Thursday Thoughts

Where is the Peace on Earth that Advent Promised?

by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 01/26/23

In a 1966 Time Magazine interview, the infamous German theologian Karl Barth recalled, on the occasion of his retirement, some advice he had given to young preachers 40 years earlier:

“Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible." Newspapers, he says, are so important that "I always pray for the sick, the poor, journalists, authorities of the state and the church—in that order. Journalists form public opinion. They hold terribly important positions. Nevertheless, a theologian should never be formed by the world around him—either East or West. He should make it his vocation to show both East and West that they can live without a clash. Where the peace of God is proclaimed, there peace on earth is implicit. Have we forgotten the Christmas message?

“The Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other” has become axiomatic to many a preacher. In all honesty, today the newspaper and its online equivalents feel too heavy for me to keep holding. The mass shootings in 2023 alone are enough to take away all the light of hope that Advent managed to shine into our world - the peace candle snuffed out by guns and rolled over by tanks.

I don’t know about you, but I want the way I live out my faith to make an actual difference in the world - to bring peace into violent places and to shift the direction of history so no one has to say sudden and painful goodbyes to those they love. I want the light of Advent to keep shining - I want the Gospel of God’s peace to be proclaimed and for it to actually make a difference. Sometimes the newspaper casts all kinds of doubt on this - as I’m sure it does for some of you.

Peace making is hard work. It takes all of us. In his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” When Monterey Park, Colorado Springs, or Half Moon Bay are violated as they have been this winter, we are too - for we are all part of God’s beloved creation. I think part of the fatigue we feel with the constant news is because we are all hurt as well - hurt and discouraged and enraged.

Peace is hard work, but peace is what we are called to as followers of the Prince of Peace. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, exhorted his reader to “not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have the opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith” (6:9-10).

Friends, let us be the peace this world needs.

Lord grant us the strength for the work. Help us to not grow weary.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

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It Only Takes a Spark

by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 01/25/23

As I type this, with burns on two fingers and a struggling fire in my wood stove, I just want to talk about what is wrong with this song. Let’s take a look at the lyrics, shall we?

Pass it On

By Kurt Kaiser

It only takes a spark to get a fire going

And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing.

That’s how it is with God’s love,

Once you’ve experienced it,

You spread the love to everyone,

You want to pass it on.

LIES! THIS SONG IS ALL LIES!

My issue is primarily with two words: “only” and “soon.” Apparently Kurt Kaiser wrote this song one evening while sitting in front of his own fireplace. Perhaps he had a lot more experience than I do in the whole fire building department - but I am fairly certain that you must have perfect conditions for “only a spark” to “soon” become a pleasant, warming fire. Meanwhile, my fires seem to require a cracked window, paper, kindling, small wood, big wood, dry wood, more paper, a bit of time and patience, and a sprinkling of fairy dust before I have a fire pleasant enough to warm the room.

Kurt Kaiser wanted us to think about God’s love as something that happens quickly and that prods us on to spreading the Good News to others. Sometimes we do experience God’s love instantaneously and miraculously, but often (at least in my experience) our encounters with the God-who-is-love are much more complicated. Just like fire building takes the right conditions and the right people (I have three folks teaching me how to build a good fire), so does resting in God’s love. It might take time. It might smoke for a while and take careful tending before it actually catches, before we can actually say that we have felt and known God’s love.

The author of 1 John gave us this profound description of who God is and how we create the right conditions for God’s love to warm us:

Beloved, let us love one another,

because love is from God;

Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. . . .

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another,

God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us” (4:7-8, 12)

That’s right - it takes all of us together, loving one another, for the God-who-is-love to be made visible to this world, visible to us. Perhaps sometimes we experience God’s love like a spark setting alight a blaze. Perhaps sometimes we experience God’s love as a slow-starting fire that must be tended by those around us. But, no matter how quick it catches, it takes each of us, we are the necessary conditions!

SHOUT IT FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS!

That is a line I can get behind - for this world needs to hear how we experience God’s love, no matter how fast it catches us. How have you experienced God’s love this week? To whom will you tell that story?

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

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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

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Sticks and Stones

by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 10/20/22

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” Often used to empower one small child against another in the infamous playground spat, these may be the most untrue words ever said. Words are powerful. Words hurt and words can heal, this is their power.

The Apostle James recognized this when he wrote:

The tongue is a fire…it stains the whole body…for every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, but no one can tame the tongue–a restless evil full of deadly poison (3:6-9).

Right in the middle of James’ piece on righteous living is this injunction against the misuse of the power of the tongue. The Scripture is replete with teachings about the power of words and the danger of misusing them against others. In 1 Samuel 25 we find the story of David, not yet king, and a man named Nabal (which quite literally means “fool”). Nabal, described as surly and mean, rejects David’s request for hospitality for his troops with the dismissive words of “and just WHO is this David? There are lots of runaway slaves these days” (my translation, 1 Sam. 25:9). Now, this might not sound like an insult from our end of things, but imagine you sent a message to your kid to come home from playing outside and their response was, “I don’t even know who that dumb woman/man is, there are so many losers these days.” What might your reaction be? Well, so was David’s - when he heard Nabal’s words he suited up his men and was about to attack Nabal and his family. (Plot spoiler: he didn’t because Nabal’s wife, Abigail, came out and explained that her husband was a fool and she proposed to David.)

Recognizing the power and danger of words is so important that God gives commands throughout the Torah against misusing them by slandering folks and the wisdom book writers attest repeatedly to their ambivalent nature: words can hurt and words can heal, choose to heal. Proverbs, which is full of collected sayings of practical wisdom, offers the following:

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise dispenses knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. . . A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it reeks the spirit (Proverbs 1-2, 4).

I encourage us all to think about how we might use our words well, recognizing their power to tear down or to build up others. How might we speak truth with kindness and encourage one another?

Perhaps this week you might consider reaching out to someone you have harmed with words, calling someone you haven’t spoken to in a while, or sending a note or text of encouragement. Words are powerful, use them well!

Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton

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Heaped Up and Overflowing

by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 10/13/22

Apples

Confession: I have a really hard time saying “no” to produce. When I lived in California a neighbor and I would “rescue” citrus fruit from public spaces (totally legal, don’t worry). We called it “fruit rescuing.” Did we need 700 oranges? Not all for ourselves, no. Did we need a tree full of olives? Also, no. Did we need a crate full of avocados? Unfortunately, no. A farm stand is more temptation than I can endure - especially if they sell in bulk! A discounted 30lb box of tomatoes? Of course! I can make salsa. The small bag of apples at the pick-your-own? NO WAY - I’ll fill the large bag until it is overflowing, with apples rolling off its top and around my trunk. There is ALWAYS room for just one more apple! Don’t even get me started on how impossible it is to STOP blueberry picking once I’ve begun…

Trees and plants overflowing with edible abundance are a “thin place” for me - I see them and want to start singing as loudly as I can in praise for the Creator of such a gorgeous and fertile earth. The fact that we can put tiny seeds into the ground and grow heaps of food never ceases to amaze me. At harvest time it is so very easy to believe that when God saw all that God had made that God declared it VERY good (Gen. 1:31).

When the Israelites were wandering the desert after they had escaped slavery in Egypt, they clung to a promise that God was taking them to a “land flowing with milk and honey” (Joshua 5:6). Their journeys had taken them through moments of deprivation when they couldn’t stop thinking about the foods they had left behind and moments of abundance when God sent manna and birds to them from the sky. Part of their journey had been to learn to trust in God’s abundance when they feared deprivation.

In the Gospels we have Jesus moving from table to table, field to field, connecting with folks around overflowing tables and heavily laden wheat stalks. In Luke 6:38 we have this idea of abundance used to describe how God gives us forgiveness in “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over [that] will be put into [our] lap.” God is not stingy with grace and forgiveness - although God’s people often are. God’s grace, like this earth God created, is alive, fertile, and overflowing and we are called to stand in awe of this abundance, to take joy in it, to savor it - and to share it with others. There is always abundance with God, which is much more than “enough.”

May you experience and share the abundant goodness of God in your week!

Now - does anyone want an apple?

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