~ by the Pastor and guest writers ~
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Worship and Fellowship at FPC During Lent (March 22, 2004) We are well into the 40 days of Lent. If you mark time by the calendar we are about half way through the journey. How has the road been for you this year? Have you hurried along the way or taken time to slow down and notice the geography of your life? One of the things I have noticed with the current popular interest in Mel Gibson’s, “The Passion of the Christ,” is our urge to move too quickly to the last days of Jesus’ life. Lent can get bypassed. I want to encourage you to stay on the longer road. Don’t take the shorter route to Holy Week! Not just yet. On this road there are opportunities for worship and fellowship. First, I would like to see more of our congregation worship at a Taizé service. This Sunday, March 21, our Taizé service is at 6:00 PM in the fellowship hall. Come for a quiet time of song, prayers, Scripture readings, and times of silence. The Taizé service is an excellent time to stop for a rest on your Lenten journey. If you seek a time of fellowship then get a ticket and make a reservation no later than March 23 for the church picnic. We are going to the Cook 480 Ranch in Edinburg from 4-7 PM on Sunday, March 28. Check the newsletter and bulletin for reservations. We will end our Lenten home studies with a meal in the fellowship hall on Wednesday, March 31 at 6:00 PM. This will be a great way to spend some time at table with our fellow travelers. Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday, April 4. I know. This is Daylight Savings and you will need to move your clocks ahead one hour. Come and worship on Sunday, April 4, Maundy Thursday, April 8, at 7:00 PM, and Good Friday, April 9, 12 noon. Now a special word about Maundy Thursday. This service will be a reenactment of the Last Supper. Following the presentation we will celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion by intinction. Seating is limited and you will need a ticket (tickets are no charge). Easter morning begins with our sunrise service in the courtyard. Following this service breakfast will be served. Worship continues at 10:30 AM in our sanctuary. I hope you will come and worship at all of these services. Worshipping together is still vital to the life of the church community. I’m amazed at how much of our current culture detracts from community. We know how many people live isolated lives, apart from family, friends, and neighbors. When people are watching four hours of television per day, on top of an eight or ten-hour work day, there is not much time left for relating to others or building community. Church connections are all that many people have. Congregations are often life-saving communities for people like that, especially in times of crisis. Creating and nurturing community is not only a relevant task, but one that is basic to our health and identity.
 Why the Church? (March 8, 2004) The goal of the life of the church is often forgotten in administrative details, especially when we focus almost exclusively on “doing things” and forgetting why we are called. What follows is a wonderful Jewish story I recently read. I hope you will read it carefully: “At the beginning of the sixteenth century, a man named Jacobo and his wife, Esperanza, expelled from Spain, settled in S’fat in the north of Israel. Since Jacobo knew only Spanish, he never fully understood what went on in synagogue. One Shabbat he heard the Torah verses from Leviticus 24:5-6 in which the Children of Israel are instructed to give God twelve loaves of challah in the ancient wilderness tabernacle before the Sabbath. He came home full of excitement, “Esperanza, God likes challah for Shabbat and you bake the best challah in the world. Next Friday bake twelve loaves and we can bring them to synagogue for God.” So Esperanza baked her best challah, kneading her good intentions into the dough. Friday afternoon, when no one was around, the two brought the twelve challahs to the synagogue, arranged them neatly in the ark, said ‘Buen apetito’ to God, closed the ark and left, very happy. A few minutes later the janitor came in with his broom. ‘Dear God,’ he said as he stood before the ark. ‘My children are starving. I need a miracle.’ He opened the ark and, finding the challahs inside, he smiled. He had believed that God would provide. The next morning when the rabbi opened the ark during services, Esperanza and Jacobo saw immediately that God had eaten every loaf. They winked at each other with satisfaction. And so this continued week after week, year after year. Esperanza baked, the janitor and his family ate. Thirty years passed. One Friday, Esperanza stood before the ark and said ‘God, I’m sorry about the lumps in the challah. I’m getting old and my fingers don’t work as well as they used to. I hope you enjoy them anyway.’ At that moment, the old rabbi of the synagogue appeared and grabbed Esperanza and Jacobo by the collar. ‘What are you doing, you fools?’ he cried. ‘We are giving God his challahs.’ ‘Don’t you know that God doesn’t eat?’ ‘You may be a rabbi, but there are some things you don’t know. God most certainly does eat. In thirty years he has never left behind a crumb.’ ‘Let’s hide in the back of the synagogue and see what really happens to your challahs,’ said the Rabbi. A few minutes later the janitor came in. ‘Dear God, I don’t like to complain, but your challahs have been getting a bit lumpy lately. Still, it’s keeping my family alive.’ He reached into the ark to get his challah and the rabbi appeared and said, ‘Stop, you terrible man. Maimonides has taught us that God does not have a body. He doesn’t bake challah and he doesn’t eat challah. All three of you have been committing the sin of anthropomorphism!’ At this, the janitor, Jacobo, and Esperanza all began to cry. The good couple was crying because they had merely wanted to serve God. The janitor was crying because he suspected this meant no more challahs. At that moment the great kabbalist Isaac Luria entered the room.He turned to the old rabbi. ‘You must go home immediately and make sure your will is in order. Thirty years ago your time had come to die, but the Angel of Death was called off because God was having so much fun watching what went on in your synagogue. Now it is over, and you will be buried this week, before the Sabbath begins.’ Then he turned to the weeping couple and the janitor. ‘Now that you know who has been eating your challahs, who has been baking your challahs, you must continue to bake them and eat them anyway. Jacobo and Esperanza must bring them every week directly to the janitor. And you must all believe with perfect faith that it is God who bakes and God who takes and that God is no less present in your lives.’” Concerning this tale, Rabbi Fuchs-Kreimer comments: “What was going on in the synagogue with Jacobo, Esperanza, and the janitor? They were making the world more just, and, in their innocence, they thought it had something to do with God. The good couple thought that in giving to the poor they were giving to God and the janitor thought that in receiving he was getting from God. They were all correct. The rabbi’s life was extended for thirty years because during those thirty years he had, quite unintentionally, achieved the goal of the rabbinate. His synagogue was functioning the way a synagogue should. His lay people were serving God by taking care of each other, and the Torah ark was the center of it all…A true rabbi makes the synagogue a place where people do God’s work and receive God’s work and thus have God in their lives.” This wonderful story mostly makes me wonder about the church and its ministry. When ministry is theologically grounded rather than program or technique-oriented, it has in its heart the making of a congregation “where people do God’s work and receive God’s work and thus have God in their lives.” This giving of what one has to give and this receiving of what one needs to receive becomes the meaning of Christian fellowship—of life together in Christ. And the whole life of the congregation and all its activities will be centered in worship.
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