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Pastor's Corner

Vol 1 no 20
Spring 2005

Dear Members and Friends,

Rev Muriel BurrowsA few weeks ago, on the day the church calls “Transfiguration Sunday,” I preached on Jesus’ mountain top experience where Peter, James and John, in awe of what they had seen and heard, suggested to Jesus that they build a shrine. Their option was to stay up on the mountain and bask in the glorious light of God, but Jesus brought them back to reality -- back to earth. I was encouraged by the response of several people that the message was important enough to bear repeating; so here is the gist of that message.

There are two dimensions to the Christian life: the mountain of exultation and the valley of service. The mountain where we encounter God in all God’s magnificent glory, where we feel our souls refreshed, where we encounter new motivation for living our lives. And the valley, where we maintain our responsibility to reach out to a hurting world, where we seek to be the body of Christ at work. We cannot live in one world and ignore the other. We, as a church, need to enjoy our mountain top experiences. Be refreshed on the mountaintop. Meet God on the mountaintop. Be bathed in the glory of God on the mountaintop. Be transfigured, changed on the mountaintop. And then we need to come down to the nitty-gritty of life.

During this year I am challenging you, as a community of faith, to take a journey with me as we discern a picture of who we are and what we are called to be as a church. During this year let us ask ourselves several questions: Are we a welcoming community where people connect with God and grow in loving response? If we are not, why not? If we are, how? Are we fully measuring up to our call to be disciples? If not, why not? If we are, how? Are we open to all of God’s children -- young and old, male and female, single or married, gay or straight, black, white, brown? Are we a church where people bring their families? If we are, how? If not, why? Are we a church where people can come and find a family? Is our church a place where people can connect -- not so much as Presbyterians, or even with historic Christianity -- but with God? Because this connection is and must always be at the heart of all we do here.

You see, great liturgies, soaring music that transports the soul, sermons that challenge us to action, and outreach through which lives are changed are all for nothing if they do not point us to God. And so we have to ask ourselves this: Even through the changes and stresses that life creates, are we a place of prayer, a place of learning, a place of action by which together we can find out how deeply true the life of God is? Are we a church willing to be transformed by God’s glory into God’s glory?

The season of Lent is the most solemn season of the year. The time calls for deep introspection, for that journey within to find the truth of who we have become and who we can become. Telling the truth to ourselves and to God can be difficult for we are masters of self-deceit. Rooting out that which is unsavory in our lives is painful and unpleasant. Harder still is making peace with that which is best in us, accepting our good qualities and accomplishments. To do this we have to accept the knowledge of the abiding, accepting love of God. “We love,” as John reminds us, “because he first loved us.”
And so, on one level, this story is about Jesus being changed. But it is also about the willingness of Christ’s followers to be changed. He and we are changed from the ordinary to the extraordinary, to the sacred, to the holy. We are called to be different.

It pains me that churches have become so much a fixture in the sociological landscape of our communities that people no longer see us as different. We have become almost invisible because we have failed to be transformed into the messengers of Christ. Sadly there is very little about many churches that would make us remarkable. In the Presbyterian denomination, the only time we make the news is when we act like non-Christian groups, fighting with each other and other denominations over minute non-issues that have very little or nothing to do with God’s love and grace.

During the coming months, the Session of this church will be on a journey of discernment of its own as we seek God’s will for us. We will be studying together, praying together, working together and growing together so that we may be better able to lead and serve this congregation. I invite you to pray with us. To learn with us. To seek with us. To grow with us. The mountaintop is a place from which to see and hear, to have our commitment renewed. But it is not a place to stay. Filled with vision, renewed for the journey, we are to come down and be God’s people in our time and place. As we become a welcoming community where people connect with God and grow in loving response we will know that we have listened to God.

Rev. Muriel Burrows