Dear Friends in Christ,

A great theological concern is occasioned by a powerful challenge of faith. Theologians call it “the problem of evil.” It’s prompted by this question of faith: ‘If God, who created life is so good, why does evil exist?’

Many have attempted to answer this question. But most answers are less than satisfactory. For instance, most people commonly answer this question by saying, “Evil exists and bad things happen because God has given us free will. While this sounds sensible, it doesn’t solve the problem of evil because it doesn’t address the fact that many bad or evil things occur as a result of natural disasters that typically “just happen.”

So where does this leave us? While pondering this question, this phrase popped into my mind: “Nature just is, but human nature isn’t?” What do I mean by this?

I mean to say, “nature is both evil (awful might be more accurate) and good” (Or, nature is neither.) Thus, we might say, “nature is (simply) what it is – a structure of God’s creation that permits both what we call good and bad or evil things to happen.

On the other hand, “human nature isn’t simply what it is,” because we can make choices, good or bad, life-giving or life-taking. And, we can change; we can make better – or worse – decisions that either enhance or thwart what’s good. Another way of saying this is that our choices matter – sometimes even with respect to nature itself – because they make a difference in the amount of good – or evil – in the world.

Ultimately, we can ignore or address “the problem of evil.” But, regardless of whether we answer its question to our satisfaction or not, we can simply live a life of more faithfulness – making choices that maximize goodness and minimize what’s bad or evil.

Lent is a time for journeying toward Easter not so much to answer theological questions as faith-related, moral questions. So, it is, on the coming Sundays before Easter, we’ll continue to consider our stewardship of sin by addressing what may separate us from doing more good with our lives. I hope you can join us.

Blessings of the Lenten Season,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,
Having been away for two weeks, I haven’t yet attended our Wednesday night study group during Lent. But I have been reading what attendees have been discussing in this year’s UCC Lenten Devotional, “Into the Deep.” Have you?

If you haven’t, you’re missing out on some thoughtful reflections that can help you prepare for Easter. One example is Rev. Vince Amlin’s reflection entitled, “Are you Chicken?” It’s based on Luke 13:31-32 & 34-35. This text describes the moment when some Pharisees informed Jesus that Herod intended to kill him. To them, Jesus said, “Tell that fox, I am casting out demons and performing cures, and in three days I’ll finish my work.” Then, he cries out to all: “Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”

Of this text, Amlin suggests we’re often so “seduced” by the comforting metaphor of Jesus as a mother hen that we miss his challenge and “take our eye off the fox.” In other words, we don’t name and confront the sources of evil in our lives – evil which sometimes lurks within us and sometimes in others – especially in those to whom we give too much power.

The ultimate point here is this: those who follow Jesus are called to identify and take on evil despite any fears they harbor because they are held securely by Jesus’ – and God’s – love. The Lenten question is: to what degree will we trust in this love and set the stage for Easter’s coming?

Blessings of Faith,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ, 

Today, Ash Wednesday, begins the season of Lent.  It’s the season for preparing for Easter.  It begins by our following Jesus into the wilderness to confront our demons just as Jesus confronted the Satan in his life.  

What are our demons?  They are constituted by those aspects of our lives and living that distance us from our best selves – and the hopes and purposes that God has for our lives.   

I can’t tell you what your personal demons are; only you – and those closest to you – know – along with God.  What I can tell you is that because you are human you have demons that require your confronting their power in your life.  And, I can tell you that if you do not consider and confront them, you will not be able to turn from them to move forward in new ways.  Which is sad, because when we are prisoners of our demons, we will not be fully prepared for Easter and its promise of raising us to new life.    

So, I hope you will engage in some form of preparation for Easter during this season of Lent.  If you’re unable or unwilling to join our Wednesday night group that will be reading and discussing the Lenten daily devotions contained in the UCC Devotional entitled Into the Deep, I hope you will obtain and read it – or some other alternative – for yourself.

Whatever you choose to do, Jerusalem awaits.  And, I pray as you make your way there, you will experience giving up some aspect of your life that frees you for receiving the fullness of God’s grace that is resurrection!

Blessings of Lenten Repentance,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,
A change of season is upon us. I’m not thinking of Mother Nature’s progression from Winter to Spring! I’m thinking of the church and Lent. This upcoming Sunday is Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday of Epiphany.

Epiphany is – and has been – a season for discovering some “a-ha’s” about Jesus. On Transfiguration Sunday, we find Jesus in good company. To three followers who climb a mountain with him, he appears in dazzling white clothes conversing with Elijah and Moses, two Hebrew heroes of old. Then, these followers hear a voice from a bright cloud, presumably God’s, say, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” It’s all a sign of Jesus’ importance.

The question is today, two thousand years later, how important is Jesus to us – and in what ways? We’ve explored various expressions of this question during Epiphany. We’ve asked: What have others said about Jesus? Then, we’ve asked an even more important question about him, a personal one: What do we say about him?

But there’s still one remaining question, this most important one of all: What do we do with – and in – our lives because of Jesus? How do you answer this one?

Blessings of Christ-related, “A-ha!” Moments in Your Life,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ, 

This week I received a disturbing e-mail from Church World Service.  It’s a global aid organization I’ve supported for decades as has every UCC Church I’ve served.  (And, I’ve walked in many of its sponsored CROP Walks for Hunger for many years since I was 16.)

The e-mail informed me that due to cuts in its funding from USAID brought on by the implementation of President Trump’s executive orders, all but its essential staff members – defined as those serving the most vulnerable of clients – were being furloughed.  Amongst the many services ended include those to 4200 refugees in the U.S. fleeing war and persecution in their homelands!  (See CWS’ website for details.)

Now multiply this effect thousands of times over.  Church World Service is but one of many agencies that support the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.  

In response to the implementation of the President’s executive orders, variously characterized by Washington observers as unjust,  immoral, and illegal (as well as by Christian leaders as un-Christ-like), Christian Pastor Diana Butler Bass wrote a blog for followers of Jesus entitled, “Love Relentlessly.”  And, when poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer read this blog, she wrote a poem based on its title.  This is it:

What Comes Next

“Love relentlessly.”  – Diana Butler Bass

“Love relentlessly”, she said, and I want to slip these two words
into every cell in my body, not the sound of the words, but the truth of them,
the vital, essential need for them,
until relentless love becomes a cytoplasmic imperative,
the basic building block for every action.
Because anger makes a body clench. Because fear invokes cowering, shrinking, shock.
I know the impulse to run, to turn fist, to hurt back.
I know, too, the warmth of cell-deep love—
how it spreads through the body like ocean wave, how it doesn’t erase anger and fear,
rather seeds itself somehow inside it,
so even as I contract love bids me to open wide as a leaf that unfurls in spring
until fear is not all I feel.
“Love relentlessly.”
Even saying the words aloud invites both softness and ferocity into the chest,
makes the heart throb with simultaneous urgency and willingness.
A radical pulsing of love, pounding love, thumping love,
a rebellion of generous love,
tenacious love, a love so foundational every step of what’s next begins
and continues as an uprising, upwelling, ongoing, infusion of love, tide of love, honest love.

As I struggle with how to respond faithfully to the non-normative, inhumane actions of political leaders in Washington, I find this poem touching and helpful, if not comforting.  How about you?

Blessings of Faithfulness and Peace,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,

Jesus was a Jewish teacher who sometimes employed the Socratic method.  In the four gospels, he asks more than 200 questions!

We’re considering an important question this week.  After asking, “Who do other people say I am?”  Jesus asks his followers, “But who do you say I am?”  This sequence is found all three Synoptic-or similar-gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Jesus wants to know how the disciples’ understandings as close followers compare to those who watch at a distance.  His is, therefore, a great question for church members who follow Jesus.  Who Jesus is for us matters for it may affect the nature and quality of our beliefs and expressions of faith in his name. 

It also matters because there are many understandings about Jesus’ identity.  Probably you’ve learned more than a few along your faith journey because you’ve matured in your thinking, or you’ve studied, or you’ve had a few teachers and listened to a few preachers! 

Some of your understandings may be common, perhaps “orthodox.”  Some may be uncommon, even “non-orthodox.”  By others’ understandings, your understanding may even be labeled heresy.  But, whatever others say, what matters is what you say.  For it’s your life in Christ, we’re talking about. 

On Sunday, you’ll have a chance to reflect on your understandings of Jesus.  I hope you find it a meaningful moment in your life of faith.  For ours is a journey on which, as poet, Robert Frost, reminded us in Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening, “(we Christians) all have promises to keep, and miles to go before (we) sleep!”

Blessings Along the Way, 

Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,
An important moment during our interim time is coming soon: publication of the church profile by the Designated-Pastor Search Committee. It is, especially for the members of the Search Committee, an exciting moment. They’ve worked long and hard to prepare a profile that represents your history and current qualities as a congregation accurately. They deserve much thanks and prayer as they enter into a new phase of the search process: receiving and reading prospective pastors’ profiles, interviewing, and – ultimately – discerning a recommended candidate for your consideration and vote.

This moment marks a transition for me, as well, in my ministry amongst you. Once the profile is released I will no longer attend Search Committee meetings or directly support its work. A NH Conference UCC Minister will be responsible for this. So, I’ll have more time for other work. How will I spend it? I plan to turn my attention to other tasks we’ve identified. Two of the most important are the VLT’s envisioning ways of reaching out into the community and the Stewardship Team’s discerning ways to increase budgeted revenue.

The first task, reaching out, is important because if a church wants to grow with new people today, it cannot simply be a welcoming congregation whose members sit around waiting for people to walk through the door; it must become a pro-active, inviting congregation in which members build relationships with people outside the church walls and share the good news of what’s going on inside, as well as outside, its walls.

The second task, increasing income, is important because if a church wants to support a staff and an older building it must have sufficient revenue to do so. And when, as is the case here, more than 70% of the pledged income comes from those aged 60 and older, the viability of maintaining current forms and levels of ministry may be at risk.

What can you do to help? Pray for this church, pray for its leaders, pray for their stewardship of its well-being, and participate in the conversations that are sure to come as leaders share new ideas they deem worth trying!

Blessings of Faith in Christ and Faithful Stewardship of Christ’s Church,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,

As a Christian, I believe following the teachings and actions of Jesus for living on earth is more important than beliefs about him with respect to eternal life in heaven. Therefore, I’m interested in the relationship between religion and politics because the latter is one way we put our faith into action.  Fundamentally, I believe my faith ought to be considerate and thoughtful – and inform my political ideology accordingly.  This is what Jesus teaches when he responds to a question about paying taxes to Caesar by saying: “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” 

So, I was interested in Monday’s Inauguration Day.  As a citizen, I harbored some concerns about statements the new President made in his inaugural speech as well as executive actions he signed in the evening.  But as a Christian, there was something that caused me even greater concern. Frank Bruni, professor of journalism and public policy at Duke University captured it in a N.Y. Times  op-ed column entitled, “The Line in Trump’s Speech that Will Echo in Time.”  He wrote:

Recalling the day in Butler, Pa., in July when “an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear,”  Trump said that “I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason.  I was saved by God to make America great again.” That’s the keeper this time around — Trump’s trademark narcissism and usual grandiosity, along with an unsettling measure of theocracy, in one profoundly disturbing sentence.  And it’s a signal of the sureness that he feels about all the executive orders that he then went on to promise, all the legislation that he foreshadowed and all the changes, from a militarized border to a war on wokeness, that he vowed.

I’m concerned because when a political leader believes they are saved by God to be a savior, they have a tremendous responsibility to be respectful, caring, and humble – like Jesus.  Now, ask yourself: To what degree does the President demonstrate having these qualities?  Your answer will tell you something about your responsibilities as a Christian – and U.S. citizen – during the time ahead.  And, checking your answer out with other Christians will tell you even more.  

Blessings of Faith in Christ for the Following of Jesus, Pastor Ed  

Dear Members & Friends,
When Barbara and I carried our firstborn out of the hospital where he was delivered, it was by way of an elevator “packed like sardines.” We were jammed against the doors. And, when that crowded elevator’s doors opened onto the hospital lobby floor, Barbara and I simultaneously exclaimed, “Thank God that’s over!”

Now, some might have thought we were referring to that elevator ride, but we weren’t; we were referring to the longer, more difficult three days that we’d spent in the hospital that included a day long delivery. But, no sooner were our words out of our mouths than there came from the back of the elevator a voice saying: “It’s only just beginning!” It was our delivering obstetrician who knew what we’d gone through, and he was referring to the parenting ahead of us!

Following Christmas, many a happy, but relieved, person may be found exclaiming, “Thank God it’s over!” They’re usually referring to their rituals of Christmas celebration. But, if stop to consider carefully, they may hear another voice, one saying: “It’s only just beginning!”

In prose entitled The Work of Christmas, 20th century American author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader, Howard Thurman captures the spirit of this voice:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost, to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.

For us who belong to Christ’s church, the work of Christmas is just beginning – yet again! And, 2025 will offer plenty of both the usual – and unique – kinds of opportunities. Will we be ready?

Blessings in Christmas work, Pastor Ed