Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build
bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."' "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God." --Luke 12: 18-21 NRSV This week I've been watching a TV series on Amazon Video called Loudermilk. It centers on a recovering alcoholic who leads a support group for alcoholics and addicts. Fair warning--it's a comedy with plenty of crude humor, curse words and sexual situations-so skip it if such stuff offends you. It also has some great writing, great acting and some powerful wisdom. Clearly some of the creators and writers are in recovery, because usually each episode contains a nugget of hard-won truth. In the show, the sobriety group meets at a Catholic church in a well-to-do Seattle neighborhood. After meetings, group members stand around outside to talk, smoke and often, since this is a comedy, act like fools-loud ones. Neighbors who think of themselves as enlightened progressives have bought into the gentrified neighborhood and complain about the group, especially its noise and left behind cigarette butts. It's a classic case of NIMBY-ism, as in "Not In My Backyard" or "Poor people and troubled people deserve places to be, just not anywhere near me." When I watched the episode, my jaw dropped, because I have dealt with just this situation. I worked at a church in an expensive neighborhood in Kansas City. The church had no parking lot, only on-street parking. Several AA groups met in the building, and as is the case with every AA group I've ever known, members would stand outside after the meetings to talk usually with cigarettes in hand. Because we are talking about alcoholics and addicts here, some of the groups' members were loud and had little awareness of the world around them. That's why we had conflict with one of the church's neighbors. He was a lawyer who lived across from the church's main entrance. He didn't like the kind of people who went to the AA meetings being so near his house and "his children." He complained about the language they used and that "they left trash and cigarette butts on his lawn." We passed his complaints on to the AA groups, but he was never satisfied. Finally, one day he stormed over to the church, chewed out an sainted older lady who was a church member and threatened to sue. He was pretty hostile during our phone call. I explained that these meetings were literally saving people's lives, but he didn't care. He wanted them to hold their meetings elsewhere. He repeatedly threatened to sue until I finally offered to personally pick up any cigarette butt he found in his yard. Every day I was at the church building from then on, I walked the curb in front of his house to look for cigarette butts or other trash. I found one cigarette butt a week--maybe. I found more than that in my own yard and neither I nor my neighbors smoke. We don't have any AA groups meeting nearby either. The litigious neighbor often saw me checking his lawn for cigarette butts but never spoke to me again about it. In America, the suburban home is largely considered a symbol of safety and success. I should know. My family and I live in a nice neighborhood that we chose for its good schools and safety. Yet, I've come to understand my suburban home comes at a cost. I am removed from most of the needs and struggles of people who are unable to live where I do. My little pocket of perceived safety comes with a false sense of the world-a world where most people live with issues I don't have to see every day. I'm sure the people in my neighborhood have all sorts of pain and struggle, but you'd never know it. I have purchased a form of blindness that lulls me into believing I have no responsibility to others in the community. Also, in the pursuit of my self-interest and my home value, I am tempted to keep the world outside of my blinders at bay by any means necessary. As much as I'd like to think I'm better than the angry neighbor ranting about cigarette butts and threatening lawsuits, if I'm honest, I'm not as far from him as I would like. I don't often read Christianity Today because in general its theological outlook and resulting politics don't appeal to me, but I came across this article about Christians and NIMBY-ism that strikes me as truly prophetic for us suburban Americans. In it, the columnist Bonnie Christian writes: Home is a good gift from God, yet our homes become our idols if we make them the source of security we ought to find in Christ. Ouch! She goes on to quote St. Cyprian, a Christian bishop in North Africa in the third century and what he has to say strikes me as amazingly modern: who, excluding the poor from their neighborhood, stretch out their fields far and wide into space without any limits ... even in the midst of their riches those are torn to pieces by the anxiety of vague thought, lest the robber should spoil, lest the murderer should attack, lest the envy of some wealthier neighbor should become hostile, and harass them with malicious lawsuits. Such a one enjoys no security either in his food or in his sleep. Kristian continues: The security we seek in a Suburban Lifestyle Dream is a lie, Cyprian said, because searching for security outside of God leaves us with emptiness, fear, and vulnerability instead. Enjoying a large yard or a single-family house isn't sinful. But making any home-suburban or not-the foundation of our identity or a fortress to be guarded against the "intrusion" of the poor into our communities most certainly is. It isn't just homeowners who suffer from NIMBY-ism. Suburban churches can suffer from it too. Our buildings and the respectability we desire for them can become our idols. In the same way homeowners can look to security in their homes rather than in God, church people can make the same mistake. Jesus told the "Parable of the Rich Fool" to warn Christians that it is easy to place our security and trust in all the wrong things. No suburban home even in the most gated and guarded neighborhoods can guarantee us a life free of crisis, danger and pain, but such enclaves sure can numb our spirts and harden our hearts towards exactly the kind of people Jesus calls us to minister to and care for. One of the greatest challenges for American Christianity is understanding the suburban lifestyle is not the same thing as following Jesus. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples
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35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or
famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Romans 8:35 One of the greatest joys of being a Christian is knowing that we cannot be separated from the love of Jesus Christ. Whether you are a long-time believer or have freshly come to know Jesus, this passage is, indeed this whole section of Romans (Romans 8:31 – 39) is reassurance that in Christ we are assured God’s great love. The most poignant piece is that nothing can separate us. Nothing. No matter how bleak thing may seem, there is nothing that can keep us from the saving grace of our Lord and Savior and therefore, nothing that precludes us from the love of God. As we read through this list in verse 35 we see that it does not matter where the threat comes from, whether it is the circumstances of life, the government or even the enemy that wishes our demise, there is nothing that can stand up against the love of our God. And as if that is not enough, in verse 34 we read: 34Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Romans 8:34 So not only do we have nothing to fear from this world, but we also have nothing to fear from those who would drag us down. “Who condemns (us)? No one.” There are so many who have self-appointed the right to tell us whether we fit in, but right here in this passage God is telling us, NO! No one can condemn us, for Jesus is the grace we need to live, and He is the promise of God’s undying love. This is incredible news! No longer do we need to live in fear of what others think or say about us. Jesus has said “Come to me all of you…” Not just the self-righteous. Not just the “super Christian”, not just the clean and perfect, but all of you. When we give ourselves over to Jesus’ great love, there is no one who can condemn us for He knows our heart and He has given us the right to a full relationship with God. In a world where it is so easy to become distracted and to fall victim to the attitudes of those around us, Jesus offers us hope. Hope that no matter our situation, no matter our status, no matter what our lives look like, God’s love for us endures and grace has been provided for us to come to the Father without fear of rejection. For us, as Christians, we must remember this scripture. How easy it is to look down our nose at others. How easy is the trap of self-righteousness. It is so easy to determine someone is not good enough, but Jesus has called us to a better way. He has shown us that we do not stand in the role of condemner, but that we are to be like Him and give grace and love to all those we meet. When we accept the grace of Jesus we are no longer living under the threat of condemnation. We become conquerors, because of the sacrifice of Jesus. 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37 As proof, Paul tells us he is convinced, and we need to be convinced as well. For it is the love of God that has set us free. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38 – 39 Lay your worries down. Let go of the doubt of whether you will ever be good enough. The answer is clear. We are loved beyond compare, no matter what the world may say or do to us. Kathy Hendrix Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; --Psalm 1:1 NRSV Is it me or are there a lot of news stories lately about teachers and coaches saying awful things to their students? A number of cases have occurred in the KC area in recent weeks, and it seems like most if not all of them are white men. When white men in leadership situations with young people use the “n-word” or put down LGBTQ people or criticize someone of a religion different than their own I wonder what was going on in that man’s head? Was it a temporary slip that they didn’t mean? Did they always hold these views but their filter wasn’t working? Or did they imbibe too many hours of what I call the “hate machine”—caustic, negative and rage-filled talk radio, cable news and social media? Clearly, ignorance and idiocy occur across all boundaries of race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, politics and every other kind of boundary. White men don’t have a monopoly on acting badly or misdirecting anger, yet it seems to me the “hate machine” is operating at a level never seen before to get white men enraged. In a cynical bid to profit from people’s sense of outrage, everyone from billion-dollar corporations down to a guy running a podcast out of his basement are seeking to monetize people’s rage. An outrageous headline gets us to click on a manipulative article because it makes us mad, meanwhile they profit from every click on their web site. We stick around through a commercial break because of a teaser about the next segment sure to raise our blood pressure while they raise their advertising rates. It’s a nihilistic game that holds to no clear value system other than profit. The number one target for the “hate machine” seems to me to be white men. As more than ever before people groups who were denied a say in the public sphere are finding ways to make their voices heard white men are told they are victims. Without stopping to consider that white men have pretty much controlled everything in this country until fairly recently, we white men start to feel like we are losing something rather than simply having to share our influence, power and megaphone with others. It’s so much easier to get hacked off than humbly consider experiences different than our own. It’s easier to play the victim than to share control with others. In Psalm 1, the way of the righteous is differentiated from the way of the wicked. One phrase really stands out to me about the age we are in: “the seat of the scoffers.” It’s an evocative image variously translated as the seat or place of scoffers, mockers or scornful. This place is different from one where a person studies the “law of the Lord” or better translated the “teachings of God.” In the context in which Psalm 1 was written, studying God’s teachings was never a solitary experience but a community exercise. In order to study God’s teachings effectively one engaged in discussion with others who held different interpretations and points of view. As opposed to the “seat of scoffers,” which separates one from the rest of community with an arrogant mockery, studying God’s teachings involves listening, humility and community. When I read about inappropriate outbursts especially by white men but not limited just to them, I wonder was that person in dialogue with anyone else? Were they in a friendship or relationship with people different from them in regards to politics, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc.? Or were they falling down a rabbit hole into a bubble of like-minded outrage that promised wisdom but delivered only senseless anger? Take in a diet several hours a day of cable news, talk radio and social media posts that tell you how much you’re being wronged and how enraged you should be about it and pretty soon one ends up a manipulated seething pile of pointless ire (while the ones selling this rage make their money and care nothing of the consequences). More than ever, we need people, especially white men, to dig deep into the teachings of God and avoid the seat of the scoffers. God teaches about humility, meekness, wisdom, self-control, grace and mercy. When God teaches about anger it is always anger about the mistreatment of the least powerful and never about the powerful viewing themselves as victims. We need people who will pause before speaking and posting, treat others with compassion and exercise enough self-control not to vomit up hateful ideas just because it feels good in the moment. “The Hate Machine” is a seductive and addictive movement that says humility, self-control and grace are for losers and dehumanizing others of a lower social status is admirable. It is not an easy thing to quit and those who produce it know that fact better than anyone else. Yet, people who wish to find the way of the righteous refuse to sit in the “seat of scoffers.” Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples This week the Pastoral Search Team met for the first time, and I challenged them with two points that I believe the entire church needs to hear:
My second point largely comes down to your next pastor will not be a superhero. She or he will not be talented and charismatic enough to transform PHCC into what you think God is leading it to be. Your next pastor will not have all the answers nor will she or he make everything the way it used to be. It is not your next pastor’s responsibility to be the church for you. All these things are your responsibility not your future pastor’s responsibility. If you want PHCC to be something different and to do something different, then why aren’t you doing it already? For that matter, why should the pastor PHCC needs even come here if the church membership isn’t already doing what God calls it to be and do? Here is the straight truth—if you aren’t willing to make what God wants to happen a reality now before your next pastor comes, then you probably won’t be willing to make it happen after your new pastor comes. Now that COVID is ending and day by day we are seeing vaccination counts rise and restrictions being lifted, it is the perfect time to get about doing the work God calls PHCC to do. If something needs to change, then let’s change it. If something needs to be started, let’s start it. If something needs to be resumed now that the pandemic is over, let’s resume it. If something needs to end, let’s end it. The time is now and not some future date when a new pastor is called. The biggest lie the American church ever fell for is the one that says the church should be a spiritual vending machine that gives people what they want without them having to do anything in return. Of course, churches need to be offering opportunities that enrich the spiritual lives of the people who belong to it, but despite what megachurches promise, a true Christian community is not a show to be watched or a spectator sport. True Christian community involves commitment, service and every member of it invested in what it does together. The blessing of a healthy church is everyone knowing the joy of serving and seeing how God uses them to help others. The reality in most (unhealthy) churches is a few members burn themselves out bailing just enough water out of a sinking ship to keep it afloat a little longer. So, what are you waiting for? Your next pastor won’t be a genie who shows up to grant your wishes. The same God who will be present then is present now and ready to get down to business. If you want PHCC to be offering something, then look in the mirror, because Jesus did not model a consumer Christianity but a Christianity made up of servants who serve others with joy. If you wish for a talented, charismatic and caring pastor to come to PHCC, then get to work being the kind of church such a person would want to be a part of. The best pastors searching for churches to serve are looking for churches where members are already doing great things because the power of God is at work in them. Why would she or he want to come to a church that has sat on its hands waiting for a sucker to come and do all the work God called it to do in the first place? Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the
devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. --Ephesians 6:12-13 NRSV My family and I have been watching the Star Wars TV show The Mandalorian on Disney+. If you are not into Star Wars (and if not, why not?), The Mandalorian looks and feels a lot like an old western only with spaceships and laser blasters instead of horses and six shooters. The main character is from the planet Mandalore--hence the name of the show--where a race of fierce warriors once lived. These warriors were known by their impenetrable armor made of one of the toughest metals in the galaxy. Our hero--similar to “the man with no name” in westerns--travels the galaxy encased in his armor battling evil and saving the local populace from the bad guys. (Oh yeah, there’s a baby Yoda too, but if you’re not into Star Wars, then that probably won’t mean much to you.) I’ve often wished for a kind of armor that could protect me from nasty remarks, manipulation, betrayal and pain. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. The myth of the invulnerable hero permeates our culture from old westerns to John McClane of Die Hard, from Lara Croft of Tomb Raider to Daenerys Targaryen of Game of Thrones. Who doesn’t want to live as if all the hurtful stuff that comes at us in all of our relationships doesn’t really scratch our surfaces? So, we learn survival skills such as wearing “masks” which enable us to present an image to the outside world different from our inner reality; pushing intimacy away so we don’t have the risk of being hurt; putting others down before we can be on the receiving end of a put down and more. There’s another kind of armor in the TV show The Mandalorian: the armor worn by the stormtroopers of the evil Galactic Empire. The bad guys’ armor is comically ineffective. All it takes is one smack from even the unlikeliest of sources to knock a stormtrooper out of action. An attentive viewer of the Star Wars franchise might wonder why they even bother wearing it, since it doesn’t really protect them at all. Our emotional defenses are a lot like the stormtroopers’ armor--it may make us feel safe but ultimately it just a bunch of heavy useless junk to carry around. For the real armor--the kind the title character of The Mandalorian wears--we have to look to a deeper source of protection. The Apostle Paul called it “the whole armor of God.” It’s too bad that so many Christians down through the centuries have taken these verses literally and as an excuse to become crusaders shedding blood in God’s name. Paul actually subverts the idea of armor and says our protection comes not from violence or the threat of it, not from literal weapons, helmets and breastplates, but from God. The armor that really keeps us safe is made up of things like truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and Spirit. God did not create us to be action heroes wandering the Wild West or the galaxy immune from harm. No, God created us to be in relationship with one another and to take the risks which come with being vulnerable with one another. Of course that means we will be hurt but we can bear those pains because our strength and assurance comes from our perfect God rather than a misguided belief that others will be perfect or an even worse belief that we have to be perfect. God designed us to love courageously, show mercy recklessly and give generously with the full knowledge that living this way invites betrayal, ridicule and pain, but our identity and security is found in the God who created us rather than in the actions of others. Pick your armor carefully. One kind is useless but the other will sustain you through the difficulties of this life. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. --Isaiah 49: 14-16 NRSV On Sunday, I preached about the biblical basis for addressing God in feminine, especially motherly, terms. The scripture read on Sunday came from Isaiah 49, one of my favorite Bible passages, because of the way God compares God’s self to a mother being unable to forget the child she gave birth to. What especially speaks to me is the first line of verse 16: “See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.” It speaks to me because while my wife and I don’t have our sons’ names inscribed on our hands, we do have their names tattooed on our bodies. When the adoptions were finalized for each of our sons making them legally our children, my wife Jennifer and I found a tattoo parlor and had their monograms tattooed on our bodies. My wife chose to have one son’s monogram tattooed on the top of each foot. Ouch! I chose to put their monograms on either side of my left wrist. I wanted the tattoos of my sons’ monograms where I could easily see them wherever I chose. Back before my cell phone became my timepiece, I wore a watch which would cover the tattoos. These were the days before everyone had tattoos, and I felt like a little camouflage was in order, lest the sight of the minister having tattoos cause heart palpitations for the church’s more uptight members. Sometimes the watch wasn’t enough cover, and I did get to watch some prim and proper women (and men!) clutch their pearls in horror. Eventually I stopped wearing a watch, and everybody, even church-going grandmothers, got tattoos, so it’s not nearly the big deal it was once upon a time. My sons don’t take much notice of the tattoos sported by their parents. After all, they’ve been around as long as my teenage sons can remember. Sometimes, however, I do make a big deal of pointing the tattoos out in order to tell each of them how much I love them and that I carry them around with me all the time. It’s true. I glance down at my tattoos on my wrist and think about all we’ve gone through together, from the struggles of adoption to the struggles of being a teenager. A psychologist friend of mine says that Jen and I were responding to a need for “embodiment.” We didn’t literally go through the physical process of giving birth to our sons, she says, so we needed a physical tie to them. That makes sense to me, although at the time, we needed a way to ritualize our celebrations of the end of the rigorous adoption processes we faced with each boy. Either way, the tattoos were a way of claiming both beautiful children as our own. In Isaiah 49:16, it is God who has the name of God’s people tattooed on God’s hands. God cannot forget you or me, but it is as if God goes to the extra trouble to inscribe our names on God’s hands just in case. God claims you and me, and I like to think God checks out the tattoos of each of our names to remember all God has been through with us so far on our journeys. God cherishes even the difficult times simply because God had the joy of being together with each one of us. Whenever you feel alone, remember God has your name tattooed on God’s hands, and God is looking at it and lovingly thinking about you. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples 1The LORD is my shepherd;
there is nothing I lack. 2He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3He renews my life; He leads me along the right paths for His name’s sake. Psalms 23:1 – 3 HCSB Even the most casual of Christians will be familiar with these verses. This section of scripture is perhaps the second most memorized and quoted in our society. How many funerals have you attended where the 23rd Psalms was read? Most likely more than you can count. Because this passage is so common, we often overlook its significance in our daily life. Think of it, “The Lord is my shepherd”. This is an active role. A shepherd doesn’t just stand around watching the sheep. No, he herds the sheep to green pastures, he makes sure that they drink from the best springs of water. He protects them from the wild creatures that would devour them. This statement is a reminder that our God is actively involved in our lives. In those moments when we feel most vulnerable, alone and lost, the shepherd is there to comfort us. In our daily lives it is easy to feel lost. The rush of the day, the crush of overwhelming tasks and the sense that we are all alone in our efforts crowd into our thoughts and wear us out. We are so tired that when we sleep our minds race with things left undone and issues that we have no control over causing us to be weary even after a night of sleep. We remain restless, easily startled and out of control. Yet, we have the promise of a great shepherd to calm those very stresses. Looking to Jesus as our Great Shepherd brings us peace. “There is nothing I lack”. When we are caught up in the process of living, we look about us and wonder why I can’t have the things that “they” have. For most of us in America, we do not have to worry about our next meal or where we are going to lay our head at night. Most of those reading this post are assured of a good meal and a home to go to when the day ends. But more and more in our society there are people facing the real question of where the next meal will come from and where will I lay my head down tonight. If we search further afield, throughout the world there are whole societies that struggle just to make it one more day. In truth, it can be discouraging when we actually notice the world around us. But Christ gives us another way. When we trust fully in Him, we will lack nothing. That is not to say that our every meal is guaranteed or that we will have a roof over our head. What it is does mean is that we have assurance that God’s will is being done and no matter the hardship we face in this moment we will be provided for. “He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.”. Though we may not have the things that this world says we need and yes, we may even be missing out on the essentials of life, we are promised one thing. We will find peace in Christ. As Corrie ten Boom wrote, “If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God, you'll be at rest.” Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who during the Nazi occupation helped hide Jews. For this crime she and her whole family were sent to a concentration camp. Even in the horrors of the death camp she looked to God and found peace. When Jesus is our focus, we find peace in our every circumstance. Is there great joy? No, not always, but there is hope and peace in His presence. “He renews my life; He leads me along the right paths for His name’s sake.” We live renewed lives because Jesus is doing a new thing in us. When we exhibit hope and peace to the world no matter our circumstances, the world takes notice and begins to question where does this come from. It is our opening to share Christ with others. It is such a struggle for most of us to go and “witness” to others, but when we live our lives looking to the Good Shepherd, others are drawn to us. When we put our faith in the God of all creation and truly trust that Jesus is our shepherd, we become beacons of His will for the entire earth. We are renewed in all things. We have peace, comfort, and safety in Christ. Do not be afraid, God has provided for us a Great Shepherd who will always care for us. Look to Him in all things. Kathy Hendrix (HCSB – Holman Christian Standard Bible) women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be
subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. --1 Corinthians 14:33-34 NRSV It’s been two and a half years since my mother died of a brain tumor. I still find myself grieving over her absence even as I discover new things about her for which I am grateful. As we approach Mother’s Day, I’ve been thinking about what she taught me about how a woman should act in church. My mother never liked the role of preacher’s wife that the Southern Baptist churches my father served expected her to fill. She was an introvert and crowds of people left her depleted and irritated rather than the life of the party. She didn’t play the organ, lead the choir or act as a second unpaid minister with her husband. She did however faithfully teach children’s Sunday School and later adult Sunday School classes. All of her students, including me, learned an awful lot about the Bible and about God in her classes. My mother knew more about the Bible than most church members and even most ministers. She bit her lip in many church situations because she didn’t want to cause trouble for my father, but there were just times she had to speak up no matter what anyone else thought, including her husband the minister. My father told me the story of a time in the 1970’s during the rise of women’s rights and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment when the St. Louis Baptist Association sent out a questionnaire to its pastors about the role of women. My father was fairly conservative in those days, so he answered all the questions according to the sexist biblical interpretations he had been taught—the husband has authority of his wife and she must submit to him, women should not hold positions of authority over men, only men could be church leaders and women could not be ordained. He made the mistake of leaving the questionnaire along with his answers out where my mother found it. The next morning my dad found the questionnaire with the words written on it in large bold letters: “THE ANSWERS WRITTEN ON THIS QUESTIONAIRE DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF EVERYONE IN THIS HOUSEHOLD—BARBARA PEEPLES.” My father said that was a turning point for him regarding the equality of women and he began questioning the teachings of his denomination about gender. I recall another time that took place after my father had left the church I was raised in and gone to a new church across the country from it. My mother and I had not moved yet, and she continued to bring me to the original church so I could be with my friends in the youth group. The church had brought in an interim pastor who was a fire breathing fundamentalist. One Sunday, apropos of nothing, the preacher started yelling about abortion and declaring women who had one were going to hell. I was sitting with my friends in the back of the sanctuary, and I watched my mother abruptly and loudly stand up and gather her things in the middle of the sermon. She sat up front and when she turned to walk up the aisle every person in the church could see the anger written all over her face. It was a long aisle, and everyone got a good look at how mad she was. She was waiting for me in the car after the service (I had stayed until its end). I asked my mom about why she left the service, and she replied that she wasn’t going to sit there and listen to some arrogant fool condemn women especially when he had no idea the heartbreaking choices women had to make while the men who got them pregnant didn’t bear any of those burdens. Her words, and even more so her actions, taught me that using religion to condemn hurting people was wrong. Over the years since, I’ve heard all the prooftexts about women, usually a few scattered verses by the Apostle Paul. In defense of Paul, I’d simply note the poor man had no idea his mail would become holy scripture when he wrote his words. He was struggling to reconcile the freedom in Christ being experienced in the churches he founded with a culture intertwined with hierarchies of power. Sometimes he understood what equality in Christ meant (There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 NRSV), and other times he was a man of his times and couldn’t see beyond the limits of his own culture (For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Ephesians 5:23 NRSV). Because of my mother’s example, I learned that we need to read such culture-bound verses in light of the equality in Christ Paul was pointing toward instead of the patriarchal culture Paul was stuck in. My mother never burned her bra on the church steps, but in her own way she pushed against sexism in the church and refused to be silenced. I’ve known so many brave and wise women who refused to be contained by misused Bible verses, and I laugh when I hear men quoting them, because I feel quite sure the women in their life are anything but submissive. Some of the courageous church women I have known have been pastors and seminary professors, deacons and elders, but whether they had a leadership role or were just like my mom, a female church member who refused to be silenced no matter the occasion, I am grateful to each of them. Speaking of “Silence,” I encourage you to read the following poem by Margalea Warner and offer thanks for all the church women you’ve known who refused to be silent in church. “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches.” (I Corinthians 14:33-34) I know a woman named Silence She said her parents did not know her very well when they named her. They thought Silence was a beautiful name for a girl. She stands up in her pew and speaks her mind: When a couple in church announces the birth of a girl Silence says, “I think we should all clap for that.” When a foreign student speaks about war in Ethiopia Silence says, “Keep telling us about that, we need to hear.” When someone complains about the church needing air conditioning Silence says, “That’s why I bring my fan.” I love this woman named Silence And I think we should definitely Keep Silence in the church. Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples Last Sunday we celebrated the life of Helen Hawkins Wright and her devotion to Park Hill Christian Church.
Helen had many titles during her time here on earth. She was a mother to Barbara, John and Jeff. A wife to John Hawkins, and years after losing John, a wife to Dick Wright. Helen served her church in so many roles, not the least of which were as a youth sponsor, a girl scout leader and a deacon. As most knew, Helen was involved in the SPEAC Pantry. But what you may not have known was that Helen originally started the Pantry out of her home ! The space constraints and demands soon forced her to find a larger venue, and that venue became Park Hill Christian Church. For years, the Northland Pantry operated out of our Church. Eventually it even outgrew our space and moved to its present location in the Presbyterian Church in Parkville. When Helen and Dick met and married (having both lost their first spouses to illness) they had grown children from those first marriages. They set up a family trust to first of all benefit their children after they were gone. However Helen also directed her trustees to set aside a gift for her Church. Last week, Helen Hawkins Wright (by way of her trust) presented Park Hill Christian Church with the "Gift Of A Lifetime". On Wednesday the Church received a check for $283,505.19 !!! Knowing that we were going to eventually receive this gift, but not certain when, your executive committee planned on how to best use this precious gift. Here is what we decided: The first $10,000 will be donated in Helen's name to the SPEAC Pantry. The next $25,000 will be placed into the permanent endowment fund in Helen's name, forever memorializing her gift to her Church. The next $20,000 will be set aside for replacement of a portion of the Church Roof; and The remaining $283,505.19 will be used to pay down the Church mortgage. As many of you may recall, when we built the Life Center and remodeled and expanded the Narthex, our original mortgage was about one million dollars ($1,000,000.00). After we make this payment, our debt will be down to around $20,000. Helen is challenging us to now step up and raise that remaining $20,000. With the help of each of you we can do it ! The money we have been diverting to mortgage payments could be used for so many more great ministries here at Park Hill, if only we can rid ourselves of that remaining debt. So how about it ? Are you on board ? Can you help finish the task that we are sooo close to completing, because of the gift from Helen Wright ? Please think about it. Pray about it. And then give what you can. Best regards, C. Carl Kimbrell On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. --Isaiah 25:6 NRSV Perhaps you’ve heard the expression “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” The adage is meant to mean “you can’t get something for nothing” or “there are always strings attached.” The idea may be true for our culture or for every culture for all I know, but it is an unbiblical worldview. God promises a free lunch and so much more, and God invites us to be a part of the free lunch movement. Throughout the Bible there is the image of a banquet God intends to give to God’s people, an image that spoke of abundance and plenty for the people of ancient Israel where most people lived hand to mouth at the best of times. Many of the images of God’s overflowing banquet are future events, but Jesus spoke of such abundance as not only a future event but a present reality wherever God’s people trusted in God’s abundance and were faithful with what God had given them. God insists that one day everyone shall have more than they need, but in the meantime, it is up to us to share what we have been given and to believe our instincts are wrong which lead us to hoard good things only for ourselves. Such a mindset is a dramatic break from our culture which declares everything is a transaction. You cannot get something for nothing because no gift is freely given. Most of our livelihoods and our retirement accounts are based upon the idea of supply and demand, selling what people want or need, and understanding the world as a place of scarcity where only some can be winners and most must be losers. Yet, God invites us to see a different kind of world where we have more than we need, and we are created to share it with others. If that sounds like nonsense to you or perhaps even some kind of communist plot, I invite you to consider this story from the Washington Post today: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/05/03/giving-wall-restaurant-oklahoma/) Restaurants in small towns in northeastern Oklahoma have started to post tickets and receipts for meals on their walls which customers have paid for but not eaten. Anyone, no questions asked, can take a ticket off the wall and get a meal for free. Even the tip is paid for in advance. The mayor of one of the small towns, Miami, Oklahoma (pronounced My-am-uh) said about the practice, “Maybe if we can show people what it’s like to take care of your neighbor during a time of need, it will spread throughout the United States.” Miami is a former mining town where 23% of the population live in poverty—probably more now that the Covid pandemic and this winter’s “Artic Blast” have taken their toll. The mayor said, “We don’t like to ask questions in Miami and we don’t judge. Sometimes, people just need a little help. They need somebody to believe in them.” These free meals began at one restaurant and quickly spread to restaurants around the area. One restaurant owner said, “It’s a discreet way for somebody to get a good meal without feeling embarrassed. Our waitresses know not to make a fuss or draw attention to it.” She went on to say, “I’ve had people tell me this is the first time in a long time that they’ve been able to have a meal in a restaurant. So there is still a lot of hurt and hard times out there.” Some of those who have taken a free meal have later returned to buy a meal for someone else when they are able to do so. Another restaurant owner took a call from a man in Chicago who read about the free meals and paid for several meals because he felt inspired by it. Generosity begets generosity. Selfishness begets selfishness. There is such a thing as a free lunch or a free dinner or a free breakfast. The Bible says so. God says so. All it takes for a “free lunch” to happen is people who trust they have enough to give to others with no strings attached. It’s too bad most people who say they believe in God don’t actually trust God enough to be generous with what God has given them. I wonder what would happen if each person who reads these words would ask God to show them whom they should give a “free lunch” to? I wonder what would happen if each person who reads these words asked God the same question every day? Grace and Peace, Rev. Chase Peeples |
AuthorWe're Park Hill Christian Church in KC MO. We seek to follow Jesus by praising God, loving those we meet and serving the vulnerable. Archives
June 2021
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