Holy Troublemakers -Week 4 // Micah 4 // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Micah 4:1-5

Dear Church,

The prophet Micah famously told us what the Lord requires of us–to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God. 

But before he told us what to do, he told us what God was going to do for us and through us.  King Hezekiah called the prophet to the throne room to give a message from God while the Assyrian army was laying siege at the city gates.  Facing inevitable doom, inexplicably, the prophet began to speak of peace.

A day is coming, he promised, when peoples of every nation will stream to Jerusalem, not to destroy it but to seek God’s wisdom.  After that day, people will melt down their weapons and refashion them into garden tools, because no one will make war anymore.

The Empires of this world only know how to make peace through violence.  But God’s peace will not come through violence.  I hope you will join me as together we will receive Micah’s vision and learn the only path that leads to God’s peace.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
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Holy Troublemakers -Week 3 // Jonah 4 // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Jonah 4:1-4

Dear Church,

Do you believe in repentance?

This week we turn to the book of Jonah–and that’s the question.  We like to pretend Jonah’s story is about obedience or the ‘problem of evil.’  But it isn’t.  The book of Jonah is about the problem of Goodness.  Ultimately, the book of Jonah asks us to consider whether or not we believe in repentance.

God does. 

Jonah doesn’t.

Do you?

We’ll consider how we feel about it when prophecy ‘works’ and people turn away from evil and commit themselves to faithful living with God.  That’s a feel-good story when we are the ones forgiven and made new.  But when it’s our enemies who are washed clean with a grace they don’t deserve and haven’t earned, it doesn’t feel so good. 

I hope you will join me as we confront the outrageously unfair goodness of God from the other side.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

Holy Troublemakers -Week 2 // Isaiah 58 // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Isaiah 58:1-63:14

Dear Church,

In the 58th chapter of the book of Isaiah, God tells the prophet to start shouting as loud as he can, raise his voice like a trumpet alarm and call out the people for their many sins and total rebellion against God.

So–that sounds terrible and terrifying, doesn’t it?  What were the people up to that was so awful?  Mass murder? Child abuse? Sexual immorality?  Turns out, God’s fury is focused on the people’s obsession with…fasting: 

Day after day they seek me out. They seem eager to know my ways.  They ask me for just decisions.  They seem eager for God to come near them.  And then they say, ‘why have we fasted, and you have not seen it?  Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?’

What. In. The. World? 

How can it be wrong that people seek God in worship? Why is God offended that they desire to know more and have greater intimacy? Isn’t a passion for fasting a good thing?

No.  Not like this.

Through Isaiah, God tells us that if fasting, praying or any ‘task’ of faith becomes a substitute for justice–something we do instead of living faithfully towards our neighbors–it’s anti-faith:

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?  Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

The truth is–there is a kind of fasting that delights God and makes us more faithful. And there is a kind of fasting (and praying and worshipping) that actually separates us from God.  God sent the prophet Isaiah to us because we have got to learn the difference!  The awe-full good news is that even and especially when we become obsessed with the wrong thing, God send the prophets to wake us up and lead us back home!

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

Holy Troublemakers -Week 1 // Ezekiel 10 // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Ezekiel 10:9-22

Dear Church,

In his sermon on the mount, Jesus says, ‘blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.’  In the very next breath, he says people should be encouraged and rejoice when they are persecuted and insulted and lied about, because this is what has always happened and what always will happen to the prophets.

Because peacemakers are prophets.

And prophets are troublemakers. 

They don’t predict the future–they speak for God when God’s people have stopped listening.  God fills the mouths of the prophets to speak behalf of the poor and powerless and vulnerable, because these lives reveal the health and holiness of our communities.

Philip Berrigan, a prophet if there ever was one, wrote, ‘the poor show us who we are.  The prophets tell us who we could be.  So we hide the poor and kill the prophets.’

We launch into a new worship series on the prophets this Sunday.  Expect to be uncomfortable.  Expect to be challenged.  Expect to be blessed.  First up–Ezekiel.  Eat your spiritual Wheaties friends.  These are the searing words of truth that sanctify us.

Ezekiel will tell us the truth that will set us free.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

#RealTalk-Week 4 // Handling Conflict // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Matthew 13:44-46, Luke 8:21 & 11:28

Dear Church,

Jesus liked to tell stories about seeking and finding.  He told one parable about a man seeking treasure who found some buried in a field.  He hid it again; went away and sold everything he had and then bought the field. 

We are all seeking treasure here.  We are searching for deep, true, real & joyful life with Jesus and one another at the Grove.  I believe Jesus has planted that longing in each of our hearts, and I believe that Jesus was telling the truth when he said that those who seek will find.  But I also believe that Jesus was telling the truth in his story about the treasure hidden in the field.  It will require real effort, real sacrifices and real risk to find what we are searching for. 

We will have to fight to become the healthy and holy church we are seeking.

Literally.

Sometimes, God will heal and grow and bless us through conflict.  But there is a right and a wrong way to approach conflict, and most of us have never been taught the difference.  There is a faithful way to fight that will bear fruit for the Kingdom.

I hope you will join me for the last installment of our #realtalk worship series.  We are going to dive into the practical dos and don’ts of conflict. We can’t avoid conflict–but we can learn how to make our fights worth having.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

#RealTalk-Week 3 // Embracing Conflict // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:7b-10

Dear Church,

#realtalk: My greatest fear is rejection.  Because I’m afraid of rejection, I really dread conflict.  For years, I avoided it like the plague.  I’d do anything to avoid having a painful conversation with anyone–much less someone I loved.  Maybe this is part of your story too.

But what I’m learning is, we can find deliverance in the very things we ask God to deliver us from.  Conflict isn’t a sin or a burden.  It’s a reality we navigate as humans. For years, my dream was to serve a church without any conflict.  But a church without conflict isn’t possible, and it certainly wouldn’t be healthy.  Now I see that conflict is just another opportunity for God to bless us.  Conflict is something we can get good at!

We need to have right expectations of the role conflict plays in healthy communities. And we need to learn how to participate in conflict in a holy way.  We need to learn how to ‘fight clean,’ trusting and expecting that God’s grace and power will bind us together, even as we seek peace. Conflict can help us grow into a healthy and holy community.

Together, I believe the Holy Spirit will teach us to have difficult, truth-filled and loving conflict that makes us a freer, safer and more joyful community!

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:

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#RealTalk-Week 2 // It Must Be Love // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It’s wedding season, so you may have heard these words recently on someone’s special day.  The trouble is, we tend to reserve Paul’s wisdom for ceremonial occasions, when we need them most on ordinary Tuesdays when the kids are late, the bills can’t be paid and the toilet is leaking.  We treat this revelation like a beautiful poem to be admired in a museum, instead of what it is: practical instructions for #realtalk.

Paul starts out saying, if I speak in the tongues of men or angels, have prophetic wisdom, mountain-moving faith or even all-encompassing generosity, it’s not enough.  None of it matters, unless I also speak and live love.

Culture hasn’t changed much in 2,000 years.  It’s still everyone’s goal to be interesting, wise, powerful and impressive.  That’s more than enough for the world, but Paul says-you can be all those things and still miss the mark.  If Jesus matters to you, then your everyday, ordinary #realtalk must be love. (spoiler alert: love is always kind but rarely nice.)

I hope you’ll join me as we lean into Paul’s wisdom.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

#RealTalk-Week 1 // Our Words Matter // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Genesis 1:1-5, John 1:1-5, Matthew 12:33-37 (NIV)

In Matthew 12, our Lord says that the words we use reveal who we are:

“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”

He’s not saying as long as we say one prayer one time, whatever else we say for the rest of our lives doesn’t matter. He’s saying our words show us who we really are. Our words shape us.

How we talk matters–there is nothing more powerful, more spiritual or more important than how we talk to one another.

Words make worlds.

I hope you’ll join me as we start our new #realtalk worship series.  Because the way we talk matters, because even more than our actions, our talking forms our community.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us

Pentecost // As I Have Loved You // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: John 14:15-31

Dear Church,

This Sunday is the most important day in the Christian year–and most of us have never heard of it.  We love to celebrate Christmas and the joy of the birth of our savior.  We love to celebrate Easter and the astonishing triumph of Resurrection.  The goodness and glory of God is certainly on display and worth celebrating on those holy days!

But this Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit into the hearts of all believers!  And Jesus himself says that Pentecost is the reason that he was born and the reason his death is not a loss for the world.  When he sat with his friends the night he was betrayed, he told them that he was ‘going away for a little while.’  That’s an extraordinary way to describe his impending betrayal, condemnation, crucifixion and death! And then he told them something even more astonishing.  He reassured them that it was good for them that he was going.

How could it be good for the people who loved Jesus that he was going to die?

Because–Jesus promises his frightened and confused friends who feel like he’s abandoning them–when he returns to the Father, he will ask God to send them the Holy Spirit.  And then, he will be even closer to them.   Once they are filled with the Holy Spirit, they’ll be even closer to Jesus than when they sit at the same table and share a meal with him. Once they are filled with the Spirit, Jesus will be living within them.

This Sunday, we celebrate the day Jesus kept his promise and poured his Spirit out upon the earth.  Because of Pentecost, we can never be separated from our Savior! 

Come and rejoice, friends! God still pours the Spirit out–

and there is more than enough for everyone!

Come and worship, church! 

This Sunday is literally the day we were made for!

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
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Grace Notes-Week 5 // Walk to Emmaus // Pastor Kate Murphy

Scripture: Luke 24:13-35

“We had hoped that he was the one…” (Luke 24:21)

These are some of the most poignant words in all of scripture.  They were spoken by two ex-disciples.  It was Easter afternoon, and they were heading back to their former lives.  They’d heard from the women about angels, they’d heard from the men about an empty tomb.  But none of that mattered to their broken hearts.  It turned out, Jesus wasn’t who they’d hoped he was.

Then, along came a stranger.  A curious stranger who didn’t seem to know anything about Jesus.  The ex-disciples had nothing better to do, so they filled him in on everything that had happened.  Not just what they knew, but also how they felt–their sadness and shame and disappointment.

And then a second miracle happens: they listen to the stranger.  They thought they were the experts, but all of a sudden, he’s teaching them, showing them how Moses and the prophets foretold things would happen in exactly this way.  They are so fascinated by the stranger, so engaged by the conversation, that they invite him to join them for dinner.

And then the third miracle happens.

As they sit at table, the stranger takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it to them and their eyes are opened, and they recognized him.  The stranger isn’t a stranger after all.  The stranger is Jesus, the one they thought they knew so well. 

I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to being with you all again! I am incredibly grateful for the time you gave me to step away and work on my book, but I have missed being with you so much.  I follow Jesus better when I walk with you. 

We are living the truth of the Emmaus story at the Grove. Those who once were strangers have become treasured friends.  There are vital truths about Jesus that we can never discover for ourselves, we can only receive them from one another.  Now, as then, Jesus reveals himself to us in our friendships with those who once were unknown to us.  No matter how mature we are, we will never outgrow our need for one another.   

Peace,

Pastor Kate

Want to chat about what you have heard? Click here:
https://www.thegrovecharlotte.org/connect-with-us