Easter Versus Christmas: A Calendar Competition

So, out of 52 weeks in the year, the Popular Culture recognizes that we Christians designate one week as Holy Week (its on the calendar). So, 1/52 of the year, which is definitely cool. Some Christians pad that timing with Lent, others, not so much. But, Holy Week, Palm Sunday to Resurrection.

It begins with the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. People are shouting Hallelujah, laying their cloaks and palm branches on the ground so that the donkey on which Jesus is being carried does not touch the bare earth and, tradition has it, they waved the palm branches around as well. Palm branches. Do not be fooled if your church hands out the individual palm fronds (coming from a pastor who hands out fronds).

It concludes with the Resurrection of Jesus, the stone rolled away, angels appearing to Mary Magdalene first (in every instance) and then to others.

Holy Week is fully ¼ of the chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. It is closer to 1/3 of the Gospel of Mark. In the Gospel of Luke, it is fully ¼. In the Gospel of John, from the Triumphal Entry, it is slightly less than half the gospel. In the four gospels, there are 89 chapters. Of these, 29 work within Holy Week.

In comparison, consider Christmas in the eyes of the Popular Culture. It traditionally 12 days long, Christmas to Epiphany; per visits "shepherds to magi". According to Macy’s, the season starts after Thanksgiving. According to the culture as I grew up, it starts after Halloween, consuming Thanksgiving as surely as I consume Thanksgiving turkey. In the present culture, the "hints" begin at Labor Day. That is anywhere from 4-16 weeks.

In the Bible, Christmas is ¼ of chapter 1 and half of chapter 2 in Matthew and approximately 1 and ½ chapters of Luke, depending on how much of the birth of John the Baptist is included.

So, being generous, where Christianity has its most significant influence on the Popular Culture- at Christmas-3 chapters of Gospel (3%) for upward of 16 weeks (30%) of the year. For Easter, where Christianity celebrates its most significant influence on the hearts of humanity, 29 chapters (33%) for 1 week (2%) of the year. Some “Bible Math”.

Pastor Peter

PS: What about Lent and Advent? 2 thoughts. First, those are definitely Church Calendar things, not so much Popular Culture things. Second, this comes out of how I was raised in the church, Christmas and Easter are Biblically set in ways Lent and Advent are not.

The Lord Preserves Us: In This Life or The Next

 When the Lord promises not to give us things that are too big for us to handle, there is a caveat there which requires some serious reflection. Through God, we may handle it, but we might not survive it. The promise of God’s grace may not be in this life, but in the life to come.

That is kind of dark, isn’t it? Sometimes life is extremely dark. Look at what is happening in California. They are taking hit after hit from the weather. Look at what is happening in Ukraine. There is a war going on there that is chewing up people and resources, seemingly inching the world toward a nuclear confrontation as Russia seems ever more desperate.

More than one hundred and three MILLION Americans have been diagnosed with Covid as of 2/22/23. There were over a quarter of a million cases that week. More than one MILLION Americans have died from Covid. Sometimes life is extremely dark.

Are we going to talk seriously about the ways humanity is destroying the earth? About global warming? Pollution? Exploitation? Are we going to consider it for the reality it is? Or are we going to bow to the lies of political extremism? Life is extremely dark.

Yet the Lord does not give us something too big for us to handle. Maybe now is the time to open our eyes and consider just how big the problems are that we need the Lord to handle.

Pastor Peter

God Helps As God Will, Not As We Presume

The Lord will not give us things that are too big for us to handle. There is a caveat to that promise. The Lord. Without the Lord, there are many, many, many things that are too big for us to handle. The key to this understanding is that we are not alone to handle things of this sinful world.

In addition, we must also understand how the Lord works in handling things. It may not be according to our own desires or understanding. The key word is ‘handle’. We may have one image in our minds of how to ‘handle’ things. This may include images of never getting knocked down, never being overwhelmed, never having our entire understanding of life, God, and everything turned on its ear. God makes no such promises.

We live in a world of immediate results. The Lord not giving us something too big to handle? All will be handled immediately? Is that image one where the wave comes, no matter what power, and we just take it? We get hit but the Lord braces our knees and “I’m still standing, yeah, yeah, yeah…” But what if it is not that simple? What if time will pass? Maybe a lot of time.

What we are promised is that God is faithful. What we do know is that the Lord can work in mysterious ways. So it might be wise to remember two things. First, it is the Lord who will handle the big things. Secondly, we might not stand firm, but the Lord might pick us up in the aftermath. Be ready for the Lord to do things in the Lord’s own way, not according to our expectations.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Looking Forward to Holy Week

This is to remind everyone that Palm Sunday is next Sunday, the first Sunday in April, April 2, 2023. Easter will follow on Sunday, April 9, 2023. For those who have been away from the congregation, this is the opportunity to return to the active life and worship of the church. It is highly appropriate as we remember Jesus’ death and resurrection that has given us the gift of salvation. We worship each Sunday morning at 10am and livestream our service on our Facebook page and at “Considering the Faith”, our YouTube channel.

Looking toward Holy Week next week, we are making a couple of changes to our schedule. The first is on Good Friday, April 7, 2023. We are going to have services at 10am, as many of our folks are not comfortable driving in the evening. You are invited to join us for services on Good Friday. At the present time, our 7:30 service will remain on the schedule if there is interest expressed via email, Facebook, or other contact. Will be there be participation?

We are not having services on Maundy Thursday this year.

On Wednesday, April 5, 2023 we are continuing our time of prayer at 10am. For this Wednesday, we are going to include a special liturgy of healing. It will include the opportunity to offer our concerns, whatever weighs especially on our hearts, to the Lord. As part of our time together, we shall take the time to write these concerns down on paper. Then, outside the sanctuary, we will have a brazier with a fire burning. This is for people to place those written concerns into, to offer them up to God in an echo of the ‘wave’ offering set in the Law of Moses.

May the Lord bless us as we remember the greatest gift we have received from our God on High.

And a reminder. For people who cannot join us in our daytime adjustments to our schedule, please let us know and we will seek to make accommodation.

Peace,
Pastor Peter

How Do We Tie Blessings Into An Ever Deepening of Our Jesus?

Step one, recognize that God provides for all our needs. Step two, come to the Lord in gratitude, not generally or generically, but specifically and individually. Come in joyful reflection, count our blessings. What has God provided? Who has God provided? In faith, what has God provided?

Tying the Lord to everything we have heads off a number of rabbit holes we can go rushing down. The first is the rabbit hole of arrogance that we are somehow responsible for our own stuff. Like it could not be taken away in an instance. The second is the rabbit hole of the blessings becoming their own pursuit. Chasing after money, after things, after approval, after whatever that is not Christ. There is one thing to be pursued in life, and that is the glory of God.

I am blessed that Johnson Oatman says it so much better in “Count Your Blessings”:

1 When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Refrain:
Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your blessings, see what God hath done;
Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

2 Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, ev'ry doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by. [Refrain]

Pastor Peter

Service: What James Calls Works-Good Works

 Martin Luthor was not a fan of the letter of James in the New Testament. Because James said “Faith without works is dead” in a time of theological reformation where the Christian faith had devolved to being all about "works", or paying for works, instead of faith in Jesus Christ.

 But James does not separate those two, faith and works. They are partners of the active Christian life. When I talk about ‘service’, or Christian service, it is in the understanding of James, of doing good works.. Doing things for others in the name of Jesus. Matthew 25, leading off with feeding the hungry, provides a biblical primer on where to begin a course of good works.

For the Christian, consider this as 'mindfulness' in action. It is not simply pausing to assess what we are feeling, but assessing while we are doing as well. Let us be aware of Christ when doing good works. Do good works in gratitude to the good works of Christ. If you make a 'to do' list for the day, pause to look for Jesus in each opportunity. Can't find him? Give yourself time.

Faith and works are meant to feed one another. To know the love and salvation of Jesus Christ is life-changing, on an eternal scale. To apply that love in helping someone else, that is life-changing in the world as we have it. Consider it deepening our heartfelt knowledge of what Jesus has done for us. Do Christian work intentionally, because each work cultivates Jesus more powerfully in our hearts.

Pastor Peter

Meditation: A Christian Application

I read a book in Seminary, the memoir of a young man who went to participate in the life and practice of a Zen Buddhist monastery in Japan. The one bit that sticks in my memory was his recounting trying to achieve the proper seating positions for the meditative practices in jeans. Not an easy cultural crossover.

Meditation, the art and practice of emptying the mind, of focused breathing. It might include images of people sitting in the full lotus position, hands on knees, fingers pointed upward in a gentle pinched position, eyes closed, maybe mumbling a mantra or something. Something stereotypically Eastern in design and importation.

Mindfulness is a meditative practice, according to the Mayo Clinic website. But this last paragraph is what I think of as 'typical' meditation. And it has Christian antecedents, especially in the cloistered communities of the church. But it had its application in secular life as well. I remember reading -of a medieval practice of a young man engaging in an all-night vigil before they were knighted by their lord.

To sit in a meditative silence, calmly setting aside intrusive thoughts, focused on a pattern of breathing until it becomes muscle memory and we can just "be". As Christians, there we have the time to simply listen for God. I am not saying that God will present like an intrusive thought. Or a divine “Hi, how are you!” But in contra-distinction to the active prayer-life where we tend to monopolize the conversation, meditation allows an opportunity to offer the gift of awareness, to come powerfully into God's presence and to listen to the Divine.

Pastor Peter

Mindfulness: A Christian Application

           I am no expert on mindfulness. I do not pretend to understand all the nuances of this as a meditative or personal practice. I will admit freely I am barely a practitioner. But I am aware that mindfulness, along with more sleep, a better exercise regimen, and a list of other things, would make living my life better.

       What I do know is what the bible says, “Be still and know that I am God.” I know God spoke to Elijah in the still, small voice instead of the great powers of nature. I know God clothed the flowers of the field more richly and magnificently than Solomon, THE richest, wisest, king in the history of the Bible (for movie lovers, he’s the one with the lost gold mines).

       Stopping to pay attention to what the Lord has done for us in the world, in the moment. Looking at the wonder of creation, reflecting in love and grace and hope.

       According to Mayo.com, the Mayo clinic website, mindfulness is “a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment.”  I would tweak this with a couple of assumptions. First, God created all. Second, God loves us. Finally, come to these moments in the Lord and that love will come to us in Jesus.

Pastor Peter

Overcoming the Credibility Gap: A Foundation in Christ

           In Sunday’s sermon, drawn from Ephesians 3, a challenge for us is to accept that God will go far beyond what we ask or even imagine. It is challenged by a credibility gap between knowing God can do all, in the theological abstract, and the realities of the sinful world around us that take aim with doubt.

       We overcome this gap from our foundation of faith, from being on the rock of Christ. Paul refers to the power of the Holy Spirit in our inner being, of Christ dwelling within us. It is not simply head knowledge, it is whole knowledge, as in the way Jesus says to love God, with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul.

       To that end, we ran through a few examples of what we might do. This includes an excessively simplistic consideration of mindfulness, of meditation, of service (doing good works), and counting our blessings. As we go into this week, we are going to consider each in turn.

       Each one is to be considered from this particular point of view. How, in this activity, in this practice, is Jesus at work in me? How can I focus on how Jesus is working through me? These are not things done for their own sake, but for the sake of the faith God gives us in Christ Jesus.

       Each is to pursue the question “Who are we in Christ and who is Christ in us?”

Pastor Peter

Time For Giving

  It is time to give. According to the Book of Order I was raised with in the PCUSA, membership in the church is marked by two things, by our work and our worship. We offer worship in two ways, really and virtually. Coming to church makes it easy to track your worship. Virtual is a growing edge for us. 

At present, giving to the church is also by ‘real’. We are:

The First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy

45 Market St.

Perth Amboy, NJ  08861

Virtual giving, online access, providing a credit card, all that convenience of the modern age. Yah, we are not there yet. 

We are in need of someone with better tech savvy than the pastor to make that happen. I would welcome the help.

"Hearting" The Matter: Seeking a Better Term

  We pray. We think. We ‘heart’ (again, seeking the right verb). We talk. We do. This is a simple (not in the manner of being "easy", but simple as in not being complicated) method of building the church. 

It was suggested that the word I am looking for in “we ‘heart’” is “we feel”. My answer is “Yes, but…” Yes, but “feel”, pardon the punning, feels nowhere nearly enough to speak of the depth of the heart's capacities. 

Please follow me through what may seem an odd if not absurd example. Bruce Lee was (and may still be) the most well known martial artist in the world. There is a story that comes out about him. He was told something along the lines of fearing the man who knows how to do 10,000 kicks. Lots of technique, flair, whatever. Bruce Lee’s reply was the man to fear was the one who’d practiced one kick 10,000 times. In so doing, it was become something of great power within him. It has become muscle memory, body sense, instinct, internalized, whatever descriptor we would like to use. 

For the martial artist, it is at the deepest sense of themselves, at the heart sense, something sunk into the soul. It is how they will respond with great power and energy. in this example, for the martial artist, it is a kick. For an expert in any field, it is this knowledge and ability that, by practice and discipline, is at the center of their being. Could be a physical activity, a method of accomplishing something, a field of knowledge. For the Christian, it ought to be our understanding of the Lord. There is our center, there is our power. 

Sure, we feel it, but it is far more. When something is ‘hearted’, it is not that we can do something without thinking, but that we can do something faster than thinking. We can come to a place where we respond with the love and peace of Christ without even thinking about it, because that is who we have become in Christ Jesus.

Stepping Beyond Prayer: What is Next?

  So, we have prayed for peace. The communication is good, we and God are tight. That stuff about the covenant, the Lord will be our God and we will be God’s people, its gaining traction. We have been giving it serious thought and reflection. Our hearts are one in the desire to see God’s peace in the world. We don’t walk in lock step as to what we all believe about peace, or even about Christ, but that’s good. It is the Presbyterian way. 

We gather a group of believers and we are blessed by the diversity of the Spirit that speaks to the whole.

But now we need to talk to the world. I have two overwhelming visuals when it comes to sharing my faith. The first is the earnest Christian who is begging me not to end up in hell. “If you die tonight, where is your soul going?” Yah, I want to come hear more of that. Joyful, joyful we adore thee?

The second is the individual walking up and down the street with two enormous placards hanging in front and in back of their body, joined over the shoulders. The message on the placards and from the preaching is predicting the end of the world coming soon. Really soon. The message is basically, “get with God or get blowed up”. Yah, I want to go to church with that guy.

So how do we get the message out? God says ‘go’. Unfortunately, left on its own, that has proven to be a non-starter. We of the church are in a safe place to express that message to one another before we take it on the road. I love God, you love God. We are in a place where we can reasonably expect that the other person will be neither offended nor put off if we talk about that love. If we look for the words that are real to us to express that love. 

We pray for peace, we think about peace, we (and I am looking for a good verb to define this), we ‘heart’ about peace. Now we got to talk about it. The peace of Christ that passes all understanding. Great. Talk about what passes our understanding. There’s Jesus for us. 

Paul did it. Extensively. He maintained an extensive correspondence, a huge portion of which was set aside as inspiration for the rest of us by our God in our New Testament.

Have We Thought Through The Peace We Are Praying For?

  It is a good thing to pray for the peace of Christ. But do we know what it is? Beyond vague generalities like “the love of Christ made manifest” or “the grace of the Lord for humanity”. Those are not wrong answers, but how would our church seek to make the love of Christ manifest in the world to achieve this peace? What does the grace of the Lord for humanity entail? And if we wait for the pastor to tell us what this is, what if it doesn’t sound right? What if it doesn’t ring true? What if it doesn’t resonate in our hearts and minds and spur us to thank the Lord? 

Is the pastor wrong? Being a pastor, the odds are in your favor in that consideration. What is peace? At 11:11am and 11 seconds on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918, the guns fell silent at the end of the Great War. “Peace” was achieved. It lasted twenty years, setting the path to the Second World War. Retrospectively, implicitly recognizing the failure of “peace”, the Great War was renamed ‘The First World War’. Thus far, there has been no World War 3, but that is not about the achievement of peace. That is about the desperate fear of nuclear annihilation, “Mutual Assured Destruction”-not much peace there. 

So we got to think about peace. We need our minds and hearts in alignment in understanding what this peace is. In understanding the God who, in Jesus Christ, is offering us this peace. If nothing else, it will provide clarity as to exactly what it is we are praying for. The vibrant church is not simply the church that prays together, but the church that thinks together, that reflects together, that offers a place of safety for its members to come boldly in their understanding (or lack of understanding) of the things of God. 

There is a ten dollar word for thinking about God, for thinking about the things of God. We call it ‘theology’. It is thinking about God that is guiding Paul’s hand as he writes to the Ephesians. What he puts into a few verses has prompted thick books of people thinking about it. What is the peace of Christ? What are we praying for? What are we offering up to the world? How are we reflecting the light of the Child of Peace into a world that needs it so desperately?

Peace: Begins With Prayer

  An opportunity for the faithful: This Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 10am, prayer in the sanctuary. Come and join us. It is a profound experience to pray together. Can’t make it? Let us know, we will set another time. 

Why pray? Funny you should ask. Walk with me through the words that follow.

Paul’s word to the Ephesians this past Sunday was that of peace, peace for two divergent communities, those of the Jews and the Gentiles, to come together in peaceful coexistence and more, to thrive and grow, in the love and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ proclaimed peace among them, by His death and resurrection, He fulfilled the precepts of the law of Moses-the dividing line between these two communities exemplified by Paul in the language of circumcision-and abolished the law, fulfilled it. In Jesus came the achievement of what the law set out to do.

For the church to thrive and grow in the world, it must do so in community. It is in Jesus that the church will find the peace of Jesus for a world in need. How a congregation operates within its bounds will be a sure reflection of how it will operate if it were to cross over its threshold in the world beyond. To gain this peace, to thrive and more, this peace must be achieved.

Where does a church start? In humbly coming before the Lord in prayer. A vibrant relationship requires vibrant communication. Is the personal prayer life of the individual stressed? Is the opportunity for the community time of prayer offered? Or are the prayers of the community concentrated into the worship on the Lord’s Day?

What do we pray for? A far shorter list (nay nonexistent list) would ask ‘what don’t we prayer for?’ Pray for the peace of Christ in the church. What if we are small and desperate? How will the outreach of the church reflect anything other than that desperation unless it has found peace first? The second half of chapter 1 of Ephesians is the prayer that Paul laid down on paper for the church in Ephesus. It is a noble prayer for any community to begin with.

(Ephesians 1: 15-23)

15 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason 16I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.