EPC Resources
March 3rd, 2022
Mary Oliver
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
March 2nd, 2022
For Lent, 1966
For Lent, 1966”
By Madeleine L’Engle
It is my Lent to break my Lent,
To eat when I would fast,
To know when slender strength is spent,
Take shelter from the blast
When I would run with wind and rain,
To sleep when I would watch.
It is my Lent to smile at pain
But not ignore its touch.
It is my Lent to listen well
When I would be alone,
To talk when I would rather dwell
In silence, turn from none
Who call on me, to try to see
That what is truly meant
Is not my choice. If Christ’s I’d be
It’s thus I’ll keep my Lent.
2/27/22
This coming Sunday we celebrate Transfiguration Sunday, told in three of the four synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This Sunday we will read from Luke, as we are in the third cycle of the lectionary, year C.
Peter, James, and John go up the mountain with Jesus to pray and this is where the transfiguration takes place, including the appearance of Moses and Elijah.
The word "transfiguration" comes from the Latin roots *trans*- ("across") and *figura* ("form, shape"). It thus signifies a change of form or appearance, and that is exactly what happens. Jesus becomes radiant and glorious with light.
Transfiguration Sunday marks the transition between the season of Epiphany and the season of Lent. At Epiphany, Jesus’ identity as fully God in fully human form is revealed to us. At Transfiguration, Jesus’ transformation into radiant light hints at the great scope of his work, a thought we will take with us as we journey through Lent toward Holy Week and Easter.
For all the lectionary selections for this coming Sunday, visit this site:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=116
Our First Covid Christmas
Click the link below to read how we impacted Nashville in Christmas of 2020.
Build Up
In this week’s gospel story (Mark 12:38-44), often called “the widow’s mite,” Jesus is commenting on hypocritical behavior (sin) and generous behavior (stewardship or tithing).
In this scene, Jesus raises up the person most people would look down upon, and he criticizes the person most people would give respect.
Jesus is certainly discouraging hypocritical behavior and encouraging generous giving for the building up of the church community.
But he is also talking about our inner state of being and how this determines the quality of our days, life in this world, and whether or not we taste the “kingdom of heaven among us.” The Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, and Luther all wrote about this problem. All of them describe the core problem as human beings suffering from “incurvatus in se,” being blindly turned in on themselves.
A life that looks good on the outside, but is inwardly driven by selfishness, rigid private agendas and the pursuit of “measuring up” at all costs is a life turned in on itself, cut off from fluid relationality to others and to the Divine.
A life of open-heartedness and relationality, like that of Jesus Christ, is the opposite of being turned in on oneself.
A life of generosity – whether wealthy or poor – is the opposite of being turned in on oneself.
Take a look at all the lectionary readings for Sunday here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=228
See you Sunday!
Jane
The First Commandments
The gospel reading for this coming Sunday is Mark 12:28-34 in which we witness a conversation between Jesus and a scribe regarding the first commandments. We know this commandment well: “to love…” to love God and to love others as we love ourselves. Mark 12:28-34.
The crowd is left speechless as they hear Jesus and this scribe agree so wholeheartedly on which commandment is the greatest and what it means.
What is this love that leaves them without words? Is it a feeling? A thought? A right belief or doctrine? A right group to which they might or might not belong?
Richard Rohr reminds us that first century Christians did not have doctrine or dogma. They did not have a singular identity as a people, but were Jews, gentiles, men, women, rich, poor, slaves, free, and citizens. They called themselves followers of “the way.” Perhaps the love of which Jesus and the scribe spoke is “the way,” a way of being, a way of acting, a way of living.
We will ponder more on these questions as well as others, as we take the gospel passage alongside the Deuteronomic text from which Jesus and his interlocutor reference.
Take a look at all the passages for this Sunday’s lectionary here: https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=227
See you Sunday!
Jesus Heals A Blind Man
What are we to do with this week’s gospel lesson of Jesus healing the blind man?
I am not always sure what the gospel healings mean to me or to contemporary Christians.
We each have a life cycle: being born, living, and one day passing on into the next life. This same life cycle applied to the people Jesus healed, even to Lazarus who was raised from death.
So what do healings mean? How are we to understand them?
Should we take the healing stories as metaphors for spiritual renewal. I do.
Should we regard them as mythological language that speaks to deep truths about the human condition and our ever-evolving relationship to what we call the divine? I do.
Should we dare to believe that God’s miraculous healings still take place, that Christians can and should pray for wholeness and healing for themselves and for each other? I do.
All these questions arise for me when I read the accounts of healings, and for this I am grateful. Within my own heart, and amongst fellow believers, these questions lead to rich discussion and heartfelt prayer. God uses our intellectual questions as well as the current situations in our lives to speak to our faith lives through the Living Word. This too is a miracle in my mind.
Take a look at all the lectionary readings for Sunday here, including the gospel reading:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=225
See you Sunday!
Jane
What it means to ask the Lord for what we want
The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a departure from our usual lectionary cycle. We have revisited the creation stories in Genesis to study God and ourselves, to marvel at the miracle and mystery of life. We have taken time to remember and give thanks for our creaturely status and our blessed relationship with the creaturely world, particularly in our relationships to family pets.
This Sunday we return to the lectionary and find the Sons of Zebedee - James and John - asking to be elevated in position, to be placed at the right and left hand of Jesus. James and John want a promotion! They are so full of passion and excitement for the Good News they want to help oversee things and make good things happen for this created world trying to find its way back to union with God. What could be wrong with that? Nothing, nothing is wrong with this, though Jesus gives wise counsel and gentle pause.
The interaction between James, John, and Jesus gives us insight into what it means to ask the Lord for what we want. It gives us insight into prayer, passion, and how our deep longing to serve Jesus is ever entwined with our own limited human perspective, with our ideas of what is desirable or undesirable. We don’t know what we don’t know, and thank goodness Jesus walks with us daily as we live and grow and have this human experience.
See you Sunday!
Song, Word, Fellowship, Gratitude…and Critters.
This coming Sunday we will have A Blessing of the Animals
Animals have been part of the human story, and part of God’s story, from the very beginning. In the oldest of the creation stories in Genesis, God “formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man...” What a Creator we have that called the cat and the aardvark, the whale and the chihuahua into being!
This Sunday, we will gather outside under the pavilion (and in the surrounding grounds if needed) to have a service of blessing. We will have music and readings and hear from each other about the ways we have been blessed by God’s gift of animals.
“Animals” refer to all the living creatures that bless our lives, particularly ones we have known as pets and family members. If your animal companion would be uneasy coming to the service or if your beloved animal has passed away, you may wish to bring a picture. You may also wish to bring a picture of an animal you have enjoyed studying or seeing in the wild.
Please make provisions for your animal to be kept safe and comfortable by having him or her on a leash or in a carrying case. There will be plenty of room outdoors to have space between our animals, so we can all stay safe and happy.
I am so excited to meet your animal friends and have you meet mine!
Do not hesitate to reach out to me with questions about Sunday’s blessing of the animals and feel free to invite your friends and neighbors to join in this fun and worshipful day of blessing and giving thanks for God’s creation.
See you Sunday!
Who Do We Worship?
Who is God?
Who is Jesus?
Who is the Holy Spirit?
And who are we?
These are basic questions we learn to ask ourselves anew, year after year in our faith walk. For many years, we may not sense a change in what we understand as answers to these questions. Other years, life has brought us experiences that may lead us to see more deeply who God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and we humans are. Some of us may even have experienced what St. John of the Cross describes as “the dark night of the soul,” a time when our sense of understanding goes dim and we walk by faith through difficult times until God brings us into new revelations.
This Sunday, the lectionary offers readings that touch on these questions. Take a look at all the selections here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=222
This Sunday we will look not only at this week’s Genesis reading, an account of the creation of humans, but also the second account of creating humans, not included in this week’s lectionary. While the readings may seem to contradict one another, we will read them for the richness each gives.
See you Sunday!
Jane
Esther
Esther becomes queen by a surprising turn of events and saves her people from death and destruction. Moses, once a baby found in the bullrushes, has risen(and fallen) through Egyptian court to become the leader of the escaping Israelites. As Jesus’ fame grows during his ministry, other people teach and cast out demons in his name and John is troubled about whether they have the right to lead in this way.
All three of the readings from the lectionary this week deal with issues around who is fit to lead, the challenges of leading, and the ultimate fact that it is God’s work that is being accomplished, not the personal work of any one of these leaders.
As you know, the scope of our Sunday service does not allow us to go in-depth on all lectionary readings. This Sunday, we will focus on the story of Esther, but all the readings are rich in encouragement and grounding for the walk of faith, particularly as it pertains to the work of leading others through the way we live our own lives.
Take a look at the lectionary here:
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=221
See you Sunday!
Jane