Preacher's Post

3/25: The BE--Attidues

Important Note: effective April 1st, this weekly post will be sent directly from the St. Andrew office. If you are not currently receiving eBlasts from St. Andrew and wish to continue receiving this weekly post, please contact Amy in the church office at andrewpres@sbcglobal.net to be added to the list

Matthew 5:3-10 (The Message)

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.  (Poor in spirit)

"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.  (Mourn)

"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.  (meek/humble)

"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.  (Justice)

"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'carefull,' you find yourselves cared for.  (Mercy)

"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.  (Pure in heart)

"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.  (Peace-making)

"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.

Jesus led off his Sermon on the Mount with the full extent of how upside-down the Kingdom of God is. I get the Ten Commandments. The commandments provide the context for order in relationship with God and neighbor. The Be-Attitudes draw back the curtain on a world of pure grace and abundance that makes no sense when I use the accepted measurements of how the world works.

Try taking a few of Jesus’ Be-Attitudes and rewrite them for “real” life. Here’s what I came up with…

         Life is good when I’m in control—bad when I’m overwhelmed—so fight for control!

         Loss is too painful, so it needs to be managed by denial and numbing—or avoided altogether by never being in a position to grieve.

         If I try harder and do better, I will be enough. Weakness is to be avoided at all costs.

         If the outside world (people and things) are meeting my expectations, then I’ll be OK on the inside. If I’m not OK on the inside, I need to fix what’s outside first.

         I’ll maybe consider justice for you once life gets fair for me. Since it never really gets fair, I never really get around to seeking justice for you.

Once again, it’s easy to understand the temptation to dumb down the Sermon on the Mount by making it about Jesus making sure we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we don’t measure up to God’s standards, and therefore reinforcing the need for God’s grace. I do believe that’s true. But I also believe Jesus was calling me to a surrendered life in which God’s blessings are experienced in the places and circumstances I least expect. Ironically, these are the situations I’m doing everything I can to avoid.

More on Sunday…until then this what I know…

Town Hall Update

Denis Green will be back with us the weekend of April 14-15 for some targeted interviews and further assessment of our willingness and capacity to tackle the facility repairs and improvements, as well as the commitment to our Mission Vision to support hands-on connections for all of us.

I am pleased to report we’re proceeding with…

• Improving the lighting at the entrance off of Arnold Drive.
• Upgrading the sound and media for the Sanctuary. We are also installing video surveillance on the property as we continue to experience acts of petty vandalism.
• Creating a new and more user-friendly website.
• Installing tile in the Fellowship area and kitchen.
• Planning more fellowship events and working to improve our connections with each other.
• We are currently waiting for the County to approve our use permit so we can proceed with the construction of the columbarium. In the meantime, plans are being prepared to be submitted the minute that happens.
• The air-conditioning project is in the “engineering” phase, but needs to be coordinated with the first phase of the septic repair. While so needed, the current rains are pushing both projects back into May, and maybe even June. The ground needs to dry out so we can install new tanks. I’ll keep you posted.

COLLECTING CLOTHING FOR F.I.S.H.  

Thank you for the bags and bags of clothes for F.I.S.H.

JOIN OUR WELCOME TEAM—We’re looking for a few friendly faces to join our Welcome Team! It’s a great way to meet more people and introduce our visitors to St. Andrew. We have a few open spaces, particularly for our 10:30AM service. If you are available one week per month, please check the box on your Prayer Card this Sunday, or contact the Church Office. If you have questions, please contact Ellen Shepherd at heshep@shepenter.com / 938-0938.

1. ANDREW’S GOT TALENT!—SUNDAY, APRIL 15TH

5:00-6:00 PM—All Church Potluck           6:00-7:00 PM—Talent Show

Please RSVP for the potluck and let us know if you are preparing an act by checking the box on your Prayer Card this Sunday or contacting the Church Office

Potluck Assignments

A—K Main Dish

L—T   Salad

U—Z Dessert

3/18: In God We Almost Trust

[Important Note: effective April 1st, this weekly post will be sent directly from the St. Andrew office. If you are not currently receiving eBlasts from St. Andrew and wish to continue receiving this weekly post, please contact Amy in the church office at andrewpres@sbcglobal.net to be added to the list.]

A couple of national historical tidbits…

First, one of the most famous quotes in the 20th century was Franklin D. Roosevelt declaring: So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.  So true.

Second, “In God We Trust” was adopted as the official slogan of the United States in 1956 as an attempt to draw an even sharper distinction with the godless communism of the Soviet Union. It had appeared on the two-cent piece in 1864, but the legislation adopted by the 84^th Congress mandated it was to appear on all our United States currency, replacing the phrase “E pluribus unum” (One out of many).

I know saying fear isn't going to control us because trust in God is going to be our guiding light doesn’t make it so. I’m very familiar with Jesus’ call to trust God in ALL things, and to refrain from worry and fear. Yet worry and fear is what I do. It is what we do best, and thanks to our 24-hour news cycle and social media, our worries and fears are fanned every day in ways unprecedented in human history.

I’d be a fool to say fear isn’t justified given the unsettling return to many of the cold war realities, the clear and present danger of terrorism and gun violence (both national and international), the destabilization of technology, and competition of a global economy… the list could go on and on.

Fear is not bad in and of itself, for fear is a God-given instinct that promotes survival and many times keeps me from recklessly “driving my life off a cliff”. I’ve been blessed with twenty-four years of sobriety because of my fear of what alcohol does to me. So what in the world is Jesus driving at?

3/11: Stealth Practices

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” Desmond Tutu 

Something we do at St. Andrew is “pull people out of the river”. Our community mission involvement is something we want to publicize as we invite others to join us. Our float in the Vintage Festival electric light parade last September highlighted our many and diverse mission efforts.

Our “Joys and Concerns” has become the heart and soul of our Sunday morning worship services. When we join hands and pray the Lord’s Prayer we affirm God’s presence and our unity in the Spirit.

So how are we to understand Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 6:1-6:

Make certain you do not perform your religious duties in public so that people will see what you do. If you do these things publicly, you will not have any reward from your Father in heaven.  So when you give something to a needy person, do not make a big show of it, as the hypocrites do in the houses of worship and on the streets. They do it so that people will praise them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.  

But when you help a needy person, do it in such a way that even your closest friend will not know about it.  Then it will be a private matter. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.

When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites! They love to stand up and pray in the houses of worship and on the street corners, so that everyone will see them. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.  But when you pray, go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.

3/4: How We Treat Each Other Matters To God

I’ve been reading a truly disturbing book by Brian McLaren entitled, Everything Must Change: When The World’s Biggest Problems and Jesus’ Good News Collide. McClaren wrote what I now feel so strongly, “…religion, even the religion we are committed to and in which we have found God and purpose and meaning and truth can become captive to a colossal distortion. It can become a benign and passive chaplaincy to a failing and dysfunctional culture, the religious public relations department for an inadequate and destructive ideology.” I believe that to be true. I also believe what he says a few pages later, “If the message [of the Gospel] isn’t good news for the poor a message of liberation for the oppressed, it isn’t the same message Jesus proclaimed.”

I believe in a way I’ve never known before that Jesus’ message on the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is truly Good News. However, I’ve come to learn God’s Good News is often first experienced as bad news, because it detonates all my carefully fabricated strategies and lies to create my own “universe” in which I am in control and my interests come first, above all. I might be willing to consider my neighbor’s interests (i.e., yours) but only in the transactional sense that I get something out of it that fits into my self-centered world.

More and more I am seeing how my worldview must and needs to be shattered repeatedly so that God’s Spirit can give me a new heart and a new vision for the things Jesus stood for and died for. But it is more than me dying to my inadequate and destructive theology, I am part of an American Church that has sold our soul for a cultural faith that glorifies wealth and punishes the poor. You know me—I’m no ascetic. But I can no longer turn a blind eye to collision of the world’s biggest problems and the ways I’ve participated in subverting Jesus’ message for the sake of not rocking the boat and maintaining the Church as an institutional entity, not as a community seeking to live Jesus’ way today.

2/11: Psalms 100 & 150 Whopping It Up For God

Imagine someone who did nothing but strengthen the right side of his or her body. Picture a weightlifter’s biceps and triceps bulging, and quads that could leg press hundreds of pounds. We’d understandably stare and question such a quest, then maybe feel sorry for whoever thought this was a good idea.

But that, in effect, is what we’ve done for the last five hundred years within the Protestant reformed ranks of church and theology. I am a product of a church culture that glorifies the activities of our left brains and distrusts, even frowns upon, the functions associated with our right brains.

The center of reformed worship is the declaration of “the Word,” which means the main thing in our worship is the sermon. Music is, for too many of us, a time to get settled in and as comfortable as one ever gets in a church pew. If the choir sings an anthem that’s particularly moving, that’s a plus, but not essential. The prayer time for us has become very important, but it is still a left-brain activity since language plays such a crucial role. Of course the business of the announcements and offering are what they are. Then, the goal of the sermon is to connect our faith through words with our everyday lives, a left-brained activity.

Nothing at all wrong, but completely unbalanced and ultimately unhealthy to our “shalom;” our integrity and unity as people created in the image of God for lives that reflect a deep joy that produces gratitude in all circumstances. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

A few weeks ago a little boy was sitting in the front row with his mother when the band started our worship service. With a lot of us looking like our indigestion was really acting up, this little boy started dancing. Dancing!? And as he danced, his mother tried to get him to stop. But I was smiling and so were some others who realized that something important was happening and maybe, just maybe, was there just a faint memory of when we were kids and danced when the music invited us to dance? But as adults, that part of our brain is so anemic, and the scolding parent in our heads who tells us it’s not ok to cut loose singing and dancing in church, has stolen our birthright as children of the God who laughs and dances.

3/4: When Our Lives Go Off A Cliff Psalm 51

King David was a man who knew the highest highs of life, and the lowest lows. On the one hand the Apostle Paul described him as “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), yet his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and subsequent murder of her husband Uriah is the story of a man driving his life off a cliff.

It all started innocently enough, although the teller of the sordid tale makes it clear that David wasn’t where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing. He should have been out with his troops checking the borders of his kingdom, but instead he stayed behind in Jerusalem. (2 Samuel 11) I could stop right there and ponder the truth that my troubles often start with me not being where I am supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

From there it is a #MeToo story with the added horror of Uriah’s murder. In David’s case, it was the prophet Nathan that called him out by telling David a story of a rich rancher who had lots of sheep but insisted on stealing his poor neighbor’s only lamb and feeding it to the rich man’s guests. (2 Samuel 12) David was beside himself with rage over the rich man’s villainy, at which point Nathan shouted God’s judgment, “YOU ARE THAT MAN!”. One can almost hear the air going out of David’s ego, as he knew in that moment the full weight of what he had done.

1/28: Psalm 46: Doing Nothing Is Doing Something

I want to emphasize the overwhelming message revealed in the Psalms, embodied in Jesus, and championed by Paul. Living life through self-will and with ourselves as the center of the universe is a dead-end. There might be short-term gains, but it falls far short of God’s hopes and dreams for us as people loved by God. Jesus reveals what a God-centered life looks like, and it is a life that flows from a deep soul-connection with the Spirit and produces loving connections in all the arenas of life. Rather than living splintered, disjointed lives, the result of a God-centered life is not more busyness, but meaningful and connected lives that reflect a basic integrity.

Last week we reflected on the simple guidance Psalm 40:6 offers:

Our God is not looking for genius; He does not require great talents.

He is not charmed by our panic-ridden activity. He simply asks for our faith and obedience.

Meditating on my panic-ridden activity, and my tendency to neglect the really important stuff of life that isn’t clamoring for my attention as “URGENT,” I thought of Paul’s wise counsel in Galatians 5:22-23:

But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

1/14: Psalm 40

I know a lot more about conflict than peace….anger than serenity. Despair has on a couple of occasions been so overwhelming that even the slightest ray of hope is extinguished. The cry of Psalm 22 is one many of us know: “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” I have held the hand of someone as they cried and we read together, “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck.  I sink in deep mire, Where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, Where the floods overflow me.  I am weary with my crying; My throat is dry; My eyes fail while I wait for my God. (Psalm 69:1-3)

To be alive is to know pain and suffering. Life is never lived in a straight line, and all mountain top experiences will be followed by the low of a valley. The Psalms acknowledge real life and are not afraid to “call God out” when it is too much. The wisdom of the Psalms are echoed throughout the Bible. Life is going to happen. We are born and we will die. It is what we do with the pain and heartache that matters. Handle it on our own? Or scramble into God’s presence and trust that God will do for us what we can’t do for ourselves?

Psalm 40 is the prayer of one who was willing to be willing to trust God and declares God is trustworthy. It is the prayer of one who doesn’t sugarcoat it. There is honesty about the ups and downs. The Psalmist admits the shortcomings and character defects that plague us all. And the end declares God’s amazing love and grace.  

This is how Leslie Brandt translated Psalm 40:

I searched long and shouted loud for God.

It finally paid off, and He responded.

He reached into my pathetic emptiness and

         Planted objective and purpose there.

Now I feel like singing;

         there is genuine meaning in my life.

And maybe I can sell others on this concept

         Of really finding themselves in God

Those who are thoroughly fed up

         with the fly-by-night objectives

                  of this ephemeral existence,

         who will look to their Creator

                  and seek out His will for them,

         they will also find something to sing about.

There is love and concern there,

         and meaning and purpose,

                  far more than one can possibly imagine.

Our God is not looking for genius;

         He does not require great talents.

He is not charmed by our panic-ridden activity.

He simply asks for our faith and obedience.

It was when I turned from self-seeking

         To embrace His will for my life

                  that I discovered serenity and security.

Thus I am compelled to express in word and in deed

         The glad news of God’s love and concern

                  to anyone who will listen.

And the Lord knows

         that I have honestly tried to do this.

My frailties and my failures are many,

         but I have not cheated on this score.

I have proclaimed the salvation

         that God offers to all.

But my conflicts have not ceased.

My sin-permeated nature still plagues me.

I still feel overwhelmed at times

         by my faults and fallibilities.

I am disturbed and depressed

         when others fail to understand or accept me.

I need to rely continuously on the grace of God

God grant that all who search for life’s meaning

         may discover such

                  in a relationship of love and trust in Him.

They shall then know His greatness

         and proclaim His praises.

As for me, foolish and sinful though I am,

         I know that God will never cease to love me.

Question: How do I make God and His will the center of my life today?

This is what I found on my desk…

BERGEN/MARTIN AND HAZEL BURNETT SCHOLARSHIP NEWS

Applications for the spring 2018 Semester are now being accepted for the Hazel Burnett and Bergen/Martin scholarships. The deadline for applications is January 28, 2018. For information and to get applications, contact the church office at 707-996-6024 or email andrewpres@scglobal.net 

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR FINANCIAL FREEDOM AND PEACE? The 2018 Financial Peace University classes will begin on Sunday, January 28th at 11:45AM. This is a nine-week course. Cost is $109 to cover materials per person/household. Students must be present during the first class—and cannot start in the middle of the course—the weeks are built on one another. PLEASE REGISTER ON-LINE AT: http://www.fpu.com/1057302

WOMEN’S GRIEF & LOSS SUPPORT GROUP: 6-Week Group Series for Women Coping with the Loss of a Loved One: As we honor the sacred day to day aspects of loss, light and dark, we will honor the journey of the grieving individual in the context of a compassionate community of women. These sessions will include time for dialogue, mindfulness exercises, journaling and other expressive arts. Sessions offer informative, practical guidance and encourage uncensored self-discovery. We will explore our ability to give and to receive and the enormous capacity of the broken heart to restore health, beauty and balance to ourselves and our world. This is not a drop-in group. Participants must enroll for the entire series even if they are not able to attend all 6 sessions. This commitment will help to create a safe, trusting environment.

Tuesdays: January 16, 23, 30 & February 6, 13, 20—6:00-7:30PM Cost: $250 (Partial Scholarships Available)

Facilitated by: Nina Gorbach, MA, LMFT—Sponsored by: St. Andrew

To enroll, contact the church office: andrewpres@sbcglobal.net / 707-996-6024

1/7: Psalm 37--a prayer from the bottom

We struggle with the reality that life is not fair. Bad things happen to good people. Bad people seem to get away with “it” and seem to be winning. C.S. Lewis noted that while there is a basic human sense that the universe is moral, in the sense that there is a sense of ultimate right and wrong to which we appeal, life lived on the ground is at times downright demoralizing.

The oldest book in the Bible, Job, takes this issue on, and so do many of the Psalms, particularly Psalm 37. It is the Psalm from the bottom of the pile that posits God’s transcendence and goodness even when all our sensory evidence doesn’t seem to support such audacious faith. Rather than offer any more commentary or analysis, I’m going to let Leslie Brandt’s inspired translation of Psalm 37 from Psalms Now speak for itself:

12/31: Praying the Psalms/ Psalm 1

As we bid 2017 ado, and welcome 2018, I’m feeling the need to get centered and grounded in my faith and practice. It’s not that I want to disengage with the world around me, but if I’m not spiritually grounded, I won’t be able to engage in the ways that are rooted in God’s hope, joy, peace, and love. I need to let God’s Holy Spirit work in me and trust the Spirit to even pray on my behalf. Romans 8:26-28 points to the Spirit doing for me what I can’t do for myself:

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.  And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.  And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

Over the centuries, God’s people have used the Psalms as a means of letting God’s Word and Spirit shape their prayers. I confess that I’ve not prayed the Psalms on a regular basis, but as I look for strength, guidance, and grace these days, everywhere I turn I seem to be pointed to the Psalms. People of faith have taken their fears, angers, hurts, troubles, and sins and allowed the Psalms to shape all of what life stirs up into prayers which provide comfort, forgiveness, and hope. The Psalms express the real struggles of life and God’s real presence in the midst of it all. The Psalms connect me both vertically in conversation with God and horizontally with the community of faith. I do not stand alone in life.