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Scripture: Genesis 28:10-22

Dear Church,

In recent years we’ve dedicated the month of January to renewing our commitment to our mission here at the Grove.  We’ve done a deep dive on the three parts of our mission statement (inviting all to serve and come alive in Christ).

Every year we’re on the same mission, but each year is a new season with its own beautiful gifts and challenges. 

I hope you’ll join me as we gather around the story of God’s promise to our ancestor Jacob and reveal our ‘word of the year,’ It’s a word that captures God’s posture towards us and inspires our posture towards one another and our neighbors.  I’m excited to share it with you!

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 14:13-21

Dear Church,

Each January our community returns to its mission–inviting all to serve and come alive in Christ–to review, to renew, to recommit.  This Sunday, we focus on the call to serve that’s at the center of our common life and the story of the feeding of the crowd in Matthew 14.  Most bibles give this passage of scripture the subtitle ‘Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand,’ but it wasn’t Jesus who did the feeding.  The disciples ended up feeding the people that day, but only after they tried to send them away. 

The disciples had been serving the crowd with Jesus all day.  They noticed the growing hunger in the crowd, but assumed it was not their job.  They came to Jesus and asked him to send the people away so they could find food for themselves.  After all, they signed up to ‘fish for people,’ not feed them fish.  They assumed people were responsible for caring for their own physical needs.

They were wrong. 

They didn’t understand the assignment.

And we continue to struggle.  Some of us feel that people’s spiritual needs are all that matter.  Others of us are convinced that our call is only to meet physical needs.  A few understand that everything, every need, every encounter is spiritual, but are paralyzed by their own limited resources.

Today we consider how the power of Jesus still flows through us to meet the needs we notice.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 3:1-17

Dear Church,

This Sunday we are looking at another one of those rare stories that appears in all four gospels, the baptism of Jesus.  If you have even the most rudimentary understanding of baptism–or of Jesus, this is a moment that does not make sense. 

I don’t know about you, but I was taught that baptism was for the forgiveness of sins, and I was also taught that Jesus didn’t have any sins.  So, what’s Jesus doing being baptized? If you are wondering this, you are in good company because Jesus’ baptism really confused and offended John the Baptizer as well.  When Jesus came before him to be baptized, John refused to do it saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, why are you coming to me?’  It makes it look like Jesus is confused about who he is and what’s going on here.

But of course, Jesus isn’t confused–we are.  And that’s his answer to John, ‘it needs to be this way now, this is what will fulfill all righteousness.’  What seems right and righteous to us doesn’t to Jesus.  In fact, the righteousness of Jesus is often unrecognizable to us.

Friends, there was nobody more all in and fully committed to Jesus than John.  The man ate bugs, for God’s sake.  Literally.  But when John actually came face to face with Jesus,  when John encountered not an idea about Jesus or a ministry task for Jesus, but Jesus in his flesh–Jesus made him uncomfortable.  Jesus challenged John’s expectations and his ministry practice and his faith.  The righteousness of Jesus wasn’t what he expected.  He couldn’t recognize it as holy. 

Every January we spend a season examining and reclaiming our mission as a church, together as a community.  I hope you’ll join us as we learn how John’s encounter with the Lord and the higher righteousness displayed in the baptism of Jesus can guide and shape us as we recommit to the first part of our mission, inviting all people to share in the goodness we’ve found in Jesus and one another.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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

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Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12

Dear Church,

The world has moved on from Christmas, but we are still wrapped up in wonder, joy and celebration of Jesus.  I hope you are still savoring the astonishing words of the angel who announced the birth to the shepherds, who were still working hard in the dark of a cold night, ‘Do not be afraid,  I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people.  Today, in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is the messiah, the Lord.’

The world has rushed on to gawk at the New Year, promising us that if we plot resolutions and self-improvement plans we can change everything for ourselves and finally be happy.  But the Spirit invites us to imagine a different kind of life, one that does not ask us to lose weight, get organized, work harder, save more money or do anything else to become acceptable in our own sight.  The Spirit finds us in our dark nights and whispers that although Jesus was born long ago, he was born for us too, he is our messiah-savior-the-one-we’ve-been-waiting-for, he will be Lord of the lives we already have.  There is peace, there is wholeness, there is freedom for us here and now, in him.  The one who has changed everything does not require us to change before he loves and accepts us.  In him, we find the abundant life the self-help-industrial-complex promises us.

This New Year’s Day we will continue to keep Christmas as we celebrate Epiphany, the story of the wise ones who followed a strange star that led them to Jesus and the revelation that the child born King of the Jews was also born the redeemer of all creation.  From the very beginning, the circle of salvation was widening to include those who are strangers to us but known as beloved to God.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Tonight we gather to worship on Christmas Eve, the most sacred night of the year, to rejoice in the marginless nature of God’s love and salvation.  Come and hear. Rejoice in the good news: our God has come to bring us boundless love, forgiveness, peace, and joy.

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Scripture: Luke 1:26-38

This Sunday we light the fourth Advent candle for love and turn to the story at the heart of this season.  I know everyone focuses on the babe in the manger, the shepherds, and angels and all the glorious details of the birth, but hidden in the quiet months of waiting before the birth there was a conversation that changed everything.  Scholars, artists, and poets call that moment the annunciation–the time an angel of the Lord appeared to an ordinary young girl and told her who she was in the eyes of the Lord and asked her to yield her life, her very flesh, to the Holy Spirit and bear the Christ child into the world.

Before there was the birth, there was a moment when God asked a question and waited for an answer and the story of salvation hinged on her reply.

This is a story we return to year after year, because it is not just Mary’s story.  Because the story of every believer includes an annunciation.  God comes to each of us–man, woman and child–to tell us who we are in the eyes of the Lord and to invite us to yield our whole selves to the power of the Holy Spirit so that we too can bear Christ into the world.  Jesus is still born among us when we say yes to the impossible invitation of incarnation.

I hope you will join me as we listen deeply to Mary’s annunciation in order to hear our own.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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

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Scripture: Zephaniah 3:17

Dear Church,

This Sunday we light the candle for Joy on the Advent wreath–and we will hear the words the prophet Zephaniah speaks over us:

The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save;

He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.

Come and hear the song of comfort and love God is singing over you, over us, this Sunday.  I hope you will join me for our Christmas Cantata.  There will be singing and dancing, scripture and psalm and so, so–so–much joy. 

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 3:1-12 & Matthew 12:15-24

Dear Church,

The prophet Isaiah foretold the coming of the messiah and described to the people the one they were waiting for:

he will proclaim justice to the nations.
He will not quarrel or cry out;
No one will hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he has brought justice through to victory.
In his name the nations will put their hope

There is a lot about Jesus that confuses and offends us.  He refuses to meet our expectations.  He consistently does the very opposite of what we expect.  Instead of saving us by erasing what is weak and imperfect, instead of tearing out bruised reeds and smashing smoldering wicks, instead of destroying our enemies, Jesus saves…tenderly.

It is the tenderness of Jesus that redeems us.  It is in the tenderness of Jesus that we have hope.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5; 11:1-10

Dear Church,

‘There is no avoiding the fact that we live at the mercy of our ideas.  This is never more true than with our ideas about God.”

These words, from one of Dallas Willard’s books on prayer, leapt out at me this week.  They weren’t the main point, but I couldn’t move past them.  I was stunned by how true they are.  We are at the mercy of our ideas about God.  And oftentimes our ideas about God are more formed by our experience in the world, our wounds & triumphs, our fears and desires than by the revelation of scripture and our experience of God.  If we think that God is angry or tired of us, if we think that the world is so disfigured by sin that it is only worthy for destruction, if we think God isn’t able or interested in helping or knowing us, then our lives will be shackled and shaped by those thoughts.  Truly, we will be at the mercy of our most merciless thoughts.

I don’t share this to challenge you to control your thoughts or give you permission to beat yourself up.  I’m sharing them with you as an invitation into the season of Advent that begins this Sunday.  Because all the good news of scripture could be summed up in this one simple statement: God is not who we expect.  A life of freedom and wholeness begins when we replace our thinking about God with the revelation of scripture.  During Advent, we prepare for the coming of the Lord.  We prepare for the birth of our savior, yes.  But that is only the beginning.  We also prepare and wait and hope for the end of the story–and the end is not what we expect.  It’s not destruction, it’s renewal.  It’s not rejection, it’s redemption.  It’s not suffering, it’s comfort.

We need to replace our ideas about God with the promises of God: weapons into tools of harvest, wolves playing with lambs, desert lands blossoming into life, gladness and joy overtaking us as sorrow and sighing run away.  These are not our ideas.  No human heart could conceive this goodness.  The revelation of God’s truth frees us from merciless ideas and brings us unspeakable peace.

I hope you’ll join me for worship this Sunday at 10 am, in the sanctuary or on the livestream, as we worship and receive the first gift of this season–the peace that comes from replacing our ideas about God with the truth of Christ.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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