GREAT is thy faithfulness
Today, we are taking a step off the path of our series, sort of.
I need to confess that I looked at the chapter in our book, We Make the Road by Walking and realized that one of the texts for today is about the Israelites being commanded to forcefully conquering native occupants of Canaan. And while there is vital truth to be tackled in that scripture, it didn’t seem wise for the Sunday after a very divisive election.
To everything there is a season…
There is plenty to say about the chapter, and I will tackle that in the coming week through the Finding Faith morning emails. We really should wade through the topics raised and it will be hard.
BUT…today, we take a pause to recognize for a moment all that God is doing in our midst right now. And to commit ourselves to continuing to lean into the work at hand.
I wonder…
Do you have a hymn or a song that you carry with you in your bones – and that song pours out in moments when you are most in need, or moments when you are experiencing joy, or moments of amazing thanksgiving.
I have a few, but…
Hymn 140 in United Methodist Hymnal – Great is thy faithfulness - is one of those that is in my bones that way. It has moved me in those moments of emerging from a hard thing…or sometimes in the midst of a hard thing…when I recognize that God is with me and not JUST with me but moving me through the hard thing.
It is one of the hymns I carry with me in wilderness…
Remember wilderness? Last week we identified wilderness as a space of disorientation, a space between what has been and what is to come, the space between captivity and liberation.
Wilderness is hard space.
Today from the book of Lamentations we heard:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations is found in the Hebrew scriptures and in our Bible it follows the books of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah – works that describe God’s judgment and yet his love and provision for God’s people as they are exiled. Remember exile? Remember a season of God’s judgment, of God’s call to justice, of God’s separation and of God’s ultimate compassion for God’s people?
Exile is hard space.
The book of Lamentations is comprised of four poems that express the outrage and disbelief and lament of the Jews as they live in exile.
So the hymn Great is They Faithfulness then, can be understood as a song sung from exile – a song of hope and of testimony – testimony about the experience of God with us and hope for how that will continue to unfold.
No wonder it has clung to my skin in so many seasons.
Folks, we are moving through a hard thing. Amen?
We are in a season of wilderness right now, aren’t we?
We might even feel like we are living in exile right now, cut off from everything we thought we knew and understood.
We are moving through a hard thing.
Actually, we are moving through many hard things….
We are moving through a pandemic
– our lives have been interrupted by a virus that steals breath.
We are awakening to a long-standing pandemic
– a history built on a system of oppression based on race. Whether we feel personally responsible or not, we are living in a society shaped by racism.
We are a nation divided
– we are split almost down the middle in how we understand the best way forward
– for the economy, for our health, for the definition of family
– for the care of the immigrant and the orphan.
We are separated from those we love in ways we’ve never encountered.
We are listening for the voice of truth to rise up above the din of things that are not of God.
There is a storm raging around us.
But in my experience, it is the wilderness that God shows up – with manna for us to eat, with water from a rock, with corrections and with assurances.
I think that if we look at where you have been, Faith church was thrust into a season of wilderness when Rev. Woodrow announced her departure in January 2018. And then you walked with a pastor who was gravely ill even as you were all getting to know one another and imagine a new future. All of this was set against the backdrop of both a societal and denominational division about how marriage and love and personhood would be defined.
And then there was another new pastor, growing political and racial tension, a looming general conference…
…and then COVID and a nationwide shutdown.
It is all breathtaking, really.
In light of all of this, in light of a season that calls for lament, I have been pondering the landscape of our work to be the body of Christ, and I have seen some pretty amazing things.
I keep watch for what the Holy Spirit is doing.
Here are some things that I have witnessed:
In my earliest meetings with members, I heard how God was already nudging you to faithfully live in news ways into being disciples of Jesus Christ – not just by showing up on Sunday mornings, but by finding ways to walk the walk and talk the talk each and every day – to make your identity as a follower of Christ the thing that guided how you used your time, your talents, and your financial resources. People volunteered for new leadership roles, and in particular, the missions committee took on new life, new people, new financial resources, and new vision.
Back in November, as a congregation, you collectively increased your giving commitments for 2020 so that our missions committee could distribute up to $54,000 to organizations and causes serving needs around us. When life changed fast in March, long-standing partners like Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless and Manna pivoted their operations to meet sudden new needs. Because of your generosity, including some early gifts and expanded commitments, we were able to be financial partners in that early response.
During a season of figuring out online worship, many gathered on Sunday morning’s via ZOOM. Instead of sitting in pews and watching what happened on the chancel in the sanctuary, we all had the same view – our own home and a little screen before us. And worship became something we did as a kind of dialogue.
Deryl Davis joined us for a season of congregational care-giving. His work alongside our congregational care volunteers has yielded a true team that is inviting others to join the work so that caring relationships crisscross our entire congregation.
As our season of physical separation deepened, you almost spontaneously formed small groups, spread out across the week and at times of the day that make it possible for so many of you to share life. Leaders stepped up and stepped out of comfort zones.
Two teams came together – one to keep us safe and another to imagine how we could worship together virtually from our sanctuary. You are witnessing the products of that work and each and every day we are learning something new about safety and technology. We will never be the same and that is going to be a valuable gift for our future.
It is dizzying really – both the challenges we have faced and the ways that God has shown up.
Morning by morning, new mercies I see…
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
And while all of this struggle and provision has prompted lots of change, God remains the same. And is near.
So very near. I know Bill Jones has cited this throughout this season – SURELY the presence of the LORD is int his place.
Thou changest not, thy compassions thy fail not…As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.
And that has been true for the 55+ years that this Faith church has been planted here on Montrose Road. I commented in one of last week’s finding faith emails that one of the great revelations of helping a family plan a funeral is seeing the fingerprints of Faith church all over a family – whether or not they have remained engaged in this particular church.
Seeds planted and nurtured over time continue to grow – sometimes in this forest, sometimes elsewhere.
Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to the God who has been with us through it all, each step of the way, even when it has been unbelievably difficult. God is with us.
In the midst of hard things, we practice wisdom by pausing to seek for what God is doing, to look at where God is.
And here is where God is.
Right here in our midst – where “here” means across time and space and platforms.
Today, in light of the recognition of how God has worked and is working here, in light of how we have been blessed even in the midst of wilderness, I am asking you to take a step in your discipleship journey.
I am asking you to think on all that God has done and is doing and make a commitment to financially support Faith in the year to come.
Specifically, I am asking you to pledge to an amount and a plan for how you will give in the year to come. Because even when we are not passing a plate down the pews, the work of being the church continues – and more than that, the command to give from our first fruits remains.
From Leviticus - You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me.
Last week we talked about how the laws handed down to the Israelites were about building and preserving the wholeness of a society of people – The commandment to give from our first fruits is about giving because we have received. Ultimately what we give builds a vessel for service to the Kin-dom of God that shines forth in the community.
The amount of your pledge is a matter of personal discernment – but the activity of it, the act of naming a commitment, planning for it, fulfilling it is work we are all called to do.
It requires us to put God’s work first in a specific and tangible way. It requires that we trust that in letting go, we will receive. In loosening our grip and guarding our treasure, we will find manna and water from a rock. We will experience provision.
I speak from experience when I say that practicing a behavior of generosity will change your life. If you have not pledged before, I encourage you to do so. I’m happy to talk to you about my experience of growing into tithing.
If you are a long-standing pledge maker, I encourage you to prayerfully consider all God is doing as you complete your commitment for the year to come. A letter and pledge card will arrive in your mailbox on Monday or Tuesday if it hasn’t already, and you can find a button or link to the online pledge form in our chat or online during worship today.
A quick practical reminder – when you commit to an electronic means of giving, you help to keep our office staff safe and ensure that no matter how our daily rhythms our interrupted, our giving is consistent so that we can keep our commitments in the community.
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
Amen.
Sources:
https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-great-is-thy-faithfulness
Comments
Post a Comment