Lent at Emmanuel Presbyterian 2025

“ O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power and idle talk. But give me rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love. Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen.”
— FROM ST. EPHREM THE SYRIAN, A COMMON FOURTH-CENTURY PRAYER OF LENT 

Introduction to the Season of Lent

Lent is a season in which the Church narrows its focus on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The word Lent comes from an old Saxon term meaning “lengthen,” referring to the lengthening days of spring. The season culminates in the Triduum—the three days from Maundy Thursday through Easter Sunday—when we move from Christ’s Last Supper to his crucifixion, burial, and glorious resurrection.

Lasting approximately 40 days (excluding Sundays), Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and culminates on Easter Sunday. The significance of these 40 days echoes key moments in Scripture: the flood in Noah’s time (Gen. 6–8), Moses receiving the Law on Mount Sinai (Exod. 24:12–18), and Jesus’ fasting and temptation in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1–11, Mark 1:9–12, Luke 4:1–13).

In the early Church, Lent was a period of preparation for those desiring baptism. Over time, it became a season of renewal and recommitment to following Christ. Lent invites us to empty ourselves of lesser things so that we might be filled with the greater things of God’s kingdom. You may hear someone say they are “giving something up for Lent,” a form of fasting not for physical gain but as a way to refocus attention and affections on God. Others may take on spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Scripture memorization, or acts of service. Taking on a spiritual practice during Lent is a form of intentionally redirecting our hearts toward Christ. 

In our culture, it can be easy to reduce Easter to a celebration of springtime traditions—egg hunts, brunches, and family gatherings. But Lent reminds us that resurrection comes only after the cross. Before we rejoice in Easter’s victory, we walk the path of Christ’s suffering, bearing witness to the reality of sin, sorrow, and loss in our world. In doing so, we also affirm the fullness of the human experience—pain and joy, grief and hope, death and new life.

Lent is an invitation to journey with Jesus to the cross so that we might fully grasp the joy of Resurrection Sunday. As the angel declared at the empty tomb, “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said” (Matt. 28:6). May this season prepare our hearts to receive that good news anew.

Spiritual Practices at Emmanuel

Prayer Group on Zoom Tuesdays at 1pm and Thursdays at 6:30am

Beginning on Tuesday March 11th, we will meet for 30 minutes on Zoom and pray through a Psalm of lament together. We will use the Psalm to prompt our prayers. Pastor Patrick will lead us. Please join us and keep your video off to create a prayerful environment. You are encouraged to pray out loud as you feel prompted. Zoom Link for 6:30 am on Thursdays and Zoom Link for 1:00 pm meeting on Tuesdays.

Book Study 

O Taste and See: A biblical Reflection on Experiencing God By Bonnie Thurston

Wednesdays starting 3/12 weekly until 4/8 at 3-4pm 

We will meet at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church to discuss roughly one chapter. We will also pray portions of Psalm 34 together. Come whenever you like, even if you haven’t read. At the first session we will discuss through Chapter 1. No need to buy the book 25 copies will be available in the narthex until we run out.

Sunday 3/16, 3/30 & 4/13 at 11:30-12:30

A second option is on Sundays after service. Since this group only meets three times we will read roughly 2 chapters per week. At the first session we will discuss through Chapter 2. 

Compassion: Loving the stranger

Paraphrasing Michelangelo, Dr. Dacher Keltner writes, “To touch is to give life.” I highly recommend his article Hands on Research: The Science of Touch, in which he explains how “compassion is literally at our fingertips.” In Luke 5:12-17, we read the story of Jesus reaching out to touch a man with leprosy. By doing so, he breaks the Jewish purity laws, becoming unclean in the eyes of the crowd. I can imagine the collective gasp, followed quickly by awe as Jesus speaks: “I choose, be clean,” and the man is instantly healed. Jesus becomes unclean to make the man clean. This is the heart of Jesus' ministry: to proclaim the kingdom of God in both word and deed.

As the Son of God, Jesus took on human flesh to bear our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5). He was like us in every way (Hebrews 2:17), and by bearing our sins in his body, he offers us healing through his wounds (1 Peter 2:24). Jesus reaches out in compassion to heal, and compassion is at the core of his mission. To touch is to give life; in this act of compassion, Jesus gives the leper life.

Compassion requires three things: emotional awareness, motivation to help, and an active response. Jesus demonstrates all three. As I prepared to preach on this passage, I found myself deeply moved by the current situation of immigrants and refugees. Whatever your political stance, scripture is clear about how we are to treat the stranger. Jesus himself was a refugee, and throughout the history of Israel, the people were immigrants: enslaved in Egypt, exiled in Babylon, and always seen as outsiders by these societies. Yet, in each of these moments, they were still God’s beloved children. Here are just a few of the many scriptures that speak to this:

“You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19)

“The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:34)

“Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.” (Deuteronomy 27:19)

As some of you know, I serve on the board of Take the Next Step, a community service nonprofit in the Sky Valley region (Monroe and eastern Snohomish County). During our board meeting last week, we discussed the fear many of those we serve are experiencing, particularly because they are immigrants. My daughter recently shared how some of her friends changed where they shop after an anonymous and erroneous Facebook post falsely claimed that ICE was at a local Walmart. I also recently heard an interview with an Afghan refugee who was scheduled to arrive in the U.S. with her family in February. They’ve now been denied entry and risk being sent back to Afghanistan, where their lives may be in grave danger. These families feel betrayed, especially since they were thoroughly vetted and granted asylum.

I am aware that immigration policy is complex and that there are a variety of views in our communities and probably at EPC. I hold my own beliefs on the specifics of policy which I’m sure you can deduce. Although, I am not advocating for a specific immigration or refugee policy in this post, I do believe that carefully vetted refugees should not be denied a chance at a new life. Rather, I am advocating for a particular attitude toward others. Jesus modeled compassion in every part of his life. He saw the suffering of others, was motivated to act, and responded with generosity and love. This piece may cause some people to be frustrated or angry. Some of you may disagree with parts of it and I invite you rather than harbor those thoughts and feelings privately to talk about them with a spirit of curiosity. My door is open and I’m happy to talk.

May we, as followers of Christ, embody this same compassion. The love of Christ, poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, should be the lens through which we view others—not just those who agree with us, but all people, especially those who are marginalized or in need. Compassion is not partisan; it is Christlike. Immigrants and refugees are people not a disembodied policy. In many cases they are people who are hurting and overlooked. Let us pray for the courage to embody this compassion in every aspect of our lives. May we see the suffering of others, be moved to act, and respond in love.

In Christ’s name,
Pastor Patrick

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