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Sunday, January 24, 2010
Pastor's Annual Report to the Congregation
Our church's Annual Congregational Meeting just ended, with good vibes all around about where we've come to and where we're headed in the new year. Here's my report from the printed booklet we distributed to every member and guest who attended. 'Tis grace hath led us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home.
"But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 3:18
How do you make your pastor happy? Any number of ways, truth be told. I do hope I have been faithful in letting so many of you know the so many times when your good words and works have lifted my heart with grateful joy. But the greatest blessing of all for your pastor comes through seeing all the ways in which you fulfill 2 Peter's twofold call: to get to know Jesus Christ more fully; and to live out that knowledge in a gracious Christ-like way.
It's akin to a teacher's joy at witnessing a former student grow so proficient in the discipline at hand as to surpass the teacher's own ability. A grateful spirit gladly celebrates the accomplishments of a friend as though they were one's own. That is exactly how I feel as I read the reports that we've collected in this booklet for the Annual Congregational Meeting of our church family.
You will find on page after page reminders of God's blessing on our life and work in the past year. And you will read numerous projections of good things to come as we work together in the days that lie ahead. I invite you to pause now and then in your reading, to give God thanks for the gifts of grace and knowledge we've all received in 2009, and to ask God's help in discerning where you will fit best among the ministries of grace and knowledge yet to come in 2010.
Our Annual Meeting includes not only these many written reports, but also a few oral presentations that celebrate some new developments in our ongoing efforts to know Christ better and embody his grace at work. I believe you will be encouraged, even excited, when you hear the good news about: our ministries to our children and youth; creative new connections between our older adults and the younger generations of our church family; and our renewed program of field trips that combine continuing education with pleasant fellowship for all ages. And that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. If time allowed, you would see and hear much more about our overflowing menu of meaningful ministries. All the more reason to keep this book handy, take in all its news, and heed its invitations to get involved.
The Annual Meeting will also include the election of new Elders and Deacons, and a financial report including the 2010 budget adopted by your Session at its last meeting. Regarding the former, I am confident that your new officers are well gifted by God to lead you in ministries of mercy (Deacons) and careful oversight of our church's life and work (Elders).
About the latter, I am sure you all rejoice with me at the way God blessed our sacrificial efforts, in November 2009, to overcome a substantial deficit in the operating budget. Thanks be to God, and thanks be to each one of you who dug down deep to give extra funds that helped us end the year successfully. The national economy in this new year is still overshadowed by uncertainty, of course; and yet our faith is strong that God will provide all that we need to continue our numerous programs of training God's people in knowing Christ and living by his grace.
posted by Jack Buckley at
1:31 PM
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Jesus Saves... A Wedding!
 Psalm 36:5-10; John 2:1-11
On the day after Christmas I officiated a lovely wedding in a church on the other side of town. While I would normally decline such an offer because of family holiday priorities, this time I jumped at the chance. For the bride was a longtime friend of mine and I was delighted to be the minister who tied her matrimonial knot. The ceremony itself was short and sweet, by the book, embellished only by an Irish blessing and a Spanish prayer. The reception followed in the grand ballroom of the Elks Club Lodge. Fine food and drinks, fun music all night long, smiles and hugs and happy talk as the bride and groom worked the room.
Just imagine if Jesus had shown up in the midst of those festivities.
That's what danced around in my mind when I sat down to prepare this Sunday's sermon on the very first miracle Jesus ever performed. It happened at a wedding, to which he and his entourage had been invited, along with his mother and kid brothers.
I'm so glad he chose that setting to show his messianic stuff for the first time, instead of (for example) doing a swan dive off the Temple, turning stones into bread, or some other devilish stunt in a grab for public power and glory. (See Matthew 4:1-11 for the story of his temptation by Satan to do just that sort of thing.)
What he did do was to save the whole wedding reception from collapsing, by turning water into wine just in the nick of time. And the wine he made turned out to be the party's blind-taste first prize winner!
Cheers went up around the room, toasts were proposed, someone tapped a spoon against a glass and the blissful couple kissed, the band struck up again, and everyone danced until dawn.
This miracle story says loud and clear that there's no part of our lives too small, or insignificant, or secular for God to care about and want to fill up to the brim with joy. While we expect God to smile on our Sunday worship meetings, God is just as interested in our Friday night dancing to a Zydeco beat over at the Eagles Hall. And why be surprised if God wants to bless your soccer game, or to smile invisibly over there by the chili bowl at your Super Bowl party?
If what you're doing is the kind of thing God likes to see done, then enjoy it to the full. If you're doing it in the kind of place where God likes to show up, then eat up and drink deeply right then and there.
And, need I say it? If what you're doing, and where you're doing it, are not the kind of things and the sort of places that give God joy... Well, a word to the wise is sufficient.
But enough of that. Let the party begin -- and go on and on and on!
Listen to the GODcast!
P.S. That's Joanne and me in the photo ;-]
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:53 PM
Thursday, January 14, 2010
God of Good Surprises
Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
"God, you are the one who gave me life. Why are we suffering?" -- lines to a hymn sung by survivors in Plaza St. Pierre, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. All I can say is, God is suffering too -- and working through you and me to alleviate the suffering. That's what my friend and fellow minister Don Ashburn posted on Facebook two days after the horrendous earthquake in Haiti flattened buildings all across the island nation and snuffed out as many as 50,000 human lives.
His comment echoes the amazing promise of Isaiah 43:1-7, delivered by the prophet to the Jews during their long lonely exile in Babylonia thousands of miles from their "promised land."
It was only natural that they would wonder "Where is God in all of this? Why would God let us suffer this way? When and how can it ever come to an end?"
It was not so natural, though, that Isaiah would quote God solemnly pledging that, even when the "chosen people" had to walk through flooding waters and scorching flames, their God would be right there with them. Absolutely nothing in this world would be able to separate them from the God who knew their circumstances, understood their needs, and felt their every pain.
Above and beyond all that, Isaiah said, God had chosen them of all people, had called them by name, and loved them with an everlasting love!
The Jews had a tribal memory of God doing just what this prophecy promised, several centuries earlier. For example, when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery only to run up against the Red Sea, God separated the water so they could hurry to the other side and escape the soldiers rushing up to capture them.
For the next forty years they traveled across desert wastelands, protected from daytime heat by a pillar of cloud and from nighttime cold by a pillar of fire -- those pillars the visible sign that God walked with them every single step of their meandering journey.
Finally, at the edge of the promised land, the pilgrims had to cross the Jordan River, and once again God parted the rushing water and they crossed as if on dry ground.
And now, here their descendants were, hoping against hope that they could cross the Fertile Crescent and resettle back where they belonged. Even if they had to leave the trade routes and cut across deserts and through rivers, their God was guaranteeing they would never have to do it on their own.
My friend Don was in our congregation last Sunday when Isaiah 43 was read along with the story of Jesus' baptism in Luke 3. It was at the bank of the Jordan River that John the Baptizer ceremonially cleansed the bodies of sinners to symbolize that God was purifying their souls. And it was there that Jesus, whom John identified as the promised Messiah, God-With-Us, took his place in line to be washed along with all the sinners.
Absolutely amazing grace! Great surprise gift of God! Our Christian understanding of Jesus says he had no sins of his own to repent of or be forgiven for. Even so, he identified completely with us in our humanity, imperfect and problematic as it is, but never once sold out to sin himself. And that fact gives flesh and blood to Isaiah's promise of God with us and, much more, God for us -- through even the worst kind of trouble life might throw down to block our path. (See Hebrews 4:14-16)
That was the gist of Sunday's sermon, just two days before the Haitian earthquake hit with such devastating force.
Now, after two days of heroic efforts there to rescue, heal, and salvage somehow, I'm reflecting on that hymn and those who joined to sing it in the heart of Haiti's capital.
And I wonder, when the big quake we know is coming to the Bay Area finally breaks apart the earth beneath our feet, will we gather in the public squares and sing our hymns to God? If so, please God, what exactly will we sing? And why?
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:23 PM
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Where Can I Find Jesus?
Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12
There's something intimidating about the 3 Wise Men, Kings, Magi -- whatever you choose to call them.
There they come, marching right into the sweet sentimental story of the baby Jesus, gentle Mary, strong silent Joseph, angels, shepherds, sheep and lambs. They're downright awesome in their physical presence, decked out in splendid robes and crowns, redolent of Asian herbs and spices, as foreign to Jewish Mary and Joseph then and there as they are to us these many centuries later.
And so we ease the tension by making jokes about them.
There was actually a fourth Wise Man, but they sent him back home when his gift turned out to be a fruitcake.
A fourth Wise Man somehow got left out of the official story, but he was definitely welcomed by Mary. The gift he brought was an epidural! I know a few strong men who, when called upon to portray the Wise Men in a church pageant or a production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors," tried to shrug it off with the crack, "Yeah, I'm one of the three wiseguys." That is such a guy thing.
As counterpoint, my friends of the female persuasion assure me things would have been much different if it had been three Wise Women who showed up to worship the newborn king...
First of all, they would have asked for directions. They'd have arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, and cleaned up the stable. They'd have brought practical gifts. And they'd have cooked a casserole. For all of that, the Gospel of Matthew does tell us some mysterious male visitors from Mesopotamia came looking for a promised newborn king who would surely change the world. Led by a most unusual star, they came first to the holy city of Jerusalem only to discover their true destination was nearby Bethlehem. And sure enough, there they found the baby and his parents, and they humbly presented their precious gifts to him.
We call them Wise Men, and they surely were. Skilled in astrology, spiritually sensitive, they put together a pilgrimage that crossed the vast Fertile Crescent with no help from a GPS or Google map. But it's fair enough to wonder if, after all, their wisdom only went so far. Listen to Frederick Buechner's reflections on that question...
The gifts that the three Wise Men, or Kings, or Magi, brought to the manger in Bethlehem cost them plenty but seem hardly appropriate to the occasion. Maybe they were all they could think of for the child who had everything. In any case, they set them down on the straw -- the gold, the frankincense, the myrrh -- worshiped briefly, and then returned to the East where they had come from. It gives you pause to consider how, for all their great wisdom, they overlooked the one gift that the child would have been genuinely pleased to have someday, and that was the gift of themselves and their love.
(Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who)
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
2:31 PM
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