​Beloved of God,
 
I have been having such a good time moving through our study of hymns and songs with you. There are still two weeks to join in, and no penalty for coming along late. If you’d like to be a part of our hymn study, you can follow this link.
 
I also want to make sure that if you are interested in participating in a study through Lent (starting 2/17) that you have a chance to sign up for that as well. We will be reading through N.T. Wright’s Lent for Everyone, but it will essentially be a daily Bible study over the Gospel of Mark. If you’re interested, you can sign up here.
 
As many of you know, we have had our restrictions revised under the NMDOH’s “Red to Green” framework. We have increased our capacity limit on Sundays to 33% and any smaller meetings on the church campus may have up to 10 people present. It will be important to be good stewards of this trust by maintaining social distance and following safety guidelines to keep each other safe.
 
One of the reasons I love the Gospel of Mark so much is because it can read as raw and perplexing. I think the story for the reading for Sunday is a good example. Jesus is just trying to go to synagogue, and the next thing he knows, a man with an unclean spirit is confronting him, and making a spectacle that Jesus doesn’t want.
 
“Have you come to destroy us. I know who you are…” says the unclean spirit. I want you to pay attention to the pronouns. Have you come to destroy us. I know who you are. This unclean Spirit fully assumes Jesus can and will destroy both himself and the man the spirit is tormenting. But Jesus isn’t going to do that. Even though this poor tormented man can’t speak for himself, Jesus never loses sight of him, and never intends to do anything but save him. “Be quiet,” Jesus says to the unclean spirit, “come out of him”.
 
No matter what situation you find yourself in, no matter how difficult, no matter how much it is your own fault, or how impossible it seems for you to escape, Jesus never loses sight of you. When we say there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, it looks like this. 
 
Please join me this week in praying for:
●      An end to this pandemic.
●      Those who are in need of medical care in these difficult times.
●      Doctors, nurses, paramedics, PA’s and other health professionals working to keeps us all well.
●      Those carrying hurts that we can’t see.
●      Those who are lonely, or afraid right now.
●      Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local level.
●      The students, teachers and school administrators in our community as they do the good work of education in these unconventional days.
●      Those seeking a strong sense of guidance and call.
●      In praise that some among us are beginning to receive their vaccine.
●      Guidance and wisdom as the congregation begins a new fiscal year.
●      Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer ministry).
 
You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,
 
Marshall

Beloved of God,
 
I hope that this first weekly letter of the new year finds you safe and well. As a point of personal privilege, I want to say thank you to all of you who in ways great and small were especially kind to me through the Christmas season. It is wonderful to be looked after and cared for the way that I have been, and it means an awful lot.
It is hard to believe, but our community reading of the Psalms will be wrapping up a week from Friday. If you have been reading along, I hope you’ll join us online to spend some time chatting about all we have learned and heard in the Psalms this time through. If you’d like  to help us pick a time to meet and/or fill out a brief reflection, you can do both here.        
Once the Psalm reading is over, I have written up a short little special session on the theology and biblical origin of our hymns. You’ll be getting more information about this short session in the coming week, but if you’d like to be in the loop, you can sign up here.
            The events of yesterday afternoon have been stuck in my head. I have been angry, and sad, and reminded that I myself can behave just as foolishly as those men and women did yesterday. It is a great gift that more people were not killed or hurt and a great tragedy that some were. But if I was reminded of something worthy yesterday it is that so often nothing of worth comes from our fury. We all know what it is to be angry, but to be truly and deeply wrathful, you have to assent to the idea that you are totally justified and without fault in your anger, and hardly ever is that the case.
            And so in my reading today, it was a great gift to run into Acts 9:10-19 and the story of Ananias. Ananias is told to go and meet a man who he knows would have him killed. Ananias goes as far as to protest to God, as if God didn’t know what sort of wickedness Saul had been up to. And yet, when God replies “He is my chosen instrument,” Ananias goes, and does as he’s told, and when he walks into the house of Judas on straight street the first words out of his mouth are “Brother Saul”!
I needed that word this morning. I think in my own life, with the anger and dismissal I can feel toward those who have been foolish or wicked it would have been easier for me to walk in and say “So, you are blind. And isn’t it fitting, for you’ve been blind all along!”. God’s intent for that moment was broader, and more restorative, and more creative than even Ananias may have imagined. And in that moment, Ananias was faithful to God’s plan, not his own more sensible one.
            May God save us from our own foolishness, and wrath. May God save us from hardness of heart both toward Him and each other. But most of all, may God save us from anything that would keep us from Him.
           
Please join me this week in praying for:

• An end to this pandemic.
• This nation; that it would be filled with justice, peace, and wisdom.
• Those of our number who are traveling, quarantining, or otherwise wrapping up holiday obligations.
• Doctors, nurses, PAs, paramedics, and other health care professionals working to keep us all safe and well.
• Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local level, and especially those taking up that responsibility for the first time this week.
• Students and teachers as they head back into the Spring semester.
• Parents as they send their children back to their studies, even if it’s just as far as the living room.
• Those of us who are sick, hurt, or seeking medical help during such an uncertain time.
• In praise for the gift of another year; may we use it well to grow in Christ’s love and further His Kingdom.
• One another (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list.

 
You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,
 
Marshall