Tag: faith

Advent 1, 2025 Matthew 24:36-44, BE PREPARED!

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent, Christmas, hope, Lectionary Texts

This message for this first Sunday in Advent in Matthew’s Gospel is also the motto of the Boy Scouts – “Be prepared.” As an Eagle Scout one could assume that it would fit my life style. I wish it did, but in crisis or stressful situations I’m not at my best. When I was about 14 or 15 my Explorer Post took a canoe trip on an old abandoned canal called the Whitewater Canal in southern Indiana. The name was misleading since there was no white water there, but there was one tricky spot in the concrete remains of an old lock.

Because the current got faster as it narrowed into the lock there was a sign telling canoeists to portage around the lock. Portage means to pull over to the bank, get out, and carry your canoe around to the other side of the lock where it’s ok to put back into the water. The problem was that the portage sign was so close to the lock that there was little time, especially for inexperienced paddlers, to exit the water before being sucked into the lock. The portage sign was on a cable stretched across the water and the first reaction to seeing that sign when it was too late to portage was to grab the cable and try to stop. The problem was the person grabbing the cable stopped, but his canoe didn’t.

Some of us who made the canoe trip in the first of two groups had found out the hard way how this worked and had a good laugh as we scrambled to retrieve our runaway canoes. So, rather than being good Scouts and warning our friends in the second group about this hazard we secretly hiked down to the lock while group 2 was getting ready to set off so we could see how many of them ended up in the drink like we had. Some did, of course, and we had a good laugh until we realized that our Scoutmaster in one of the tipped canoes had gone under and not come back up. He was trapped under the current.

It was truly a life and death moment, and I was frozen in fear. I remember yelling for someone to do something, but it felt like my feet were nailed to the ground. Thank God two of my fellow Scouts did act courageously. They jumped the 8 feet from the top of the lock to the water and pulled our sputtering Scoutmaster to safety. They were both honored for their bravery, but I was not prepared to act.

In less dramatic ways I was not prepared to leave home for college and spent an entire quarter terribly homesick. I was not ready for marriage at age 21 or for parenthood 3 years later – but then who is ever really ready for that responsibility. And now in my “golden years” I am certainly not ready for the challenges of aging!

So if it’s that hard to be prepared for “normal” life events that we know are coming, what in the world can we do to be prepared for the coming of the Lord? Matthew says, “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (24:44). That verse is about the second coming, but Advent is our warning that we need to be prepared not just for the celebration of Christ’s birth but for the big surprise of his dropping in again any time he feels like it.

Sorry, Lord, I don’t like surprises. I don’t even like unexpected changes to my daily routine. And my weird sense of humor suddenly turns to the lyrics from an old song by Eileen Barton:

“If I knew you were comin’ I’d’ve baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake

If I knew you were comin’ I’d’ve baked a cake

Howdya do, howdya do, howdya do?

Had you dropped me a letter, I’d a-hired a band, grandest band in the land

Had you dropped me a letter, I’d a-hired a band

And spread the welcome mat for you

Oh, I don’t know where you came from

’cause I don’t know where you’ve been

But it really doesn’t matter

Grab a chair and fill your platter

And dig, dig, dig right in.”

It’s like dating or meeting someone important for the first time. We can put our best foot forward and be on our best behavior when we are prepared. Even I can clean up pretty well when I am forewarned. I can even tidy up the house when I know when my wife is returning from a trip, but “at any hour you do not expect!” That’s not fair.

But timing is not really the issue. God has known when we’ve been naughty or nice long before Santa or security cameras started tracking us. And it’s not rocket science. Being prepared for Christ is like an open book test. The Book has been telling us for 2500 years what God expects to find when he/she drops in unexpectedly. “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

That’s pretty straightforward, and yes, much easier said than done. But please notice that last line – humility is the way to grace and mercy. God knows all too well we all flunk at doing justice and loving kindness way more than we like. But as 1 John tells us, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1:9-10). That first part is humility, the second not so much.

And there’s another wonderful summary of being prepared for Christmas or any Christ coming. The whole Bible is a lot of stuff to digest. There’s not just 10 Commandments but hundreds in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament. So Jesus boiled it all down for us. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

Simple – love God and all your neighbors and yourself! Do that and you will be prepared. I hear you, but, Steve, how can we do that? We’re just fallible human beings after all! So, here’s the secret I’m counting on, and maybe you should too. “But Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

Be Still and Don’t Stop Believin’

by Steve Harsh, posted in brokenness, Faith and Politics, hope

A couple of Sundays ago when our Ohio October was still summerlike I spent some time in the Chapel in the Woods at our church after Sunday worship. Because of scheduling issues I attended our contemporary service that Sabbath which is not my preference. That Sunday was actually World Communion Sunday, a day that always has special meaning for me, especially in our fractured world today.

On that Sunday our church celebrated World Communion primarily at our traditional service because the contemporary service had been set aside for our annual Blessing of the Animals service. Communion was still celebrated at the contemporary service, along with treats for God’s four-footed critters that came to be blessed.

Needless to say it was a lively and noisy service, which is always fun, but it was not exactly what I needed that day. So, after worship I spent some time praying in our beautiful outdoor chapel and the words that came to me were “Be still and know that I am God.” I have meditated on those words frequently in the days since, seeking the balm they offer in the chaotic world we inhabit just now.

I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t remember where those words come from in Scripture until I googled them. They are of course in verse 10 of a Psalm I have used dozens of times in funeral services, and the opening verses set the scene powerfully for having faith to be still when life is literally crumbling around us like the East Wing of the White House.

The psalm begins with these words:

“1 God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble with its tumult.”

Those are the opening verses of Psalm 46 which some scholars believe was written as the armies of Assyria were besieging the city of Jerusalem in 701 BCE. Many of us can easily relate. It feels like all the values we thought our country was founded on are under siege.

I could recite a whole litany of things we’ve lost in the last 10 months, but I will focus instead on one of the most recent and egregious violations of Christian morality and Constitutional order. Because of the government shutdown SNAP benefits that help feed 42 million Americans have been cut off for the last 6 days.

There are contingency funds available to pay those food stamp benefits, and that has always been done in every other shutdown we’ve had. The only difference this time is the one who resides in what’s left of the White House.

Two federal judges have ordered the President to release those funds and provide food for hungry Americans, including the elderly and children. But Donald Trump has decided to ignore those court orders so he can use those 42 million people as political bargaining chips in the high stakes game of chicken he is playing with the democrats.

Meanwhile the President has given $40 million of our tax dollars to Argentina which hurts already desperate American farmers. He’s spent millions on unauthorized military action against Iran and Venezuela, and is threatening to do the same in Nigeria. But he refuses to even negotiate with democrats about skyrocketing health care premiums or to follow court orders and feed hungry people.

It seems useless to remind Washington about what Jesus said about feeding the least of these, although I have done so repeatedly with my three Republicans representatives in Congress. The tone deafness of this administration to calls for empathy and justice for our fellow human beings certainly feels like basic human decency is under siege.

How can we not wonder if God really is our help and refuge? Where is God’s help in this all too real time of trouble? As I typed those words, and I’m not making this up, a notification popped up on the top of my iPad screen that said “Don’t Stop Believein’!” That message came because the rock band Journey is coming to Columbus, OH next summer, but the timing of that message seemed way too relevant to be just a coincidence.

And that seems to be what the psalmist is saying to the besieged, hopeless folks in Jerusalem surrounded by the mighty armies of Sennacherib.

5 “God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
    God will help it when the morning dawns.
6 The nations are in an uproar; the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice; the earth melts.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge.[c] Selah

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord;
    see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.”

And because of God’s ultimate rule of the whole universe, no matter how bad things seem at this or any moment, personal or in history, we can
10 “Be still, and know that I am God!
    I am exalted among the nations;
    I am exalted in the earth.”
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge.”

On Ash Wednesday last year we had an experiential worship service, and one of the things we were asked to do was create something from clay that was symbolic of the meaning of the season of Lent. I made this symbol which is still on my desk:

Some people thought it was a fish, which would be ok; but that is not what I was going for. I started out with an infinity symbol and then made one end into a heart. For me it symbolizes the only thing we can really count on and the only thing we need – God’s Infinite Love.

That ‘s what enables me at times to be still and know God’s in charge, even when the infidels are literally not only at the gates but in the seats of power.

Jerusalem was reborn from the ashes and somehow, someday the land of the free and the brave will be also. Be still and don’t stop believin’.

All Saints Prayer 2025

by Steve Harsh, posted in Aging to Sageing, Christian Discipleship, Faith Development, Gratitude, hope, prayer, spiritual discipline

As we prepare our hearts for prayer on this All Saints Sunday I want to share some words for our meditation from Linda Hogan in her book “Dwellings.” She says,

“Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”


O Holy One, God of the present age, of every generation that has enabled our being here today, and of all the multitudes who will follow in our footsteps if we find a way to a sustainable future for the creation we are a part of.

We know All Saints Day may sound pretentious because none of us are truly saintly.
We are all a weird mixture of sinner and saint striving to be more the latter as followers of Jesus and good stewards of your creation. We want to be builders of a peaceable kingdom, a beloved community, honest we do.

But you know that our fears and anxieties too often lead us to foolishly put our trust in stuff that promises security but only creates higher walls of tribal suspicion and prejudice. Bigger bombs and battleships only motivate others to make more weapons that steal resources from hungry children.

As we ponder the mysteries of how our ancestors made sense of their lives help us lovingly forgive their mistakes even as we learn from their collective wisdom.  We are grateful that we don’t have to reinvent every wheel because we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses who bless us with their presence. We are never alone, although at times it sure feels like it.

Among those saints are those whose names we all know – Moses, Ruth, Micah, Theresa, Amos, Francis, Jesus and Paul – but those famous ones are totally outnumbered by the ordinary Joes and Judys who quietly have preserved the faith through disasters, depressions, pandemics, and ages of apathy.


Today we remember those dear ones who have passed through the thin veil that divides our reality from eternal peace and truth. We give thanks for those who dwell now in your very heart, O God. We envy their peace and unity with you, even as we humbly give thanks for their love that has produced this community of faith that nurtures us still today.


We are indebted to their example of service. We are inspired by their faith that overcame the doubts and despair that are part of the human condition. Like them we journey ever on toward the cross of Christ and the example he gives us as we join our voices with all the saints in the prayer Jesus taught us to pray ….

Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio, November 2, 2025

Pastoral Prayer, July 13, 2025

by Steve Harsh, posted in hope, prayer

Great and gracious God, as we worship today we all come with personal cares and burdens.  And on top of those we have been shaken by images we can’t unsee from the horrendous floods in Texas.   The innocent children killed trouble our hearts the most, but we also pray for all the others who have lost loved ones, homes, businesses, and livelihoods. 

In times like these we can’t help but ask the question people have been struggling with since the days of Job – where are you, Lord, when walls of water sweep little girls away?  Why do you let things like this happen? Why do you let cancer, war, and human cruelty destroy innocent lives?  If you are all-powerful and all-loving, why is there so much pain and suffering in our world?

As much as we wish you were a helicopter parent who would sweep in and protect us from anything terrible happening, we know that is not who you are, God.  You are a heavenly parent who has given us the freedom to make choices.  When we mess things up with selfish or short-sighted decisions, we would often like to give that freedom back to you. 

But like earthly parents you know there is a time when children must be set free to make their own choices.  Hindsight is always 20/20, but no amount of blaming, no law suits can undo the consequences of our mistakes.  We can only learn from them and try to do better in the future. 

So we humbly ask, Merciful God, that you would forgive us where we have misused our freedom to choose.  Help us accept things we cannot change, and in our experiences empower us to be your presence through prayer and acts of service for those who are hurting next door, and in Texas, and around the world.

When we wonder where you are in the midst of tragedy, Lord,  remind us that you are always there in the form of helpers who comfort those who mourn, weeping with those who sob uncontrollably, in the form of first responders and volunteers tirelessly searching for the lost and missing. 

Thank you for being with us in every time of need, for being, as the Psalmist says, “close to the brokenhearted and saving those who are crushed in spirit.”  For all your mercies we offer our thanks, and especially for Jesus, who lived your presence as one of us, teaching us how to live, how to love, and how to pray.  Our Father ….

Northwest United Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio, July 13, 2025

Biblical Reflections on Greed and Social Justice: A Note from Amos and Jesus to the U.S. Congress

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Government Reform

I’m at a loss as to what to say with regard to the Big Hateful Bill the Republicans in Congress just passed by one lousy vote. I don’t understand how those 215 people who voted for this bill to literally take food and healthcare from the most needy Americans and give that money to the most wealthy 1 % of our population can live with themselves.

But since greed and hate have been around as long as humans have I think these these words from the Judeo-Christian Scriptures should speak loud and clear to our 100 Senators who now have the fate of this cruel and ugly bill in their hands.

“Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
    you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming
    so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend
    when I can go out and have a good time?”
Who give little and take much,
    and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them—
    and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.

God swears against the arrogance of Jacob:
    “I’m keeping track of their every last sin.” (Amos 8, The Message)

Or since so many of you Senators claim to be Christians, how about these words from Jesus himself:

“You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’  Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’  And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46 NRSV)

OMG: Good Friday Sermon, 2025

by Steve Harsh, posted in Lenten devotion, Sermon

OMG – a common abbreviation used these days on social media and many users don’t know it, but it’s really a prayer, a lament.  It means “O My God,” and in our Good Friday context the emphasis is on the little word “My.”  Because even when we doubt and feel God is absent, we still own and affirm the relationship. My kids are still My kids even when they do stupid stuff I don’t agree with – same with friends, spouse, and colleagues.  Real relationships and friendships have no expiration date, and certainly there is none with the eternal God of all creation who has been with us since the day we were born and will be with us for all eternity after our short sojourn on this earth is over.  

Another common lament today is “Life sucks and then you die!”  That one is not in the Bible, but it could be in the book of Lamentations. When Jesus says from the cross, “My God My God why?”  Hear the My and not just the forsaken.  And of course the lament of Psalm 22 is followed immediately in our Bible by the most familiar Psalm of the whole 150.   Psalm 23 begins with “The Lord is MY shepherd.”

As we remember the brutal crucifixion of Jesus tonight I invite you to make that experience real.  Feel it in your gut.  Imagine or remember a time when you were in unbearable pain – either physical or emotional, and Jesus was certainly in both – a time when God feels as far away as the planet Pluto – at the death bed of someone you don’t think you can live without – when you hear a terminal diagnosis from a doctor – or your heartbreaks over a shattered relationship, or a job loss, or your financial security disappearing, or hearing on the news about unspeakable human cruelty.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in his book “Night” relates an incident when he was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp when a young man was hung and all the other prisoners forced to watch.  Someone asks Wiesel, “Where is your God?” and his answer is, “Right there on the gallows.” Whatever and whenever we suffer God suffers right along with us.

One of my favorite descriptions about human lament is the one Brian and Barbara just sang for us, “Day is Done,” by Peter, Paul, and Mary.  I asked for that song because of these lyrics which say, “Tell me why you’re crying my son; I know you’re frightened like everyone. Is it the thunder in the distance you fear? Will it help if I stay very near – I am here.” And if you take my hand my son, all will be well when the day is done.”

We really want to believe that “all will be well when the day is done,” but we don’t know how long that metaphorical day will last or if we can last that long. But what we do know is that it helps to have someone very near.  It helps to be able to share out loud what our pain is with someone we trust and know will listen and just be present as long as we need them. 

I just learned about a quote from Fred Rogers recently in our Books to Bridges book group.  Mr. Rogers said, “What is mentionable is manageable.” “What is mentionable is manageable.”

Pain that we try to carry alone can suck the very life out of us, but if we can talk about it the power it has over us is shared and diminished – it becomes manageable.

Another lament in Psalm 13 begins with these plaintive words: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?   How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”   The point in sharing these cries for help is not to depress us but simply that it’s OK to lament, to doubt; those feelings are part of the human condition. No matter how strong your faith is it is hard when the foundations of your existence are shaken like an 8.0 earthquake.  Even Jesus who had more faith than all of us put together cries out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” which is even more powerful in the Aramaic that Jesus would have spoken: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”    

And as you heard in our scripture from Psalm 22 tonight we know where Jesus got those words.  Jesus knew his Scriptures very well, and he knew his people for centuries had been no strangers to devastating loss.  They were experts at lament.  We even have a whole book called Lamentations in the Hebrew Scriptures, which is our Old Testament, devoted to nothing but laments.  And part of the prophet Isaiah’s description of God’s Messiah is that he is a suffering servant who “… was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with grief.”

Ps 22 is typical of another source of laments the Hebrew people used in public worship. Do you know that there are more psalms of lament in the book of Psalms than any other type of Psalm? One of my favorites when I’m having a no good, terrible, awful day is Psalm 130.  It’s called “De Profundis” in Latin and says, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!”  Out of the depths loosely translated means “we are in deep do do.”

Psalm 63:1 echoes the same song: “O God, You are MY God; early will I seek you; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.” I’ll bet most of us have been in such a dry and thirsty land or may even be there right now.  That’s the message of Good Friday.  I still remember vividly one such time in my youth.  It was my Boy Scout Order of the Arrow initiation.  I was maybe 13. I was led out along with my fellow scouts in total silence and darkness until I was tapped on the shoulder and told to stop and sleep right there, left alone in a strange, dark woods overnight with only a sleeping bag. I had no idea if anyone else was close by or where I was. It was the most alone I had ever been at that stage of my life

Kate Bowler, one of my go to devotional sources, wrote this blessing two years ago in 2023, but it is even more relevant today and is part of her Lenten devotions for 2025. 

It’s called “A Blessing for when you need a little hope.”  “These days feel heavy and dark, like hope packed up and left, and forgot to send a postcard. We cry: Where are the good things? And honestly, where are the good people— the sensible ones fighting for what matters? Why does it feel like bad stuff always elbows its way to the front, pushing everything good to the sidelines? We’re tired. Exhausted, really. Desperation is knocking, and it’s tempting to surrender. Blessed are you, who see the world as it is: the sickness and loneliness, the injustice that never seems to end, the greed and misuse of power, the violence and intimidation, the mockery of truth, and disdain for weakness, and worse— the seeming powerlessness of anyone trying to stop it. Blessed are you, worn down by hard-earned cynicism, running on fumes, with no promise of a destination. Maybe hope isn’t so distant. Maybe it’s there—small, persistent, and stubborn. May you grasp something in the heaviness. A glimmer of what could be, and walk, step by step, toward the possibility that goodness exists. Hope is an anchor dropped into the future pulling you forward, toward something better— even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.”

Yes, my friends, there is always hope somewhere.  Even “O My God, My God” still claims God as ours.

 This Good Friday feels more real to me because we are living in a time of great uncertainty in our country and our world.  No matter what your politics you know these are unsettling times.  But we aren’t the first to feel this way.  The women at the foot of the cross and the other disciples hiding out somewhere had no idea what their future held – and neither do we.  I invite you to put yourself in the crucifixion story – pretend we don’t know what happens on Sunday morning, and enter fully into the forsakenness of that moment with Jesus and his followers and friends.   

What do we do when life seems hopeless, empty, dark, alien, and full of fear and uncertainty?  Like Jesus we can call out “O My God, help us!” and God will answer.  Maybe not immediately; we may have to go through a long Saturday of uncertainty, as long as that Saturday lasts, but there will be an answer because God does not forsake us, just as God did not forsake Jesus.

Even here in the darkness we remember that God so loved the world that God sent Jesus to love and save us. When all else fails it is that love that is eternal.  God so loved the world, and as author Sarah Bessey says, we are called to love that world too and everyone in it, even, Sarah says, knowing that it will break our hearts – knowing it will break our hearts.  To love means risking, being vulnerable, feeling pain — but a broken heart is so much better than not having a heart at all. 

Good Friday 2025, Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH

Lighting of the Christ Candle

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christmas, prayer

We know the Christmas story so well it doesn’t shock us like it should. God in human form born in a barn! What kind of delivery room is that for a Holy Child?  But that is what happens when we think outside the box like that humble innkeeper in Bethlehem.  He made room when there was no room, and his stable became a home for the Holy. 

All during the four weeks of Advent this year we have been exploring what it means to create a home for the Holy in 2024. We have lit a candle on our Advent Wreath for each of the core values needed to house the Holy: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Those are the necessary human qualities for God to set up camp in our hearts.

Tonight we are adding the final piece of our home for the Holy. As the letter to the Ephesians tells us: “with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone; in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”

Christ is the cornerstone who holds any home for the Holy together and preserves it against all threats the forces of evil can muster. The Christ child is born in a stable, not in a mansion or a palace, because God favors the poor and humble over the high and mighty. And the message from Bethlehem is that we can all become a home for the Holy if we make room in our hearts for the strangers and the outsiders in our midst.

And so tonight on this Holy Night we light the Christ Candle to celebrate the coming again of the Light of the World.

Please pray with me:

O God, with grateful hearts we once more give thanks for the gift of a helpless baby who comes to save us from ourselves and from the temptations of the world. He is our cornerstone, the solid foundation upon which we stand when everything else fails us. He will live in our hearts when all the Christmas lights are turned off.  His light will never be out of season. It never burns out or goes dark. Calm our fears on this silent night. Make us brave enough to let Christ into our hearts, that we may all be one small part of his Holy home tonight and forever. Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH, Christmas Eve 2024

Advent 4, 2023: Love

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent

We have made our way this Advent from prophesy and promise to stand now on the cusp of fulfillment.  This very night we will celebrate again the birth of love incarnate in the form of a helpless infant.  Like that baby, love is vulnerable.  Both require careful nurture and handling.  Love is a gift entrusted to common people like Mary and Joseph, like you and me.  Of all the gifts we may give or receive this week, none is more precious than the simple gift of love.  That is what inspired St. Paul to write: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

God’s love is a spirit that requires embodiment to become real.  God’s love must become flesh to dwell among us.  At Bethlehem that love came to life in the infant Jesus.  Today, if we are open to the mystery, it can come to life in you and me as the church, the body of Christ.  We can be the light of the world because of Christmas. So today we live between the warm feeling of God’s love and the choice to put that sentiment into concrete action.   We humbly receive God’s most precious gift as we light the 4th candle of Advent, the Candle of Love. 

[Light the 4th Candle]

Please pray with me as I share this Advent prayer from Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie from their book, “The Lives We Actually Have:”

God, we are waiting for love,

not the simple kind or the sweep-you-off-your-feet kind,

but the absurd kind.

The kind wrapped in rags, resting in a bucket of animal feed.

Love enough to save us all.

Blessed are we who look for Love,

deeper, fuller, truer—than we have ever known,

than we could have ever hoped for.

Blessed are we who seek you,

the light that dawned so long ago in that dark stable.

Love given.                                                    

Love received.

Dear God, Hold us in that love these last few hours of Advent till that love is born again in our hearts this very night. Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH; December 24, 2023

Cross Roads

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

crossroadsThe final scene of the excellent movie “Castaway” shows the star, Tom Hanks, in a barren landscape at the intersection of two deserted country roads.  Hanks plays a FedEx pilot who is the sole survivor of a crash in the Pacific.  He manages to stay alive on an island with no companionship except a volleyball he names Wilson.  When he miraculously is rescued and returns to his former home after several years he discovers that it is sometimes true that you can never go home again.  His wife having buried a symbolic empty casket after giving up hope of his survival has remarried and moved on with her life, leaving Hanks more adrift on land than he was at sea.

Then years behind schedule Hanks delivers the lone package that survived the crash to a rural address where a beautiful artist lives.  Leaving her home he comes to the aforementioned crossroads, and the film ends leaving the question hanging as to which way he will turn.

That metaphor came to my mind as 2019 began 12 days ago, perhaps because our nation and world seem to be a crossroads where the future shape and even survival of our planet depends on choices we as world citizens must make about climate change, international relations, our use of technology for better or worse, etc.  Perhaps the cross-roads image is even more vivid for me because the church denomination I’ve given 50 years of service to is coming up fast on an intersection in Indianapolis in less than a month.  A church conference will be held in February that will determine if the United Methodist Church survives and if so in what form.

Personally my 73rd New Year’s means I have accumulated many memories of different turning points and roads not taken in my own life. Professionally 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of my ordination as a United Methodist pastor.  I made huge decisions to accept the responsibilities of ordination, and in those 50 years since I’ve made thousands of personal and professional decisions that brought me to where I am today.  Yes, there are many of those decisions for which I’d like to have do overs, but like the Hanks character I know I can’t go back and make a different choices as to which way to turn in my life.

But the past is prelude to my next chapter.  I can learn from the choices I made in the past to inform decisions I will make in the future.  The kinds of crossroads I will face in my 70’s and beyond are certainly different than those I encountered earlier in my life, but as long as I draw breath I will make decisions about how to live each day of my life and what goals or bucket list items I choose to pursue.  In retirement I actually face more decisions every day since my daily routine is not predetermined by job responsibilities.  There’s both freedom and anxiety in that situation.  It requires more energy to make so many decisions at a time in life when energy is at a premium.

Twice in this New Year I have seen something early in the morning on our bedroom floor that I have never noticed before.  I’m sure it must have been there before, but I am not a morning person and admit I am even less observant when I first roll out of bed than the rest of the day.  What I’ve noticed is that the light that slides out from under our bathroom door intersects with a white edge on our carpet to form a beautiful cross.  I’m still wondering why it is just now that I’ve recognized that symbol, but what it has helped me realize is that so many of the decisions that have determined my course in life revolve around the cross.

I was born into the church, baptized as an infant and taken regularly to church my entire childhood.  That decision for my early life in the shadow of the cross was made for me, as was one of the most significant turns in my life course when I was 11 years old.  Until that point in my life we had attended a small rural Congregational church in the community my father grew up in 5 miles from our home.  But when I was nearing my 11th birthday my parents made the decision to find a church in the town where we lived.  They wanted me and my sisters to go to church with the kids in our school and for me they wanted a good Boy Scout troop.  It so happened the Methodist church had the best Boy Scout troop in town, and as they say “the rest is history.”

Because of the sacrifice my parents made in giving up the congregation and friends they loved my life went down a totally different path than it would have otherwise.  My life for the next 7 years revolved around that church and that scout troop.  My values were shaped by the Sunday School teachers, youth group leaders, and scout leaders who went down that road with me.  All of my friends and most of the girls I dated were part of that congregation, and when I answered the call to ministry I chose to attend a liberal United Methodist seminary that transformed my faith and purpose not only for ministry but for my life.  As a United Methodist I was active in the leadership of the Wesley Foundation student ministry in college, lived in an intentional covenant community/rooming house sponsored by that ministry; and it was also on one of my first visits to the Wesley Foundaiton that I met my first wife who is the mother of my children, grandmother to my grandkids, and still a dear friend and colleague in ministry.

All because of a choice made for me to attend First Methodist Church.  And now 62 years later that denomination, which became the United Methodist Church in 1968, is facing a momentous decision about the acceptance or rejection of LGBTQ persons as full and equal sisters and brothers.  Which road our General Conference will choose to follow next month will have far-reaching consequences for this large denomination of Christians and will create a crossroads that will require many people, including me, to make difficult personal decisions about our own relationship to the church.  My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will empower faithful and courageous choices inspired by the one who chose to take the road to Jerusalem and face the cross waiting for him there.

I/We can do worse at the cross roads of 2019 than pondering the meaning of these words written for the 1905 Methodist Hymnal by Frank M. North:

“Where cross the crowded ways of life,  Where sound the cries of race and clan

Above the noise of selfish strife, We hear your voice, O Son of Man.”