Beloved of God,

I want to remind you that next week (9/3-9/6) we will be on a church retreat at Glorietta through the weekend. This means that I will not be present to preach and that the worship team will not be present to serve in person. However, I’m working on something for you for Sunday that I hope will still be an opportunity for meaningful and careful engagement with God’s word. Please consider coming up to the building and spending that time with others if you like.
Our semi-regular newsletter, The Rock, is going to press within the next two weeks. If you know of special things happening within our church body, please submit them to Vanessa for publication by 9/1. Photographs of any of our recent events are especially helpful.

Our Scripture reading for this week is Psalm 15. I’m reminded of the way someone wiser than I suggested that we read the wisdom Psalms. Many of them are written with the intent of having them wash over you, over and over, until you become the sort of person that fits them. And I think this is one all of us could read more than once.
These are behaviors that one would expect in a righteous person. They are matters of the heart, matters of the tongue, and matters of the pocket book. They are also strikingly everyday things. Did you seek to walk in righteousness today? Did you tell the truth? Did you speak plainly and generously about your neighbors and not succumb to slander? Did you deal honestly with your money?
We could do a lot worse than to lay our lives against something like this at the end of everyday to take the measure of what sort of person we are. But flagellating ourselves over what we did poorly or congratulating ourselves for what we did well isn’t the point. We read and reread something like this because it tells us how to respond in love to a God who has already saved us from our sins. We want to be these sorts of folks because it is a way to love God. Let’s seek to love God by living honorably this week.

Please join me in praying for:

• An end to this pandemic.
  
• Doctors, nurses, PA’s, paramedics, and others working to keep us all well.
• Those who are facing difficult personal, professional, and physical circumstances because of the pandemic.
• Students, teachers, administrators, and staff seeking to do the good work of education, and facing challenges early in the year.
• Those who are lonely, afraid, or tired in ways they have never been.
• Those of us worrying over family who are ill or injured.
• Wisdom as we seek to be faithful and be good neighbors.
• In praise for those who are have sensed a call to serve in our ministries this fall, and for strength and joy as they do.
  
• Each other! (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

​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