Mid-Week Message - January 14

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!

There is so much heaviness in the world these days.  Any time you turn on the media (TV, radio, social media), it feels like we are bombarded with stories of tragedy, big or small, on the other side of the world or right next door.  It feels impossible to escape, and I don't know about you, but if I spend too much time with the media, I find that the tragedy is all that I am able to see in the world.

It is a fine line to walk, staying connected enough to be aware of what is going on in the world, while protecting my own mental health.

I do find that my faith helps me to find that balance.  I know that I need to be aware of what is going on in the world so that I know what to pray for and where I need to act.  But at the same time, my faith gives me hope - it reminds me that all of the pain and suffering and chaos is not the end of the story.

Sometimes it feels as though time is cyclical, with times of relative chaos being followed by times of relative peace.  But if we can step outside of time and see time from God's perspective, we can see that there was a beginning to time, which implies that there will also be an end to time.  The cycles may feel as though they are repeating over and over again, but there will come a time when even these cycles will end and only peace and love will remain.  To quote Martin Luther King Jr., "The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

So in the short-term scale of time, I know that this current cycle of chaos that we are in will end, and be followed by peace; and in the grand, God-time scale of things, eventually the chaos will be forever-ended.  (I probably won't be alive to see that day, but I trust that it will come.)

At bible study this morning, we were reading parts of Jeremiah, including Jeremiah's call story (Jeremiah 1:4-19). God doesn't promise Jeremiah that the bad stuff won't happen, but instead reassures Jeremiah that They (ie God) will be with him through it all.

No matter what you are going through now, or what you might be going through tomorrow, God is with you.  God's love is embracing you, today and always.  And never forget that every Good Friday moment will be followed by resurrection.

(And today, there are 22 minutes and 36 seconds more daylight than there were on December 21, so things are on the upswing!)

Moving on to announcements for this week:

• Worship on Sunday will be at 9:15 at Long Reach and 11:15 at Westfield and on Facebook Live.  This week, we will be reading about the beginning of Jesus's ministry (as per the gospel of John), and the invitation from one disciple to another to "Come and see!" They were able to recognize something special in Jesus - how are we able to recognize God's presence in the world?  (If you want to read the scripture ahead of time, it is John 1:29-42.)

• Bible Study - we were finally able to re-convene after the Christmas break and last week's snow, and it was good to be together again, diving into scripture to see how it speaks to us today. We gather every Wednesday morning in the parlour at Westfield - everyone is welcome!

• Asking The Big Questions - our January gathering will be next Tuesday, January 20, from 4:30 - 6 in the parlour at Westfield. This month's question will be:  "How much am I willing to risk to do what is right?" This is, unsurprisingly, inspired by everything going on in the world right now - from resistance movements in the US, to fears over an invasion of our own country, to increasing nationalism at home. I wish that I could say that these were "unprecedented times" but a quick glance at history shows similar patterns in the past. There will be prompts, questions, and activities to engage in the "big question," and as always, we'll end with pizza!

• Annual Reports - a thank you from Elaine to everyone who has submitted their reports to her! (And if you haven't yet, you have until midnight today... as long as you are reading this on Wednesday!)

• Mystery to Solve - This one is for the Westfielders - can any of you help our Board of Stewards solve a mystery?  Twice in recent weeks, they have discovered that someone has flipped off one of the breakers in the box in the basement. Once it was for the roof heat coils and a light fixture, and the other time it was for the Peace on Earth sign out front. (And yes - they were manually flipped and didn't trip on their own. That was my question for them!)  Does anyone know anything about who might have done this and why?  I know that we have a ghost in the building, and according to Elaine our church ghost has turned things on and off before, but I don't want to blame our ghost (who is generally pretty friendly) until we've eliminated all human possibilities!

Thank You Corner - this week's "thank you" goes out to our treasurers around the pastoral charge:  Leanne Geurts (Two Rivers treasurer), Debbie Touchie (Bayswater-Summerville treasurer), Beth Quigley (Long Reach treasurer), Joe Brooks (Westfield treasurer), and Donnie Michaelson (Westfield bookkeeper). This group of dedicated people offer their time throughout the year, balancing the books, depositing donations, and paying the bills; and at this time of year they are especially busy preparing both the budget for this year and receipts for last year. Thank you for all that you do!

One final note before moving on to my closing thought.  I have been sending this email through MailChimp for just over 6 years. (We use a 3rd party email system for two reasons:  Gmail would occasionally flag me as a spammer when I tried to send out congregational emails, and bounce all of them back to me unsent; plus Canada's privacy laws say that every organization that sends out emails must have a way for recipients to unsubscribe.) I use the "free" tier of service with MailChimp that currently allows me to have up to 500 contacts and send up to 1000 emails per month. This email currently goes out to 232 recipients, so I am able to send up to 4 emails each month without going over the limit.

I received an email from MailChimp yesterday, telling me that in February, their billing tiers were going to be changing, and the free tier will only allow up to 250 contacts (I'm still OK there) and up to 500 emails a month (this would only allow me to send out this newsletter twice a month).  I think that there is value in a weekly newsletter, based on the feedback that I receive, so I am currently looking into other service providers that will allow me to maintain a weekly presence in your inbox without costing the church anything.  (I reached out to some colleagues, and they suggested a few options that I can look at.)

What this means for you is that at some point in the next month, this newsletter might look different.  Once I have an account set up with another service provider, I will delete my MailChimp account, including all of the data stored here.  (Hopefully it won't be too much of a pain to migrate all of your email addresses!)

Moving on to a closing thought for this week.  The theme that we are following here at Two Rivers in this season between Epiphany and Lent is a theme of light.  We saw it 2 Sundays ago when we read the story of the magi who followed the star.  We saw it again last Sunday with the story of Jesus's baptism, and when we talked about how we can each be like candles, pushing back the shadows of this world.  (The script for both of these sermons can be found on my blog.)  When Bertis and I were planning out worship for this season, we joked that we were running out of light-focused hymns to include!

Anyways, I came across this same theme from a different angle from Nadia Bolz-Weber in her Epiphany sermon that she shared on Monday.  She uses the image of phosphorescence - a scientific phenomenon where it seems like a thing is generating light from within, while in reality, it is releasing the energy that it has absorbed over time in the form of light.  Her sermon took my breath away, so I wanted to share it with all of you!  You can read it by clicking here. (There is also a video version linked, along with a timestamp to help you find the right place in the video, for those of you who prefer to watch or listen to sermons.)

Blessings to you and yours, today and always!

Kate.

Rev. Kate Jones

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

(506) 757-2201 (office)

(506) 343-1307 (mobile)

www.tworiverspastoralcharge.com

 Pronouns:  she/her/hers

"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself."

(Matthew 22:36-39)