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Scripture: Acts 1:12-26

Dear Church,

What does it look like to love the risen Lord?  Sometimes–much more often than we’d like–it looks like waiting.

In the book of Acts, Luke tells us that Jesus spent 40 days with his followers after his resurrection.  It was a season full of meals and ministry and teaching about the Kingdom of God.  And that season culminated in the ascension–Jesus and his disciples climbed the Mount of Olives and returned to the Father, and Jesus’ last words to them were–return to Jerusalem and wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Full of hope, fear and confusion, full of love and full of grief–at first, the disciples did just that.  They returned to the upper room and they waited…for a while.  And when waiting grew too uncomfortable, they quit and did what seemed best in their own eyes.  How often do we do the same? 

As we struggle to grieve and make sense of last week’s horrific terrorist attacks–this is a particularly hard and holy word.  

Beloved ones–sometimes God asks us to wait.  Love for God compels us to act, but also–sometimes–to refrain from acting until we are equipped to move with Jesus and not ahead of him.   The disciples were so eager for the Kingdom of God to come, they couldn’t stand to wait.  Often the most difficult thing God requires of us is nothing–not to rush ahead, not to fill the space, not to make a plan–not to start before we are ready.  Those who love the Holy One must learn how to wait. 

In three Sundays, we will celebrate Pentecost–the day God kept the promise and gave the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples.  It’s coming–but it’s not here yet.  Like the first disciples, we too are in the season between Easter and Pentecost.  We too must learn to listen and wait on the Lord.  

​It’s so much harder than it seems.  The first disciples couldn’t do it.  This Sunday we’re gathering around the story of what they did instead of waiting.  For me, looking into this passage has been like looking into a mirror.  I hope you’ll listen, to learn why and how to wait, and the good news of what God does when we just can’t manage it.

Peace,
Pastor Kate

p.s. Friends–we will be lifting up the names of those lost in last weekend’s mass shootings and addressing this tragedy in the message.  I wanted to let you know so you could make wise decisions about stewarding your mental health. 

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Scripture: Acts 9:18-31

Dear Church,

Last week in our ‘Make Love the Measure’ worship series we shared the story of Ananias, the foolishly faithful believer who trusted the Lord’s call and healed & welcomed a man named Saul.   That seems like a pretty ‘normal’ biblical story until you learn Saul was blinded by the Lord on his way to Damascus (Annanias’ hometown) on a mission to find and arrest all the believers living there.  Saul’s plan was interrupted by God, who came, not to punish Saul, but to transform him into the ‘chosen vessel’ to bring the gospel to Gentiles.

Usually when we tell this story, we skip from the story of Saul’s encounter with Christ to the stories of Paul’s incredible ministry planting churches across the known world.  But this Sunday, we are looking deep into what we normally overlook.  Because it wasn’t just the power of the Lord that changed Paul’s heart–it was the love of a community.

In Acts chapter 9, we catch a glimpse of the way two churches loved, healed, taught, and learned from a man who, in his former life had been responsible for the brutal deaths of their loved ones.  That’s the kind of wondrous love the Spirit empowers and requires of us in the body of Christ.  It’s the kind of love that still redeems and remakes the world–and it is our baptismal birthright.

I hope you’ll join us as we ponder how to be a church full of life-changing, destiny shifting love. 

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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

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Scripture: Acts 9:10-19

Dear Church

Ananias was a brave and faithful man who risked all he had, including his life, to follow Jesus.  One day the Lord called to him in a vision and told him to go and heal a man named Saul who had come to town to arrest and execute Christians.God told Ananias that this man, who was responsible for the deaths of many believers in Jerusalem, who had come to Ananais’ town to arrest and kill even more, this man–not any of the people he persecuted–was God’s ‘chosen instrument’ to carry the gospel to the nations.

The Lord did not promise Ananias he would protect him and keep him safe.

Ananias didn’t ask him to.

The vision Ananias received from the Lord was dangerous and confusing. Honestly–it was offensive. And we who see Jesus’ acceptance of death on a cross as the holiest expression of God’s love for humanity–we must expect to be shocked by the limitlessness of God’s love for all of creation. If your visions from the Lord never challenge you, if they only affirm and encourage–they may not be from Jesus. And if you have no interest in visions at all–your following is limited by your own capacity for love, not expanded by his.

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: John 21:1-25

Why Peter?

This Sunday we read the story of Jesus’ breakfast on the beach with Peter.  Scholars call it the rehabilitation of Peter.  Here we see Jesus re-claiming and re-commissioning Peter as the leader of the church. 

If you take the gospels seriously you ask questions, and sooner or later one of those questions has to be–why Peter?  Why does Jesus choose this arrogant, overconfident, impulsive, brash, cowardly, also-he-has-some-good qualities fisherman in the first place?  Surely there were more gifted, more worthy, more promising people (ahem–women!) around.  Why Peter? Especially after he doesn’t pray in Gethsemane, dices off a guy’s ear, denies  Jesus after his arrest, deserts him during the crucifixion and doesn’t believe at the empty tomb.  Peter doesn’t get it.  There isn’t a mistake Peter doesn’t make.  There isn’t a chance he doesn’t blow.  So, why Peter?   What exactly are Peter’s qualifications? What does he do right that’s so amazing it balances out all of the wrong?

Well, I’ll give you a hint.  We call Jesus’ Kingdom the Upside-down Kingdom, because everything here is exactly the opposite of what we expect.  Peter’s qualifications are his failures. They are the measure of God’s love, and yours are too.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Psalm 145, Luke 24:13-35 (NIV)

This is my favorite Sunday of the year, because the Sunday after Easter is the day ‘Alleluia, He is Risen!’ stops being a worship response and starts determining how we LIVE.

Because we believe that Jesus is risen, we make different choices–we live differently, work differently, form community differently.  Because Jesus is risen, we fight different battles in different ways, we celebrate different victories, and we find ourselves in a different family.  Because Jesus is risen–we think differently, see differently, love differently. For us, everything changes.  Because Jesus is risen–everything is new.  And while the scope of the change is cosmic, the way we change is deceptively simple.

Love becomes the way we measure everything.  And when love is the measure–everything is made new.

I hope you’ll join me as we look at a beautiful story in a new and transformative way.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 28:1-10

Dear Church,

On Good Friday, we gathered at 7 to watch and pray.  On Holy Saturday, as we waited, we walked the stations of the cross in our Labyrinth.

But friends–we know the end of the story.  We did not watch or wait as those without hope.  Sunday is coming–resurrection is coming.  I hope you’ll join us and add your hallelujah to the celebration.  We’ll be flowering the cross, so bring a bloom. (Don’t worry if you forget, we’ll have lots of extras!)

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 21:1-17

As he left Jericho and began his very last journey to Jerusalem, Jesus passed two blind men on the side of the road.  Hearing he was coming, the men cried out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!’  The crowd tried to shut them up and push them aside, but Jesus heard their voices and he stopped.  He asked them, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’

‘Lord, we want our sight.’  They called his name; they knew who he was–but they couldn’t see him.

And so–Jesus gave it to them and immediately they could see and began to follow him.  

On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus opened their eyes so they could see.  And once they could see, they began to follow.

And now we are entering into Holy Week.  Like those men on the side of the road–we also know who Jesus is, but there is still so much we can’t see.  We too need our eyes opened.  

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Dear Church,

Sometimes the good news sounds like bad news at first.  As we move deeper into the shadows of Lent, this is one of those times.

This Sunday we gather around the communion table and consider the words Jesus gave us when he gave us this sacrament: ‘This is my body, which is for you: do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way after supper he took the cup saying, ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ (1 Corinthians 11:23-25).

What if this is more than a ritual?  What if Jesus is showing us, in word and deed, a new way to live in a violent and broken world?   At the communion table we first see that there are treasures buried in grief and loss, church.

Most of us are completely uninterested in that revelation because we still desperately believe that Jesus is never going to allow anything unbearable to happen to us.  I wonder how we got that idea from a savior who taught us that life and salvation are found in his broken body and spilled blood?

God brings meaning, salvation, goodness, and life out of pain, injustice, violence and suffering.  This is bad news if you believe right living and believing is going to protect you from pain. 

But if you are grieving right now, if you are suffering the loss of a loved one, the loss of a dream, the loss of a future, the loss of security or hope — if you are wondering why, if God loves you and you love God, why, why, why did you end up here — then the news that God’s glory manifests most powerfully and tenderly and transformatively in the midst of suffering and in the face of death — that is good news indeed.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Luke 1:26-38 & Luke 1:46-55

Dear Church,

Today (if you are reading this note on Friday) is the day the church celebrates the annunciation of the Lord–the moment that the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, a poor young girl and announced that Almighty God was inviting her to become the mother of the messiah, son of God, the long awaited savior who would break the curse of the fall and finally crush the head of the serpent.  The savior who would change everything, turn creation upside down to set it right again.  And Mary said yes:  

Here I am, the servant of the Lord.  Let it be with me according to your will.

This moment–the annunciation—is about the brilliant light of God shining in the darkness.  Usually people assume it is the angel Gabriel who brings that light, but for me, Mary’s answer is the light which pierces the darkness.  She is old enough to know how the world is, old enough to understand the price she will pay, the risk she is taking, the centuries of condemnation, shame & rage that will crash down on her young shoulders.  But she says yes–because she also understands that the world that is, isn’t the world that could be–or the world that will be.  She believes God is good and trusts God for salvation, so she offers her whole self to God to do God’s will–even when it is beyond her understanding.

The light of Mary’s yes pierces the shadows of Lent–her faith-filled yes testifies that while the past has surely malformed the present, it will not distort the future.  The kingdom of God has broken in and the revolution has begun–bringing new creation that centers the weak–not the strong, the poor–not the rich, the sick–not the healthy.  This Sunday, we look at how the Holy Spirit is calling us–like Mary–to say yes to the ways that God is breaking the power of the past as Jesus unleashes new creation.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 16:13-26

Dear Church,

As we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us past what is bright and familiar into the shadows of our faith, we begin to see that many of our foundational assumptions about Jesus are unhelpful.  We rejoice that our savior is strong and powerful and unshakable–and he is.  But we overlook how Jesus uses his power and his strength.  We live in a world where the strong use their strength to please themselves.  We live in a world where the powerful wield their power against the weak.  We love to think and sing about the power of Jesus because we believe he will use it on our behalf, to give us the life we choose and protect us from all harm and distress.  Jesus does use his power for us–but to give us the life we need, not the life our broken hearts are set on.

We see the power and glory of God in Jesus most clearly, not when he works miracles or reveals supernatural knowledge, but when he surrenders to the will of God and embraces weakness, suffering and vulnerability.

Jesus promises to save us not by making us all-powerful and invulnerable–Jesus saves us in our weakness and through our wounds.

This isn’t the savior we want, but this is the savior we have.    A savior who cannot be followed in strength for power.  A savior we only find in our weakness and vulnerability.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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