- CROP Walk promo (Sign up and walk, or get involved as a sponsor for one of our walkers!)
- Women's Association Rummage Sale this Saturday (We need warm blankets, warm coats and warm bodies.)
- Dramatic intro to Oct. 22, 7 PM, Organ Recital (Put it on your calendar and invite Facebook friends.)
- Sanctuary Evacuation Drill (We joined the Church School in practicing what we'd do in the event...)
September 26, 2010 Jeremiah 32:1–3a, 6–15 1 Timothy 6:6–19 “Future Matters”
I've rarely seen a church that talks about money so much! About not having it, about how we used to have so much, about saving it, about… Well, you know better than I!
One example. In detailing the mission of the church, the Church Information Form, presumably seeking to attract the right interim pastor for the job said this:
Brief Church Mission Statement:
One of the primary roles of our new Interim Pastor will be to assist the church to further discern the nature of our mission in this time and this place, including help in balancing competing demands for funds by the various programs of the church.
Back in September 2001, Ralph Milton wrote that Jeremiah is a perfect reading for a troubled time: "Here is Jeremiah under house arrest for saying unpopular things. The foreign forces are ready to tear down the city gates, and it looks as if Jerusalem will be totally obliterated. Then Jeremiah takes this marvelous symbolic action. He buys a field. It looks as if the world is going to hell in a hand basket, Jeremiah seems to be saying, 'But God says there is a future. Fields will again be bought and sold and planted and harvested here in Judah.'
Do a bit of remembering. “Have you heard a word of hope in the face of the disasters of life?”
Yesterday, I presided at the services for the interment of ashes for one of my friends… What we do in every funeral is to speak a word of hope in the face of the final disaster of our life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived for many years imprisoned like Jeremiah and was executed by the Nazis for his part in an attempt to assassinate Hitler. He came to some bold conclusions concerning how believers might posture themselves toward this ultimate event. He argued in Letters and Papers from Prison that one could experience the miracle of life by facing death daily; life could actually be seen as the gift of God that it is. It is we ourselves, and not our outward circumstances, who make death potentially positive. Death can be something voluntarily accepted.
Actually, deciding to have a child may be one of the most courageous and hopeful things we can do in any age… Carl Sandburg: "A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on." I would say that a baby is the parents' affirmation of faith that the world will go on, and that it's worth populating it. The future matters. And our descendants are going to live it.
The cynic says, In the long run, we're all dead. The hopeful child of God buys a field when the real estate market is tanking, not in the hopes of making a killing, but as a gesture to encourage others that one day houses and fields will again be occupied.
Trust/faith in God, that no matter what, I can believe in a future. Treasure of a good foundation for the future. The message I hope we can take away: Nobody should sell PCMK short. We are a church that is poised to grow some more. The seeds are already in the ground. We are ready to rebound. Equipped to serve, and our calling today is to invest ourselves in the future of this congregaiton. The future matters, and is in capable hands. Amen.
--Jack Lohr, Interim Pastor
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