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Dear Church,

All the hip young cool pastors have tattoos of their favorite Bible verses.  I am none of those things, and for this and many reasons I will never get inked.  But, if I did–it would be Exodus 3:12: And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

When he was young, Moses had dreams of being a revolutionary.  Though he grew up as Pharaoh’s son, he believed that he could set his people free.  And he tried and he failed, and he ran for his life and found…a comfortable one.  Minding his own business, a productive middle manager in his father in law’s shepherding business.  Until the day God pulled him aside and called back into the fight for freedom and justice–right back to the place of failure he’d spent his whole adult life putting behind him.  And when he asked God for a sign that God would make sure he wouldn’t flail and fail again, God said–and I’m paraphrasing Exodus 3:12–when you’re done, you’ll know it was me who did it.

#thanksGod

Life with God is abundant–it’s freedom, it’s flourishing, it’s receiving the grace to become the person you were created to be.  AND–it’s also deeply, deeply uncomfortable.  It’s walking toward the deepest places of suffering and pain in your world.  It’s facing all the parts of yourself and your past you’d rather run from.  It’s never going alone again.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 5:1-12

Dear Church,

…poor – …meek – …mourning – …hungry & thirsty
…persecuted – …merciful – …peacemakers

Jesus climbed up a mountain and sat down to teach about his kingdom.   He began by saying that those were the blessed ones–the poor, meek, sad, longing, wounded, conflicted, persecuted ones.  How strange the realm of God is to us.  Most of us come to God seeking blessings–but these are not the blessings we desire.  If these are blessings, we pray for an empty cup.

This Sunday we begin a new worship series called ‘Uncomfortable Blessings,’ exploring the ways that God meets us, grows us, heals us and–yes–blesses us in the most difficult and painful times in our lives.  The irony is not lost on me that we’re turning to these ideas as many of us are living in one of the most prolonged seasons of discomfort and loss of our lives.  

But I promise you, church–this is good news.

Because Jesus has no need to lie to us.  Here he is reassuring us that even in our most broken human moments, God’s goodness hovers over us.  When our hearts are shattered by this fallen world, God’s goodness gathers the shards and binds us back together in grace.  Even when we are forced to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God’s goodness and mercy chase after us.  Wherever we are, however we are–God’s goodness follows and finds and frees us.

Jesus is announcing that the goodness of his Kingdom lifts up and restores those the world grinds down.  If your heart is heavy, if your soul is weary, this good news is especially for you.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Dear Church,

‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.’  (Matthew 8:1-4)

For me, these are some of the most poignant words in all of scripture.  They were spoken by a man who was known, not by his name, but by his disease–leprosy.  His disease defined him and divided him from his community.  This Sunday we look at the final piece of our church’s mission statement–coming alive in Christ–and this story is particularly relevant because in Jesus’ day, people who contracted leprosy were considered spiritually dead.  Lepers were the original walking dead.  They still existed, but they could never belong.  Once you were identified as a leper–that was it.  You could never come back.

This man knew that Jesus could change his life, but he wondered if he would.  Many of us are living this story.  We know Jesus is able, but we too wonder if he is willing.

Friends–I hope you’ll join me as we consider what it means for us that Jesus is still able, and still willing to heal and restore the walking dead to life and community. What does it mean to be a community that doesn’t just read that story–but lives it?  What does it mean for us to join our brother, the no-longer-leper, walking in new life in Christ?

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King taught that ‘everybody can be great because anyone can serve.”

It makes sense that Dr. King thought this way–because he was a follower of Jesus, and Jesus taught that ‘the greatest among you shall be servant of all.’   In the Kingdom of God, greatness comes from serving, not being served–and that’s why serving is the heart center of our mission and life together at the Grove.  

But it’s not enough that we choose to serve–we must serve with mutuality, humility and deep, deep love.  We must serve like Jesus (John 13:1-17),

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Dear Church,

Ever since you took my hand, I’m on the right way.  (psalm 16:11, the message)

We stand on that glorious promise as we begin a new year together.  We stand with courage and hope–not because we’re confident about what’s going on around us or what’s within us–but because God has taken our hands and is leading us on the right way.  We can joyfully renew our commitment to our mission (inviting all to serve and come alive in Christ) because we’re not on our own.

Jesus is leading us (maybe sometimes dragging us) by the hand.  

This Sunday, we start at the beginning–inviting all.  

One of the most beautiful things about our life together is the love we have for one another.  But we must never forget that all who belong are not here yet.  The family hasn’t fully gathered.  Our mission is to always search the horizon to see how the Lord is leading us–not just to welcome, but to invite into the joy and belonging we find in Jesus.  

I hope you’ll join us as our friend Cedric Lundy preaches from Ephesians 2:11-16, to show why we are called to create a culture of inviting all–and how to do it!  

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 7:7  & Jonah 2:1-3:2

I have no resolutions for this new year. 

What I do have is a tremendous well of gratitude for the gift of being church with you all, a defiant hope in all that God is doing in our midst and a fierce resolve to partner as fully as I can with God and all of you in the days to come.

This Sunday, we begin a new worship series called “re:”. It’s a nod to all of those words we throw around in the month of January–recommit, renew, refresh, reclaim.  As is our tradition, we’ll be walking through the three parts of our unique mission at the Grove (inviting all to serve and come alive in Christ).  But first, this Sunday I’ll be sharing with you a word of the year that I hope will give us common focus and purpose for life together in our next season of being the Grove.

Curious?

I’ll leave you with some of the beautiful lyrics from the new songs Edmond and the team will be sharing with us–new songs for a new season, eternal truths that will anchor us for whatever lies ahead:

I’ll never be more loved than I am right now
Wasn’t holding you up
so I can never let you down…
Going through a storm but I won’t go down
You’ve never been closer than you are right now…

The song is holy because it’s true. 

Let’s learn to sing it–and live it–together with the Holy Spirit in the year to come!

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Dear Church,

It’s a new year, and something wholly new lies before us.  This is true every day, but most of the time we don’t know it.  We don’t notice.  Because of Jesus, we are always standing on the threshold of a new season, a new revelation, new possibilities with God–but often we are too blinded by fear, stress and familiarity to cross over.

This Sunday, we look at the story of Epiphany--where everyone receives the revelation that the messiah has come.  And most people do… nothing.  They are invested in the life they have.  They aren’t interested in participating in the new thing God is doing in their midst.  Or worse–they actively oppose it with deception and horrific violence.  The story of Epiphany shows us the gamut of human responses to God–we can participate in what God is doing, we can ignore it or we can actively oppose God’s will.

Every day we choose how we respond to the coming of Christ into the world.  Christmas is our celebration of the revelation that God is for us and here with us saving us.  But with revelation comes responsibility.  Now that we know, now that we have rejoiced–will we allow God to lead us to step into the new life Christ brings?  Or will we pack up our decorations and pick up where we left off?

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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The marketplace loses interest in Christmas after December 25th–while our sacred tradition sets aside twelve days to celebrate the savior, born to us as a child in the manger.  These days are not after-Christmas, after all.  They are set apart for our collective wonder, designated time to ponder in our hearts what this means for us.  This is when the holidays once again become holy days.

Please join Pastor Barbara Smith for the message this Sunday–on the second day of Christmas.  Too much has happened for us to rush on to what’s next.  The holy celebration isn’t over.  In fact–it’s just begun.

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This time of year, you can’t turn on a radio without hearing someone sincerely sing the question, Mary, did you know?   It’s a beautiful song with a haunting melody, but if you read Luke 1, it’s clear.  She knew.  She was all in from the start.

The real question is…what did Joseph know and when did he know it?

Because Matthew 1:18 says that Mary ‘was found out to be pregnant’ after they were engaged but before they were married.  It goes on to say that because Joseph was ‘faithful to the law’ he made up his mind to divorce her quietly.  And I wonder–how did Joseph learn Mary was pregnant?  Did Mary come and tell him and try to make him understand?  Did someone else find out and tell him, and if so–did he try to talk to her at all?  Did he listen and not believe–or was he so certain he already knew what was going on that he didn’t bother to ask?  When the angel appeared to him in a dream and told him Mary’s pregnancy was from God–was that new news, or confirmation that Mary’s improbable story was true?

My whole life I’ve been taught to celebrate Joseph’s compassionate decision to put her aside quietly–to see it as proof that he was a very, very good man, to see it as the most anyone could expect of a righteous God-fearing man.  But now I wonder if we’ve been reading this part of the story all wrong.  Is Matthew trying to get us to celebrate Joseph’s righteousness–or to warn us, that even our most faithful and righteous choices can be in opposition to what God is trying to do in the world?

Is Joseph a model we try to live up to–or a warning we try to learn from?  It all depends on what he knew and when he knew it. 

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Saint Matthew begins his gospel with what looks like a long, boring, irrelevant list of names:

Perez begat Herron, Hezron begat Ram, Ram begat Amminadab, Amminadab begat Nahshon…

Why in the world are the names of these long dead men included? What could their lost stories possibly have to teach us about the coming of Jesus?

We begin to understand once we remember that this is a redemption story.  Christ comes to redeem all of God’s creation–to reclaim and refashion it for God.  That means no piece of human history is left out–no life is untouched.  Learning these strange names–and about the lives behind them–uncovers the blinding scope and power of God’s redemptive work in Christ.  Uzziah, Shealtiel, Jehoshaphat and Zerrubbabel–all of their stories are part of the story of Jesus.  I hope you’ll join me to learn how. (If nothing else, it’ll be fun to watch my struggle to pronounce their names!)

Peace,
Pastor Kate

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