Bryant's Weekly Thoughts

Bryant’s Weekly Thoughts for March 2008

Every Friday, Rev. Bryant M. Oskvig sends out his e-Pistle – thoughts, comments, and expressions of what’s on his mind.

To read previous e-Pistles by month, please use button below.

Friday March 7, 2008

“So, what can we do?”

Even I can forget basic theological truths in the midst of my own striving. I forget that we have not been called by Christ to ourselves, but we have been called by Christ to each other. The fullness of discipleship and faith are experienced and developed in community, in the Church. While we work our own faith out in fear and trembling, it is as the one body of Christ as that we share in the Spirit of God and live in this world while naming the truth of kingdom of love. The best part of true Christian faith is the fellowship of one another, to know hope and comfort by the company of friends. What a grace we have been giving in each other.

I was reminded of this grace as I met with bell choir to talk about the congregation’s current financial situation. After I had explained the situations and described the steps that were being taken, I was asked, “So, what can we do?” It was one of the questions I had not prepared myself to answer. The bell choir reminded me that we are all the body of Christ together; that the burdens of the community are not just the leadership’s burdens, but all of our burdens.

As the one body of Christ then here is what we can do:

Pray – We are a people born of prayer, and I invite everyone to pray for the church.

Give – If everyone increased their giving by at least 10% (for a weekly gift of $50 this would just mean $5 more), we would have the resources necessary to meet our fiscal obligations.

Commit – There is a current immediate need for volunteer help with the ministries of this congregation. Our Easter Festival requires more persons than have currently volunteered to help; we have a Trustee Work Day in April, and there are many more opportunities. Find a place where you can support the ministries with your time.

Together, we hold to our faith in God; we name the hope of Christ for this world, and we are strengthened in our service by love. We are the one body, and I thank the Bell Choir for reminding me of that. In fact, given the great theological reflection of that group that refers to themselves as the ding-a-lings, the Bell Choir should probably be renamed The Committee for Theological Insight and Observation with Some Occasional Bell Ringing.

Remember this Saturday night to move your clocks ahead one hour, so you will be here with the rest of us for worship on Sunday.

In Grace and Hope,

Bryant

Friday, March 14, 2008

Christians enter the holiest time of the year this Sunday. Palm Sunday marks the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and puts in motion those persons and events that eventually lead to the cross. During these days, the community journeys with Jesus into the city, to the upper room, to the garden, to the cross, and to the resurrection. This is a time of reflection; it is a time of examination, and it is a time for a moment of pause.

Jesus came into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd; they looked expectantly to the hope he brought to them. Yet, within a couple days, the crowd would turn their back on him and that hope; it was too hard, too much to ask. Holy Week asks us to examine and name those moments when being a Christian has been too inconvenient for us; those moments when we have not lived as disciples, where we have failed to hold on to hope, name truth in love, and live as an experience of God’s love in our world.

“'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

We live in a culture that encourages and expects self love. We are encouraged to satisfy our hungers and our desires with little thought of those affected by them; after all, we deserve it. As a society, we have a morbid fascination as we watch people destroy their lives by feeding these desires. How often, do we turn our back on Christ because it is too inconvenient, faith getting in the way of our satisfying our needs? We make an idol of self, and we worship it with our consumption.

Christ rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey seeing the cross on the horizon. With love of God and love of neighbor, Jesus enjoyed the jubilation of the palms and would endure the abandonment in the garden. In his example, we are called to be an Easter people who know that the story of the cross is about the abiding and everlasting promise of God’s love. Thus with the confidence of a people who know that love endures, we can deny ourselves stuff in the name of truth; we can hold onto hope that life is full of goodness, and we can struggle in faith to live as God’s people, people who embody all the Christ named, so that the world may know the Good News too.

In Grace and Hope,

Bryant

Friday, March 21, 2008

We come again to the holiest days in the Christian Year as we prepare for the feast of Easter. In the ancient Church, Maundy Thursday was observed through a modest shared meal, communion, and prayer; Good Friday was a day of fasting and prayer, and Holy Saturday hosted a vigil service that ended with the baptism of new Christians on Sunday morning. All of these services were to mark the saving acts of God in Jesus Christ and center all Christians again in the habits of discipleship: prayer, worship, and generosity.

It is hard not to ponder the cross and consider our own failures, personal and collective, in discipleship. We have all betrayed Christ in the things we have done or the things we have left undone. We have struggled to pray for our enemies, to work for peace, to offer hope to the hopeless. We have all betrayed Christ when confronted with challenges to living a life of discipleship in this materialistic world. Time for prayer and spiritual reflection has been lost in the crush of other commitments, gathering with other Christians in worship seems to be a waste of time amongst all the other responsibilities of life, and how can we spare anything for anyone else when we can just barely afford the things we want. In the cross, we are confronted by the courage and commitment of Christ for our sakes and how little, in comparison, is asked in return.

The cross is also that reminder that with courage Jesus opened the arms of grace for the entire world, including you and me. The cross then is the reminder of our failures and our invitation to new life.

We have been invited to accept the invitation of God’s grace in the cross. To live without fear of the consequences for living as disciples, for in Easter God has promised that the world does not have the last word. So, we can live as people of hope, when it is hard to have hope in the face of economic uncertainty; we can live as instruments of God’s peace in a time when war and terror overrun our news, and we can live as a people who love our neighbor, when love of self is all our society values. Through the cross, we have been invited to be participants in God’s grace.

Are you ready to accept that invitation?

What counts in life is the love of God.

What matters in existence is the grace of God.

What needs doing most, God has already done.

What costs most, God has given.

What we can trust, God has offered.

In Grace and Hope,

Bryant

For more information:
Linden-Linthicum UMC
12101 Linden Linthicum Lane
Clarksville, MD 21029 US
Email: llumc@l-lumc.org

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