon has maintained such notoriety is its poetic reminder to Lockridge’s listeners, us included, that even the darkest, bleakest day won’t get to win in the end. God’s glory and grace will shine into all the world’s pain, betrayal, suffering, and even death - and we can’t stop it. They can’t stop it. God’s grace is coming. Resurrection is coming. Life is coming. 

As I write this on Wednesday, fully aware that Thursday is coming (as it does every week), I sit and wonder if God will show up this week in these words.  Every. Single. Week. The Israelites surely wondered in that 400 year gap between the Hebrew and Christian scriptures if God was done speaking to them through prophets. And on our dark nights I know we wonder if the light of day will come. Will God show up with me now, in this place? Will God speak to me now, at this time? Will God love me now, in this pain?

Sunday, Jesus’ resurrection, is the promise and the fulfillment that the Fridays don’t get to last. They may be long, but Sunday will always outshine them.

In the New Testament letter to the Colossian church, the author reminds his or her readers that the glory of Christ’s resurrection is also their glory.

So, if you have been raised with Christ, 

seek the things that are above, 

where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 

Set your minds on things that are above, 

not on things that are on earth, for you have died, 

and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 

When Christ who is your life is revealed,

 then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

(Col. 3:1-4)

In your dark nights, when you wonder if God will show up for you, hold onto the promise of the resurrection. It might be Friday now, but Sunday's coming. You might be buried in fear and pain now, but Sunday's coming. Friday certainly happened for Christ, just like for us, but so did Sunday.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

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The migrating geese have surprised me these past few weeks. As I listen to them overhead and watch them fly in their age-old formations, I wonder how they managed to stay this far into our winter. Why didn’t they turn their focus to warmer climates when the wind started blowing cold in November? Now here they are, just days before our first projected below 0 temps, heading south.

As I watch them fly by, I am reminded of this poem by Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

The world offers itself to your imagination,

Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

Over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

If my mind is elsewhere, the honks of those geese bring me right back to where I am – to the recognition of my cold hands, my dog pulling on her leash, and the color of the sky. Worry and grief can cause us to shut out the world we are part of – turning us inward where we ruminate on all we cannot control.

In Matthew 6:25-34 we read Jesus telling his disciples not to “worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.”  He turns his disciples’ attention to the birds of the air, to the lilies of the field, and to the grass of the field. Look at those birds up there, he points, “they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” Look at the lilies over there, he points, “they neither toil nor spin.” Jesus pointed his listeners to things they would have seen regularly – birds, flowers, and grass. Things that are part of the beloved creation. Things that can teach us and remind us to trust God with our cares. Things that can remind us to see the creation around us and to remember our “place in the family of things,” a place overseen by a God whose care for flora and fauna is a constant reminder of God’s care for us.

Look around you today at the natural world – what reminders surround you of God’s ongoing and ever-present care? Perhaps the bulbs that are popping up or the shrubs whose swelling buds promise their ongoing life. Where do you find reminders of God’s care around you?

Blessings, 

Pastor Amy

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