Who are you? Living from your values and strengths

In Sunday’s sermon I proposed that Jesus knew who he was. The first 30 years of his life before his public ministry began he was practicing “becoming”. Luke 3:21-23 is the culmination of Jesus’s identity formation. First in verse 21 he is baptized in the Jordan river by his cousins John the Baptist. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance but Jesus was without sin. So why did Jesus participate in this act? In doing so Jesus completely identifies with the human experience. In Hebrews 4:15 it tells us that Jesus is able to sympathize with our weakness. The word translated as sympathize can also be translated as empathize or suffer with. Jesus is fully human and is able to suffer with us in our captivity to sin and empathize with us as we suffer the effects of living in a world where evil still wreaks havoc. So much so that he suffers and dies. He knows us and has lived the realities of our existence.

After he is baptized while he is praying verse 22 tells us that the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove and a voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” This is the core of Jesus identity as Emmanuel, God with us in the flesh, fully human and fully God. Jesus is God’s beloved. This defines who he is and furthermore, he is bathed in God’s favor, pleasure, grace, mercy and love. God is pleased with Jesus before he begins his public ministry, before he has performed miracles, preached the good news of the Kingdom, or forgiven sins. Before he has called out sin and injustice and challenged the oppressive power structures of the day. God is pleased with Jesus because he is His Beloved.

You are God’s beloved and God is well pleased with you not because of what you do but because of who you are. You are God’s beloved beautifully and uniquely made, as the Westminster Catechism puts it, to love and enjoy fellowship with God forever.

As we begin our new sermon series, Emmanuel: God in the neighborhood. I would like for us to think about two things: Who are you? Who you are in the neighborhood is more important than what you do. In other words who we are informs and directs our action. It will not be something we will not be something we consciously have to make a decision to do but rather naturally flow from who we are as God’s beloved.

To answer the question, Who am I? I talked about Jane McGonigal’s book Superheater: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient. In it she references Dr. Martin Seligman and Dr. Christopher Petersen’s work that focused on identify core character strengths. “Together they studied nearly 100 cultures around the world and tested 150,000 subjects in order to determine the full range of virtues that both bring happiness and increase our resilience every time we use them.” They created a Values in Action (VIA) survey* to help people identify their top 5 core character strengths. I suggested that knowing our strengths and values is a way that we can answer the question: Who am I? We are all God’s beloved, “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14) and knowing our values and core character strengths help us to know more deeply how that specifically takes shape in each of us. God exists as the Trinity. One God in three persons; unity in diversity exists within the Godhead. We are one in Christ as God’s beloved and each unique people who express the diversity and fullness of God’s love in our diversity. As the Apostle Paul puts its we, “the body does not consist of one member but of many.” We are not hands or feet.

This week take some time to be bored and to be still before God. Whisper the word beloved to remind you of your core identity. Ask God to show you your core character strengths and values and simply live in the neighborhood. Lastly, pray that the Holy Spirit would fill you as it did Jesus, for it is God’s Spirit that lives in us and empowers our living and being in the neighborhood.

*HERE is the VIA survey if you would like to use it to think about your core character strengths.

God sees you! Practices

Luke 1:46-55 is Mary’s song of praise the Magnificat. She has just made a long journey to visit her relative Elizabeth. Although, Mary confirms her belief and faith in what the angel Gabriel has told her (Luke 1:26-38), I imagine she was filled with some anxiety and wonder about bearing the son of God. She arrives at Elizabeth’s and before she can tell Elizabeth what is happening to her, Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit blesses Mary and praises God.

I can only imagine the relief that must have washed over Mary upon being seen by Elizabeth and having someone join her in her secret and wonder. In that moment I wonder if that is when Mary really knew that God sees her, loves her and will care for her throughout the pregnancy, birth and as Jesus grows up. In verse 48 she begins her song of praise and gratitude with “He (God) has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.” The Hebrew word that is translated “looked with favor” is one word similar to gaze upon in English. It is the kind of look that parents give to newborn children and how lovers gaze into one another’s eyes. God gazes upon Mary, sees her, acknowledges her, and loves her. Mary is valuable in God’s sight. You are valuable in God’s sight for God has remembered his promises made to Abraham. God in blessing Mary extends his blessing to all who are poor in Spirit. God sees and saves the needy.

This good news elicits a response in Mary. What is our response to this good news? Here are a two ideas:

1. Sing and pray like Mary. We are in the midst of a season of singing. Sing a hymn of faith, a carol that celebrates God’s goodness and love, or a song that draws you close to God. Pray a Psalm like Psalm 86 or Psalm 121that helps you meditate on the God who sees and saves the needy.

2. Keep a Sawabona journal. Sawabona is a Zulu greeting that means, we see you or I see you. It is a deep seeing that communicates love and value. Each day for a couple of weeks keep a journal and answer these questions: Who saw me today? How did I feel in their presence? What did that reveal about who I am? How did I experience or know that Jesus saw me today?

Advent: the arrival of a person

The Cambridge Dictionary defines “advent” as the arrival of a person. It is fitting that I am beginning as the pastor at Emmanuel during the Advent season. I have arrived, and I’m sure there was some expectation and anticipation around my arrival. Halfway through my first week, I suspect I will feel like I’m still arriving for quite a while. When you come to a new place or step into a new role, it takes time to feel as if you have truly arrived.

In some ways, this is how it is with Jesus’ Advent as well. Jesus arrived on earth over 2,000 years ago, and yet we are still awaiting His arrival. We live in the “already, not yet” of the Kingdom of God. It is here, and yet we wait with anticipation and expectation for the fullness of God’s Kingdom to fully arrive. In the meantime, we have a foretaste of the feast to come. During these high and holy days of the church calendar, we sometimes experience a thin place between heaven and earth. Our feelings and yearnings may feel a little bigger or more raw, as we sing, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight” in O Little Town of Bethlehem.

Behold the Bridegroom Arriving by Greek painter Nikolaos Gyzis (1842–1901)

Advent and Christmas can be a mix of hopes and fears as we remember and await anew Jesus’ arrival. For some, it is pure joy; for others, a mingling of joy and sorrow; and for some, it may be just sorrow. All of these are valid as we await the Advent of Jesus and God’s Kingdom, when Jesus will “wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21:4). Advent waiting and expectation heightens our senses of hope and yearning. Come Lord Jesus come, right every wrong, and usher in peace. Until that day, we wait like Mary and join with her in song and expectation.

Mary both rejoiced in God her Savior and experienced great suffering in her life. She bore the Son of God in her body, and we, too, in the midst of our joy and suffering, can carry the good news of Jesus in us into the world. Like Mary, we can be instruments of God’s peace and steadfast love.

This Sunday we will explore more of Mary’s story in Luke 1:39–56. On Christmas Eve, we will consider the mystery of the Incarnation and the gift of joy. Our service Christmas Eve is at 5 p.m. It is a wonderful time to invite friends and neighbors, join us for the 25th time or the first time, and reflect on God’s great love for us—a love that took on flesh in Jesus and dwelt among us.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Patrick

A Fond Farewell

Dear friends and members of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church,

As you will read in this newsletter, the Pastor Nominating Committee has selected a candidate to present for election as your next installed pastor. A special congregational meeting has been called for that purpose on Sunday, December 8, after worship. That means that it is nearly time for me to say goodbye.

It has been a privilege and a pleasure to serve as your transitional pastor over these last many months – longer than many of us were anticipating! Your faithful and hardworking PNC deserves your gratitude.

I am personally grateful to many here. I want to thank the session for their partnership and good work. Thanks especially to Susan Sprague, who has not only served as Clerk of Session, but also provided administrative support during this time. I’m grateful, too, to those who have given of their time and shared their abilities in enabling and enhancing our worship. Emmanuel is gifted with many talented and dedicated musicians, and worship is enabled by volunteer sound technicians. There are many others I could thank, of course, but won’t out of concern for leaving any out.

As you move forward into this next chapter of your life as a congregation, I will move on as well. While I’ve appreciated the relationships formed here, the ethics of this position require that I step aside fully to allow your new pastor to establish his pastoral role here. So, like all your previous pastors, I won’t be available for memorial services, weddings, baptisms or any other pastoral role or involvement. And, I won’t be in touch with you, not out of lack of interest or concern, but out of professional courtesy to Patrick, and for the sake of your common ministry.
 

Finally, I want to thank you for welcoming both Keith and me into your fellowship so warmly during our time here. We leave with much fondness and appreciation.

With Christ’s love,
Pastor Janet

Where Your Treasure Is, There Your Heart Will Be Also

Traditionally in many churches, fall is stewardship season. Some have campaigns that culminate with pledging, when church members and friends commit to what they plan to give to the church in the coming year. That’s not the current practice at Emmanuel. But that doesn’t mean that stewardship is not important. The ministry and mission of this congregation wouldn’t be possible without your support, not only financial, but also the gifts of your time and talent.

Our next sermon series, covering the four Sundays in October, will touch on the theme of stewardship, but somewhat indirectly. There won’t be an appeal for money. Nor will there be a pledge of time and talent. Instead, I’ve chosen passages that invite our reflection on the larger themes that inform our giving, not only to the church, but to the world – themes like worry versus trust in God, and a philosophy of abundance rather scarcity. Essentially, these are texts that speak to our relationship with our stuff. Oh, and of course, our relationship with God. The notions in these passages are both counterintuitive and countercultural, which is why they present such a challenge. But, the surprising thing is, if we buy into what they say, generosity doesn’t just benefit the receiver. The more important point, often, is that giving is good for the giver.

On October 6, the first Sunday in this series, we will celebrate World Communion Sunday, a day when Christians across the globe gather around the table, recognizing and affirming our oneness in Christ. This observance has Presbyterian roots. It was started in 1933 by Hugh Thomson Kerr, then pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. It has since spread and been adopted by other denominations.

Pastor Janet

September 17, 2024

Neglected Stories: Women in the Bible

Sermon Series Beginning August 18th

A comment made by Connie Weber, which she gave me permission to share, inspired the sermon series we’re about to begin. Her remark came during our recent book study on Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book, which is about how we’re to read the Bible. It may have been when we were discussing the different ways people approach – and use – Scripture. Or, it could have been when we were reflecting on Peterson’s summons to not just read the Bible for information, but to actively participate in the world revealed by Scripture, to play our part in that God-revealed script.

Whatever the case, it prompted Connie to remember, and share, an exchange she had with the folks who produced the popular kids’ videos, Veggie Tales. While viewing that series with her own child, Connie noticed a clear lack of female leading characters. When she wrote to the company to ask about it, they responded by saying there just aren’t that many women in the Bible. And, as Connie remembers it, they said they lacked the talent pool to voice those characters. Hmm.

Not that many women characters? The Bible is filled with them! But how often do we hear about them? It occurred to me that giving biblical women their due may be as lacking in the church as it was on that series. We hear all the time, in Sunday school and in sermons, about Abraham and Jacob, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Peter and Paul. But how often do we hear about Sarah or Deborah, Ruth or Esther, or any of the other women who played a part in the biblical narrative? Not so much.

So, I’ve put together a series based on women in the Bible, all of these from the Hebrew Scriptures, since we’ve focused so much on the New Testament lately. As I identified the passages about these women, I realized I’ve never preached on them before. That surprised me. But then, I’ve typically used the lectionary, the cycle of assigned readings used by many churches. The fact that these texts rarely show up there says something in itself.

Since I haven’t spent a lot of time with these texts myself, I’ll be learning along with you. I look forward to this journey together, seeing what these passages have to teach us, men and women alike.

In anticipation,

Pastor Janet

August 8, 2024

July, 2024

“To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.”  So proclaims the writer of Proverbs, using “seasons” metaphorically to speak of the changing circumstances of our lives. Scripture also speaks of the seasons more literally, as in Genesis 8:22: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” In this promise, following the flood, God pledges from that time forward to preserve the earth and its seasons. And so we, as part of God’s creation, continue to live our lives within the context of that rhythm of changes.

Each season brings its own delights, the colors of autumn, the freshness of spring, and winter’s invitation to hibernate and restore ourselves. Summer, too, bestows its particular blessings. This congregation experiences some of those in a unique way through your garden, “Emmanuel Farm.” Here summer means harvesting the fruit of your labor and sharing the earth’s bounty with others. Sometimes we have reminders of that, as when fresh sprigs of basil from the garden were offered last Sunday, alongside the cookies at coffee hour. That’s not something that happens at every church! Those sprigs were a reminder of the gifts of God’s creation.

While there are invitations in every season to appreciate those gifts, summer issues a particular summons to many. It’s a time to travel, to take in new sights, to hike in the mountains and enjoy the waters, or simply sit on our porches at night and gaze at the stars – the heavens which proclaim God’s glory. I encourage you to take time to behold that glory, which is all around us here in the Pacific Northwest and is especially evident this time of year. Our outdoor worship service on August 11 will focus on God’s creation. Your mindfulness to the ways God speaks to you through nature will help you prepare to enter fully into that time. Since that service won’t be “zoomed,” I hope some who usually join us online will join us in person that day and stay afterward for the barbeque.

Meanwhile, there are other events happening in August, which you will read about in this newsletter, opportunities for learning and for service. These various ways of being together strengthen your fellowship, and build up the body of Christ, which we’ve been hearing about in our series on Ephesians.

Happy summer!

Pastor Janet

God's Meta-Story: A Sermon Series on Ephesians

Dear Emmanuel Presbyterian church family, I’ve been with you nearly three months now as your transitional pastor. It’s been a time of learning for me, learning names, for instance. I’m still working on that! More importantly, of course, has been getting to know the people attached to those names. I’ve so appreciated how warm and welcoming you have been. This has also been a time of learning about you as a congregation, about your passions, like mission, and about your customary ways of doing things. Those are a bit different in every church, and I want to thank those who’ve helped me navigate my course here.

So far, my sermons here have been shaped by time and by context; first by a focus on transition, and then largely by the liturgical calendar. In June I will begin a sermon series based on the Letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians invites us to step back from our usual ways of viewing things -- the world, the church, our own lives – and to see them all, to see everything, in light of God’s big picture, God’s cosmic plan from the beginning of time. It calls us, in other words, to see ourselves within the context of God’s huge, unfolding story.

Eugene Peterson, in the book featured by our current book group (Eat This Book), calls readers to see Scripture as a narrative. The Bible, he writes, “turns out to be a large comprehensive story, a meta-story.” And a story “invites our participation.” When we read Scripture appropriately, he argues, we allow its stories to “form” us, to shape us. “When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.” We don’t always reflect on God’s big story, but instead tend to focus on our own much smaller ones. Ephesians is about that larger story, God’s story, in which we’re called to find ourselves.

This epistle has traditionally been seen as addressed to the Christian community at Corinth, but that designation is missing in some important early manuscripts. It seems likely, instead, that it was intended as a circular letter, that is, one meant to be taken around to various churches. It’s suggested that the name of the addresses was left out so that it could be filled in with the name of whatever congregation it reached. And so, we may consider it addressed “to the church that is at Bothell, Washington,” that is, even to us.

Pastor Janet

June 1, 2024

A Lenten Invitation

I’ve been on the job here at Emmanuel for nearly two weeks now, and this Sunday I’ll step into the pulpit for the second time. I appreciated the chance to meet many of you last Sunday and look forward to meeting more this week. Thank you for wearing your name tags! It’s a great help, not only to me, but I suspect to some others as well.

In my brief time here, I’ve already had the chance to meet with the Session and with the Preschool Board, both important bodies guiding the mission and ministry of this congregation. I want to thank everyone for making me feel welcome. I look forward to partnering in ministry with both of these groups, as well as with all of you, during this transitional time.

With so much focus on transition, including my own inaugural sermon, it seems there’s been little emphasis on Lent, except for the Ash Wednesday service led by Adrienne Schlosser-Hall. This Sunday, I’ll share a message based on the lectionary passage for the fifth Sunday in this holy season. Then we’re already on to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, which will include a Maundy Thursday service at 7:00 p.m. on March 28th. Then, of course, we’ll celebrate the Resurrection on Sunday, the 31st.

I invite you to make these waning days of Lent a time of reflection and prayer, pondering the magnitude of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ, and considering your faithful response. If you haven’t done so in a while, this might be a good time to read through the Passion narrative in one of the Gospels, those stories leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion. Don’t hurry through just to get it done. Don’t even feel like you have to get all the way through, just to say you’ve done it. Take your time. Meditate on the words. See what speaks to you of God’s love, what reveals to you God’s grace. So may you be truly ready to celebrate the amazing news of Easter.

Pastor Janet

March 15, 2024

A Hint of Glory

“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John,
And led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them,
and his clothes became a dazzling white,
such as no one on earth could bleach them.
And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking to Jesus.”
Mark 9:2-4

This morning, this last Sunday morning I am with you as your pastor, is designated on the liturgical calendar as the day commemorating the transfiguration of the Lord.  The day comes just before Ash Wednesday which begins the season of Lent.  We get a hint of Jesus’ glory and divinity just before we move into the season where we focus on his humanity and humiliation.

The thing I love most about the story of Jesus’ transfiguration has to do with what it says about us.  And it is Peter, as usual, who mirrors this characteristic.  Never at a loss for words, Peter responds to this invitation to silence and wonder with a commentary: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses and one of Elijah.”  In other words: “Wow, this is really cool, Teacher!  Look how shiney you are.  We need to do something to commemorate this moment. Let’s build three shrines up here and turn it into a pilgrimage site.  Maybe we could even sell tickets.”
 
Yet when it was all over, and they were coming down off the mountain, Jesus invites them to a different response.  In fact he orders that response.  He essentially says, “Let’s keep quiet about this for now. The time will come for the celebration of my glory.  For now just keep this to yourselves; be still and savor it.”
 
As religious people we love to build shrines. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Afterall, it grows out of an experience of God’s presence, it points to an encounter with the Holy, a moment when eternity has broken into time and in which we feel confirmed in our faith.  So of course we quite naturally want to hold onto it, share it with others, do something to make concrete and permanent what is a momentary, almost subliminal, flash.
 
Yet we should take heed of Jesus’s advice to his disciples.  Often the best response to these visions is to plant them deep in our hearts and let them be part of what empowers us to take the next faithful step on the journey of faith.  These hints of glory are not ultimately given to draw attention to themselves and therefore something to be enshrined and celebrated, they are given to move us forward.
 
One of the things I deeply appreciate about my 11 years at Emmanuel as your pastor is that you were not a people who spent much time trying to draw my attention to and join you in a celebration of your past.  In fact I arrived shortly after you had torn down a couple of your shrines.  I arrived at a place where I rarely heard what is an all too familiar and unfortunate death knell in many congregations: “We’ve never done it this way before.”  By tearing down your building and rebuilding it you effectively pushed a reset button.  I suppose that most of you had little energy to call my attention to how things had always been done, instead you were primed to do something new in a new place.
 
Thank you for that.  And if I have a last word for you, it is: “Keep doing this!” Give your new pastor the same gift. Keep your eyes focused forward, looking for how Jesus is out in front guiding you into an awareness of what is yet to be.  Your foundation is not all the glorious things that have happened, it is the ever- growing relationship you have with the One in Whom all things cohere (Colossians 1:17).  In short, continue to strive to simply be the Church.  From this location at the intersection of 104th and 195th in Bothell, seek to do nothing more and nothing less than look for the ways that God is at work in you and around you and then reflect the light of God’s love to your neighbors.   
 
“Put these words in your heart and soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand and fix them as an emblem on your forehead”; take Hebrews 10:19-25 to heart:

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary
by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us
through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 
and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 
 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience
and our bodies washed with pure water.  
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,
for he who has promised is faithful.
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 
 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

 
David Rohrer
The Transfiguration of the Lord
2/11/2024