Advent involves waiting! We all have experienced waiting in our lives. Sometimes that waiting can be filled with preparations for what will be a joyful celebration. At other times in can be tedious, filled with anxiety in anticipation of an outcome we dread. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who stood against the evils of the Third Reich during World War II. His witness, including his preaching, cost him his freedom and ultimately his life. On December 1, 1943, Bonhoeffer wrote from prison to his young fiancee. Unable to prepare for Christmas in the ways he always had when he was free, he wrote:
“I think we’re going to have an exceptionally good Christmas. The very fact that every outward circumstance precludes our making provision for it will show whether we can be content with what is truly essential. I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious…” “The poorer the quarters, the more clearly we perceive that our hearts should be Christ’s home on earth.” That certainly puts things in perspective in this year of 2020. In spite of his own unjust imprisonment, the loss of good friends to war, separation from those he loved and dealing with evil all around him, Bonhoeffer believes it would not just be an endurable Christmas, but an exceptional one. Let me encourage you to prepare for an exceptionally good Christmas, regardless of the circumstances, that you can welcome again Christ into your hearts. “No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.”
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Back during the series of tropical systems that seemingly, each week, approached the Gulf Coast, our daughter Beth, who lives in Bay Saint Louis, sent out the following text: “When people ask me where I live, I just say in the cone of uncertainty”! (If you watch Jim Cantore and the Weather Channel, you can visualize where she is.) Her text was a lighthearted way of viewing life, not knowing when, where, and at what strength the storms would strike. The year 2020, the year of Covid-19, has become like that for many. All of the things we take for granted, even the traditions of Thanksgiving, family gatherings, and trips to share this time with loved ones, are uncertain, if not risky. We are uncertain about what will happen next.
In Philippians, Paul writes to the church, a group whose security and very existence are threatened. In the face of their uncertainty he says in Philippians 4:6-7: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Of that, we can be certain—with thanksgiving to God—in all things. I have an old friend who used to say to me., ”Well you’ve got it now, what are you going to do with it?” Usually this was about something that I really wanted! But it really is a question we might ask about all the gifts God has given.
For the last several months, almost a year, FPCUSA has been praying about, looking, discerning and finally obtaining a more permanent place to call home. On Friday, October 30th we were given the keys to the property on 280 Linden Lane. (Across from Starkville High School.) Documents have been signed, financing is set. The Property Committee has already begun work, starting on Friday to clean, prioritize needs to make it our place for worship, fellowship, and as a home base for mission. Thank you all who have given an immediate gift toward the Capital Improvement Fund, some of which will be used in the renovation of the church building, or have made pledges, which we will put toward retiring the debt. As soon as next week you will receive a letter from our Stewardship Committee on how to make your commitment to our 2021 ministry budget. There will be communication from the Property Committee (emails, phone calls, etc.) on ways you can help through volunteering, or making in-kind gifts during the renovation of our new church home. Begin to pray now about the ways God may be calling you to help during this extraordinary time. You may still make your commitment either as a donation, or through a future monthly or yearly pledge to the Capital Improvement Fund by contacting Charles Bryson, or Pat Colwick. One of the most difficult aspects of the COVID pandemic has been the separation, even isolation, of those who have tested positive, from the healthy. This quarantine has extended beyond managing symptoms at home, to hospitalizations, to the intensive care unit—even in dying. In many situations, as a precaution to prevent further spread of the virus, families were even denied the opportunity to offer a public remembrance/celebration of their loved ones life.
Each November 1st, the church remembers it’s saints, those who have died in the Lord during the past year. We want to offer this day as a time to share together, to remember together and to offer words of resurrection and hope. Our Worship Committee will be meeting this week to make plans for how best to make this day a special time of worship. I ask you to begin now to think about those in your own family, your own fellowship, your own community who have died since November 1, 2019. They do not have to died from COVID. You may email the minister with the name, location, and date of death. We may ask you, as we plan this special service, to share with us a short witness on how this person served as an influence of the love and grace of God in your life. Will be praying for God’s comfort and peace for you. It’s been a long, long time since we witnessed our children go through the process of crawling, pulling up, and finally taking their first step! We’re past that moment with our youngest grandchild, although we can replay it via video whenever we want to share that sense of joy and accomplishment on Caroline’s face!
Earlier this summer we began the process of finding a more permanent place to worship, fellowship, study, and offer ministry and mission to our community. You might say that the property being offered for sale was our crawling stage. Gaining the approval from the congregation on July 20th to purchase was pulling up. As of last week, we have a contract to close no later than October 31st, the first halting step! So now, you may be thinking, What are the next steps? If you are a member/supporter of FPCUSA, Starkville your have received (or will receive) a letter from our Stewardship/Finance Committee ChaIr, Charles Bryson. This letter invites you to support with your one time and/or continuing gifts our next steps in making this property our home! I encourage you to step out with a sense of joy and excitement as we step forward together along this path that God has offered us to walk. I was asked this the other day. ”What do you miss most about not being together for church?”. I did not have to think about it long. ”Sharing with others. Seeing, talking, praying, laughing, crying!”(I left out ‘touch’ to be CDC guideline appropriate.) We can replicate on video a semblance of a worship service, some music, scripture, a prayer, a sermon. But it is difficult, nearly impossible to pretend that it is what is called in the original Greek of the New Testament ‘koinonia’. Some say this equates with our modern word fellowship, but I think that just doesn’t measure up.
Because I believe this ‘koinonia’ is just as vital a part what it means to be the church as worship, nurture and mission I am proposing an option that might offer us at least some sense of ‘koinonia’, by offering each week via Zoom something I will call for now ‘Check In’. It will give an opportunity for us to spend 30-40 minutes ‘together’. I see it as part prayer meeting, part conversation about what is going on in each of our lives, and part just sharing. I need your input on when the best day/time to have this ‘Check In’. I am leaning toward a mid week, perhaps on Wednesday evening (In the time frame we normally would have Choir, PW, etc). It’s that time of year, ‘back to school’. But everything seems different this year. I would normally write to you some nostalgia about getting new blue jeans, freshly waxed floors in the school hallways, the peculiar feel of a new desk and new classmates, but not this year, this is the year of COVID 19. From the very young (my grandchildren), to college students (that my wife will teach), all are going back to school in one form or another. I asked Ellen Goodman what our congregation could do as schools prepare to open, and what a list she gave me. Let me encourage you to take at least one of these, each day, and pray:
Whew! All of this (and I did a summary of Ellen’s list!) and all of the above added to the tremendous challenge of just teaching. I know in years past we have had a Sunday to pray for students, teachers, blessed backpacks, recognized promotions, may this be the year we, with intention, fervently pray for all involved in going back to school! Also a mission opportunity is possible in this season of back to school. In continuing a tradition we have done for may years at FPCUSA, we are asking for you to consider making donations for Childcare Centers. The needs this year include face masks, cleaning supplies, and extra school supplies because they are not receiving any government funds to provide these items in response to CDC guidance on how to safely meet the new health needs in the classrooms and throughout the centers. Limited class sizes means lower income and hence a challenge to provide quality instruction, basic school supplies and cleaning needs. These centers are vital to provide working families with safe childcare! Contact Ellen Goodman for more information. At the close of our ‘Congregational Meeting’ on Monday, I was struck with how joyful it made my heart to see so many who are part of our congregation. I thought, ”They are seeing and hearing from me each week”, how much better it would be for us to see and share together.
Here are a couple of ideas (not all are mine) for having, in addition to the Worship Video, an opportunity for seeing each other and perhaps sharing in prayer, study or just conversation about life:
Back in the 1950’s, there was a popular television show, Father Knows Best. I don’t remember much about the show other than the opening theme song and the credits. But the title reflected a belief that I held, then rejected, and finally came to realize again that my Dad, Harry Monroe McDougald, most of time, did Know Best. Now, as a father and grandfather myself, more than 60 years later, I have come to see that being a father is much more difficult than my dad, Robert Young, Andy Taylor, or Ward Cleaver made it seem. And you know guys sometimes we are right; just sometimes. I often wished that God had given us a list of specific spiritual rules for being fathers—something like a set of ten commandments for dads—so we could just tick them off one at a time. Instead, Jesus talked a lot about his Father, his Father’s “kingdom” or “house”, if you will. His usual way was not direct, but in what must have seemed at times like a code, for he was constantly having to explain and re-explain these parables of the Kingdom.
I did learn a couple of things. First, I experienced from my Dad, grandfathers, and other men who served as father figures in my life—some who are still active—that we may never recognize how important TIME spent with sons and daughters may be. Charles Adams, the 19th century political figure and diplomat, kept a diary. One day he entered: "Went fishing with my son today--a day wasted." His son, Brook Adams, also kept a diary, which is still in existence. On that same day, Brook Adams made this entry: "Went fishing with my father--the most wonderful day of my life!" Second, what we are looking for is not so much a father who ‘knows best’, but a Father who ‘forgives best’. My Dad was not perfect. I wonder a bit when I see someone post on social media that their dad was “the perfect dad”. But some of my most vivid memories of my own father are framed by circumstances of forgiveness and acceptance, usually fairly quickly after I had messed up. I’ve shared this story before about the father in Spain who had become estranged from his son. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: “Dear Javier, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.” On Saturday 800 Javiers showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers. I hope you know that the Eternal Father has the same message for you. P.S. By the way, THANK YOU, Harry Monroe McDougald, for all the time and acceptance you showed this son of yours! It was almost 57 years ago, June 9, 1963, that I witnessed up close and personal what frustration turned to anger, of what racial inequality looked like. I was with my father, who managed the Howard Johnson’s in Lexington, North Carolina. Lexington was a textile and furniture manufacturing town not too far from Greensboro, where a couple of years earlier a lunch counter sit in happened and captured the attention of the world.
I was 10. I lived in a mostly white world. The only African-Americans I knew were the cooks, dishwashers and clean-up crew at the restaurant. They were friendly enough. My father was driving one of them home that evening, because he was afraid to walk, or catch a bus, because there had been trouble that day on Main Street. Some African-American teens, frustrated with the slow progress of integration in public facilities had gone “across the yellow” line. I don’t remember the name of the street, but in ran a block or so off Main Street. Main was where most of the shops, the movie theatre, and a couple of the best places to eat were located. The “yellow line” was painted on the South side of this particular street. Blacks were not supposed to cross the line, unless they were going to work uptown. These teens crossed that line, not to work, but to visit the Red Pig, the matinee at the movie theatre, and a few other stores. By that evening a group of concerned citizens had taken action. With clubs, baseball bats, and perhaps guns, they had gone to the south side of the street to send a message to these teens, and anyone else on that side of town who might think about “crossing the yellow line”. We got to this street, where the cook said, “No need to go any farther, Mr. Mac, you get back home”. My dad got out to witness a crowd of African-Americans, all angry, some crying, many shouting. To my 10-year old mind it seemed to me that all they really wanted to do was to feel safe. Shots rang out. Twenty feet away a falling man groans, then another man with a camera and note pad hits the pavement. The man with the camera was wounded. The other man was still, dead. I share this story not because it changed me in that moment into a person without bias, or racism. I am a white, son of the South, after all. I was reminded of it this week in a conversation with a church member about the frustration that still exists, the anger and fear that must flow out of hearts that almost always just want to feel safe. I share this to remind myself how little things have changed. What can I do, to help, now? What might we do together, as a congregation do to help, now? Pray about this. Let me know where those prayers lead you; share those with each other. Reach across the “yellow line”, while it is not painted on any curb, it is still is there, in our community. Do this not as the so-called concerned citizens, but in love and the fellowship of the Spirit. |
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February 2021
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Starkville Presbyterian Church PC(USA) Starkville, MS | Ron's Reflections |