Dear Salem FCC Friends in Christ,

Last Saturday 3 members of our newly formed Church Vitality Team: Heather Milliken, Kaddy, Ackroyd, Bridget Detollenaere, and I attended a workshop sponsored by the New Hampshire Conference. It was entitled, What Makes for a Vital Church and was led by former UCC church pastor and Massachusetts Conference Minister, Rev. Paul Nickerson. We all thought it was a worthwhile learning experience that offered us hope for the church’s future.

Soon, you’ll learn more about what we learned concerning five arenas of ministry for developing our church’s vitality: Visioning & Discernment, Connecting with New People, Funding our Future, Developing Disciples, & Retooling our Governance. After we discern our focus, we’ll develop a plan with the help of Paul who will serve as our coach for the coming six months. As soon as we have it,
we’ll share our plan with you.

The time ahead will engage all of us in important work as we prepare for the arrival of a new Designated Term pastor. For now, I simply want you to be aware of this team’s work so you may pray for us. And, I want to invite you to prepare for your own coming participation in this church vitality work by asking you to ponder this question: What is God calling us here to do next?

As you await to learn of our plan, please hold on to your responses to this question or let one of us know of them anytime.

Blessings of Promptings by the Holy Spirit,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ

Holy Week and Easter are behind us.  But the Spirit of Easter remains with us!   

Easter Sunday is but the doorway into a new season of life and living.  We are Easter people for a lifetime!

So it is, the church has given us the season of Eastertide.  Eastertide – I like the name, and I especially like its second syllable, tide.  For, like the ocean tide itself, Easter ebbs and flows with varying degrees of power and reach in our lives.  Some high tides are stronger and higher than others; some are lower and weaker.  Sometimes Easter’s tide – or Spirit – touches us powerfully and deeply; other times it hardly touches – or doesn’t even touch – us at all.  We need a season of exposure to Easter’s shoreline for its “seas” to  reach us and become a stronger force for resurrection in our lives and world! 

I hope you’ll find times and ways to walk Easter’s shoreline in this season – and beyond.  I hope you’ll even intentionally wade into – or go for a swim in – Easter’s “waters.”  

So, too, do I hope we’ll walk “Easter’s shoreline” as Christ’s church here in Salem!  Maybe we’ll even wade – or take a dip together – in its “waters” of new life!  We’ll see…

Blessings of Eastertide,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,

In a year when we are reflecting during worship on our stewardship – taking care of the creation God has made, we’ve come to Holy Week. It’s a week when we focus on Jesus’ final life-giving deed that will be followed by God’s miraculous life-giving grace. So, what’s our stewardship got to do with it?

Gospel author Luke gives us a clue in his story of Jesus’ encounter with a rich young leader. He writes in his gospel:
A certain ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him …“You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother.’ ” He replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:18-22)

And, you may know the rest of this story: But when the ruler heard this, he became sad, for he was very rich. Jesus looked at him sadly and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! (Luke 18:23-24).

From this encounter, we learn that our stewardship of generosity in our sharing of money and resources with those less fortunate and having basic human needs may be hard, but matters – not only in the short-run, but in the long run, not just in the temporary “kingdoms” of this world, but in the “Kingdom of God” that is eternal.

Perhaps, this is why Paul, in his farewell speech to those in the congregation at Ephesus, encouraged them to work hard at helping “the weak” because “the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:35) And, maybe this is why Jesus said this in the first place: because giving matters now and for always!

Blessings of Easter’s Eternal Promise,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ

This upcoming Sunday is the first day of Holy Week. Now, I wonder: What comes to mind when you think of Holy Week?

Many worshipping Christians think of palm branches, the Maundy-Thursday Service of Tenebrae, and Easter. But, Holy Week is much more – even though it doesn’t include Easter! (Easter is the first day of the week after Holy Week!)

So what constitutes the “much more” of Holy Week? It starts with what we have called Palm Sunday. On this day, we’ve mostly – or exclusively – celebrated Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. But, it’s a more complex day, and there are two other “P’s” that constitute Palm Sunday: Passover and Passion. On the day of palm waving, Jesus entered Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. In doing so, he showed his passion: his desire for the deliverance of his people from Roman oppressiveness. He also displayed his willingness to risk his life for this deliverance, and it would lead to his Passion: his giving of his life his passion.

The “much more” of Holy Week also includes remembering Jesus’ righteous indignation and his overturning of tables in the Temple courtyard. It also includes remembering his expression of worry and sorrow: “If only you, Jerusalem, knew the things that make for peace,” he lamented (Luke 19:42).

Holy Week also includes what came after his celebration of Passover and constitutes part of our Maundy-Thursday Last Supper remembrance: his prayer and arrest in the garden followed by his confrontation with Herod and Pilate, all of which led to his execution on a Roman instrument of capital punishment, the cross.

Finally, there’s Holy Saturday with its prayer vigil and remembrance that because it was the Sabbath his grieving followers waited until early Sunday morning to make their way to Jesus’ tomb to prepare his body for burial.

So it is, Holy week contains more elements from Jesus’ life than we often remember, but we’ll encounter all of these during our Holy Week worship. And, whatever it is you generally think about when you think of Holy Week, I hope you’ll experience hope and joy, disappointment and anger, worry and patience, sorrow and courage – passions and a Passion that are ancient, but also relevant to your life, and our common life together, in this world today.

Holy Week’s Blessings,
Pastor Ed

Dear Friends in Christ,

Last week, we had an interesting conversation in the Wednesday evening study group. It was prompted by the Rev. Matt Laney’s devotional reflection entitled, Favoring Choice. His reflection was about Mary’s receiving the word from the angel, Gabriel, that she would become pregnant with a
divine child.

Rev. Laney wrote, “Mary had a choice. Before she became pregnant, God sought her consent”. None of us in the group had quite thought of the story in this way. How about you?

It’s an interesting perspective and especially relevant during Lent. This is a season for reflection on repenting: making different choices than we have in the past. And, it can be hard to make choices about changing our ways.

Some, of course, find this choice-making harder than others, maybe even impossible. Even our legal system recognizes that some people cannot be held responsible for their actions because they are not freely chosen.

So, it is during Lent I believe we’re called to pray not only that Christians make better choices; we’re called to pray, that if it’s necessary, God heal people so they have the capacity to make better choices. How about you? What do you believe about choice-making – and repenting – during this season of Lent?

Blessings of Choice-making and Responsibility-taking,
Pastor Ed

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