By Lilly Lewin
Sometimes I need to be reminded that I am not stuck.
Sometimes I need to be reminded that I have been set free.
Sometimes I need to be reminded that Jesus is standing at the door and knocking,
All I have to do is open the door.
Sometimes I need to be reminded that I have been given the keys.
Sometimes I have built a barricade between the door and me.
Sometimes I have put lots of old shoes, umbrellas, hats, coats, backpacks and shopping bags by the door and there is just so much stuff that I feel trapped inside.
And I totally forget that I have the keys.
I can open the door and leave the clutter and old things behind me.
Sometimes I need to be reminded that I have been given the keys,
the keys to the door, the keys to the Kingdom.
I am not stuck.
I am not locked in.
It is not impossible.
I have been given the keys.
Jesus tells Peter that he has been given the keys to the Kingdom.
And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven.” Matthew 16:19 The Message
Keys! We too have been given keys! Keys to unlock things that we’ve been keeping closed and hidden away. Keys to unlock the blockages in our hearts and in our heads, the things that keep us stuck and keep us hidden and keep us afraid.
What does it feel like to hold the keys to something?
It usually means you can sleep somewhere or drive somewhere.
You have access. You have power.
What needs unlocking in your life right now? Are their doors that are shut tight? Are their vaults that you have stored away and refused to open? Are there old closets of crap that need to be cleaned out?
What locked things would you like to see opened in your life?
If Jesus has handed you the keys, can you believe, can you accept, that Jesus will help you unlock those places? Or those things you’ve kept closed?
What about those places or problems in your world that feel locked down?
What about places of injustice or pain that feel impossible to fix
What if you’ve been given the keys?
What if you have the key that unlocks and opens the way through?
What if we just need to ask for the right key?
Jesus, today, I’m in need of keys to unlock my fear.
Today, I need keys that will unlock hatred, bitterness and uncertainty that can so quickly take root inside of me.
Jesus, today I’m asking for keys to unlock misunderstanding and division within our country.
Today, I am asking for new keys to help unlock the broken systems that keep people in poverty.
Jesus today I need your keys to unlock the sense of overwhelm I often feel because of the suffering in so many places around the world.
Today, Jesus, I am thankful for your gift of keys.
What do your Kingdom Keys look like? What keys do you need today?
What things do you want those keys to unlock?
Let the keys that you see, the keys that you hold and use this week, be reminders that Jesus has given you Kingdom Keys!
By Rev. Rebecca Sumner, Adapted by Andy Wade
Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Make me an instrument of your peace in Hood River, Odell, Parkdale, White Salmon, Bingen, the Gorge, your world.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where politics divide, where the poor are excluded, where people of other faiths and sexual orientations are threatened, harassed, and killed, help me to be a sower of friendship, acceptance, and love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where our Latino sisters and brothers live in fear of deportation and families are torn apart, where people of color fear the people and systems that should provide protection, and where Native peoples continue to go unrecognized by the government resulting in a lack of access to housing, water, and fishing rights, in all these places and more, help me to listen, seek forgiveness, and become an ally through the shalom work of God.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where people have given up on God because of the abuse and hypocrisy of God’s people, help me to restore faith by listening to their pain, seeking forgiveness, and cultivating deeper relationships.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where addiction, abuse, unemployment, lack of housing and other issues drags my neighbors into despair, help me to be a steadfast friend. Show me how to bring hope and healing to all those around me.
Where there is darkness, light.
For those in my community trapped by the prison system, help me to be a beacon of light, bringing hope, friendship, and possibility.
When destruction of God’s creation is rampant and it seems we’re moving toward irreversible crisis, help me to shine light on the possibilities to make a better world and to share examples of how it’s already happening.
Where there is sadness, joy.
Where people sit in loneliness and isolation, help me to see. Help me to make time to be a friend, to listen to stories of pain and grief, to be present without passing judgement or trying to fix them. Where grief overwhelms, let mine be the hand of love holding on together until joy returns.
Divine Master, help me to seek not my own comfort, but the comfort of others.
Help me to understand other’s as a pathway to being understood.
Help me to love others sacrificially as you love us.
For it is in giving to others and seeking for their best that we, ourselves, receive. It is in extending the hand of peace and forgiveness that we embrace a peace that comes to all,
And it is in dying to our own selfish interests in favor of the other that the Kingdom of God is unleashed in our midst.
Amen
By Jeannie Kendall —
As I write this I have just watched the film “Impossible”, the moving (and true) story of a family caught up in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. Don’t worry – no film spoilers. At one point of the film, a young boy is looking up at the stars. Someone sits beside him, and watches them too. She tells him that some of the stars that he sees have already burnt out, but they continue to shine. What is more, it is impossible to tell the difference.
Now I have no idea if that is scientifically accurate, but I found the concept both intriguing and mildly disturbing. So many in our society rocket through life, cramming more into the day than the 24 hours was ever intended to hold, afraid that stopping may somehow diminish us. Society colludes with this lie that busyness equals significance – even promoting advertisements heralding ways to keep going when we are ill with the latest cold or flu treatment. Sometimes our over-activity stems from hidden scars – we fear that the silence or stillness of inactivity may reveal turmoil we are seeking desperately to keep at bay.
Why do so many of us struggle to look after ourselves by taking rest, by sometimes saying no to the good to foster the best – our seeing ourselves as worthy of looking after just as much as those around us? People of faith can find it particularly difficult – sometimes silently articulating the underlying false theology that we need to earn God’s love. As a new Christian I was taught “Jesus-others-me” as the order of importance and the way to be a good disciple. Yet to serve God and others well we need to look after ourselves too. Jesus took rest (albeit sometimes interrupted!) and was unafraid to ask for help or companionship when he needed it.
The salutary message of that portion of the film is simple. Self-care is not an optional extra, or the lack of it a badge of honour. Indeed, if we do not listen to our bodies, minds and emotions we risk, like the stars, finding ourselves burning just as brightly but that brilliance disguising a core which has lost the life and vitality we once possessed. Jesus, it seems to me, wants something very different from that….
“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)
By Talitha Fraser —
Shalom… I try and think what to write about wholeness or peace or wellbeing.
Right now, I’m not certain I know anything about that.
I kneel on the beach for a long time. Eventually, comforting words come:
Lay your burdens down, burdens down, burdens down child
I will come to you, come to you, come to you child
I will lift you up, lift you up, lift you up child
The words drip in.
Let your tears fall down…
Lay your sorrow down…
Lay your heartbreak down…
I sit until it’s too cold to stay.
Walking to warm myself the words seem to keep pace with my steps.
Lay your spirit down… Lay your body down… lay your hunger down… lay your weapons down… lay your anger down… lay your sadness down… lay your hatred down… lay your power down… lay your stigma down… lay your baggage down…
Taking some journey much further than my physical steps traverse.
I will come to you, come to you, come to you child
I will lift you up, lift you up, lift you up child
I am aware that as I pray. I am more than myself. That Eucharistic mystery that invites me to something bigger and beyond myself and reminding me of my own smallness within that means that while these words speak to my own pain, they speak to the world’s also.
This is our solace. We don’t have to go anywhere. There is no difficult ascent beyond our ability to attain. God comes to us, where we are, and does all the heavy-lifting.
Go in peace but come again… Shalom.
by Christine Sine.
This week I have been struggling. How can I celebrate this summer when so many are still dying of COVID I wonder? How can I plan a vacation when so many are being evicted from their homes? How can I rejoice with my own peaceful and comfortable existence when there is still so much violence in our world? I want to enjoy my new found freedom but not at the expense of those who have been marginalized by the pandemic.
A couple of years ago when I struggled with similar issues I came across this inspiring article Fight Fascism with A Dance Party. in Yes Magazine. It made me wonder: What are the unconventional and maybe overlooked ways to reconciliation that help turn hatred into love. What could I do this summer that will bring light and joy into the dark places of violence, aggression and displacement?
Here is a list of a few that come to mind for me:
-
- Let’s dance and sing together. I have known for a long time that singing together can lower aggression, improve mood and make people more cooperative, but had not realized (though I should have) that dance can do the same thing! No wonder David danced before the Lord. One of my most powerful memories of the last Wild Goose festival I was able to attend was of the final session where we all sang and danced together, holding hands across race, sexual orientation, and faith persuasions with young and old, rich and poor, well known and unknown. It was a profound experience that broke down barriers, and established new friendships. So I think that it is time that we all deliberately planned some gatherings across a broad swathe of society – rich and poor, young and old, from every ethnic group and every sexual persuasion we can find and plan a singing, dancing festival. I think we will be amazed at what results.
- Let’s eat together. Jesus loved to bring together people from different political and social backgrounds. He ate with the poor and the marginalized as well as the rich and the powerful, sometimes bringing both groups together in ways that made people uncomfortable but definitely helped to break down the barriers that separated them. No wonder the kingdom of God is often portrayed as a great banquet feast when all are welcomed to the table. One of my strongest symbols of summer is hospitality and as Tom and I prepare to re-engage with friends around BBQs and backyard gatherings this year I am hoping that we will be able to bring together people with different viewpoints so that we can learn from each other.
- Let’s play together. Unstructured play adds joy to life, relieves stress, supercharges learning, and connects us to others and the world around you in non threatening and barrier breaking ways. When we play well together we bond together, replace negative beliefs and behaviours with positive thoughts and actions and heal emotional wounds. I still remember a friend talking about their unfruitful attempts to connect to people in a poor community in London until one hot summer’s day a water fight broke out. By the end of the afternoon barriers had dropped and new friendships were created. I talk a lot in my latest book The Gift of Wonder about the need for play and creative ways to have fun together. You can also explore these in the online course The Gift of Wonder that we created last year. So as you get out there and have some fun this summer consider ways that you can use this to spread joy and peace and love to those who are suffering.
- Let’s work together. I have often observed that community gardens are a wonderful way to bring together people from different backgrounds – race, age, faith, sexual orientation, but other forms of community work can do the same thing. So think about what you could do together with others in your community – maybe a neighbourhood clean up day, or a building project in the local playground, or creating an art mural. The possibilities are limitless, the challenge is making sure that the attendees are diverse. It might mean some good leg work on your part, visiting local houses of worship, community centres, shops and coffee shops to let everyone know they are welcome.
What Is Your Response?
Watch the video below created by One Billion Rising, an organization that focuses on the need to end the exploitation of women. It uses dance as an effective tool to get the message across. I found this video powerful. As you watch it reflect on what you could do to break down barriers across race, culture, gender and age with the use of dance, song, or community gatherings
Could you create or participate in events that bring people together to sing, dance, play, eat or work? How could you help break down barriers to hatred, violence, discrimination, injustice by your actions?
This has been a dramatic week here in America and around the world too, with the terrorist attacks in Spain, elections in Kenya and violence in Venezuela just to name a few. I have had so many emotions that it’s been very hard to process them all. We were on vacation the last couple of weeks thus we have not had a chance to process any of this in community with thinplace (the weekly gathering we host at our home in Nashville.)
What do we do with all of the junk that is coming up in our hearts and minds?
I’ve been doing a lot of pondering on how to process all of the craziness of the last few days. Andy Wade has two great posts on living into Shalom in the midst of conflict that if you have not read, I highly recommend! Part 1 and Part 2
And part of this week’s gospel lesson is also helping me process what I am feeling.
Sunday’s gospel reading includes Matthew 15: 10-20
The Pharisees have just given Jesus and his disciples grief about the fact that they don’t wash their hands according to ritual law and they don’t “follow the rules” on all the stuff that the Pharisees think are important in order to be “IN” especially when it comes to eating
Jesus responds :
16-20 Jesus replied, “You, too? Are you being willfully stupid? Don’t you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the intestines and is finally defecated? But what comes out of the mouth gets its start in the heart. It’s from the heart that we vomit up evil arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and cussing. That’s what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods, washing or not washing your hands—that’s neither here nor there.” THE MESSAGE
and
16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
It’s what we vomit up that matters to God…
What comes out of our mouths that reflects what is happening in our hearts…
So how is my heart doing?….
I feel like I’ve had too much hate and violence brewing on the edges of my heart of late.
Anger at the way our president reacted to the racism and violence in Charlottesville. Anger at the evil that lurks in the hearts of my fellow citizens. As a follower of Jesus i am called to love… to love my neighbor and pray for my enemies and those who persecute me. This is hard work today. Hard to love in the midst of so much hate and so much brokenness. And it’s hard to see the image of God and the face of Jesus reflected in a Nazi flag waving, gun toting, anger filled young man….but Jesus loves him too. Even in his hate, even in his anger, he is loved by God …but God isn’t about hate and isn’t about sides and isn’t about violence.
And too much grief that threatens to overflow into bitterness, or anger, or harshness towards other people.
I have also had to really look at my heart in terms of racism. I grew up in the South and my high school was built on a Civil War battlefield and to top it all off, our mascot was the Rebel and our fight song was “Dixie.” For all of you who did not grow up in the southern United States, that is like we were still fighting the Civil War and had the Confederate Flag as a part of each football game. Back then, I didn’t think anything about those symbols being racist, or anything about how these symbols looked to someone who is African American. They were just symbols of the South to me. Thankfully I know better now, and have grown to see how much pain these symbols cause, and how destructive and evil the love of these symbols can become. Honestly, I didn’t really have any friends who were black until after college. That really is sad, but it is the honest truth. Thankfully, my parents raised me to see that all people are equal in God’s sight, all people of all colors and creeds are God’s children. Thankfully I was raised that the KKK was evil and racism was too. This was in stark contrast to some of my relatives who were extremely prejudiced and very racist. As a kid growing up in the South, I wasn’t allowed to call the Civil War the Civil War, it was the War of Northern Aggression, or the War between the States. And when my grandmother met my future husband who is from Ohio, he was considered a “damn yankee.” And she meant it. So there is sadly, still so much of the South that is stuck in the mindset of 1855 or worse, 1865. People who are still very afraid of any change or anyone who doesn’t look or think like them. These white southerners still want to be in control and still want to dominate their world. This is not the Kingdom of God. 
So now what?
Today I have to ask myself, Am I trying to control my world? Or am I letting God be in control?
Am I afraid? What are the things I am afraid of? Can I let Jesus hold these fears and have my anxieties about the world, politics etc?
Can I choose to love, pray for and reach out to people who don’t think like I do? Even the racist members of my family? How do I love them? How do I share the love, joy, peace, and hope of Jesus with them? And what are the tangible things I can do to bring God’s justice and mercy to my neighborhood and my city? How can I be a part of the white majority that fights as Jesus would for people still suffering in my city right now from injustice and a broken system that essentially “enslaves” them?
Yes, with God’s help I can start with baby steps in all of these things.
What about you? How is your heart today?
What do we do with all the emotions that violence, and evil, and hatred bring up in us?
For me, I need symbols and rituals to help me connect.
LIGHTING CANDLES:
We have a candle lighting ritual we do at the beginning of thinplace each Sunday night.
You can see that here.
We ask God to fill us with God’s hope, peace, joy, love and light. And when we end our time together, we blow out the candles and ask that God help us take hope, peace, joy, and love to the world and be the Light of God in our neighborhoods and jobs and schools. You can do something like this on your own, with your whole church community, or with your family around the kitchen table.
PAPER HEARTS:
This week at thinplace we will all get a handout with three heart outlines drawn on the page. See photo below.
- On the large heart we will write down all the emotions that are swirling around including all the things that are bringing us stress and pain. And take the time to really talk to God about the things in our heart.
- On one smaller heart we will write down all the things we are grateful for. Write these things down in that heart.
Gratefulness and thankfulness help us experience the shalom of God and when we see all the gifts God is giving to us we are able to give love and peace away to others.
- The second smaller heart is the heart of confession. Write down the things you want to give to God to carry for you and the things you want/need God to forgive. Write these things down in that heart.
As we close our time together, we will then give that heart to Jesus and put it at the base of a cross and allow Jesus to have the stuff that is causing our heart grief and pain and causing us to vomit things that hurt others and ourselves.
I am praying this weekend, that we all can feel God’s hope, peace, joy and love, and that we can be God’s lights in our neighborhoods, our families, in our schools and places of work so that we can share in God’s shalom for all people.
by Tom Sine.
This article is reposted from the V3 blog which Tom writes for each month.
Violence at the recent white supremacists’ demonstration at Charlottesville, Virginia alarmed Americans of all races across our country. I suspect many are surprised to learn that white supremacist, fascist and Nazi movements are all rapidly growing in America.
Christians of all cultures are having to ask the important question: As followers of Jesus, how we can be agents of racial reconciliation in times like these?
The best single Christian resource I have found on racial and reconciliation is this article from Sojourners Magazine.
For those who are involved in important work of church planting, like my friends in the V3 Movement, I have some very good news! There is rapidly growing new movement of multicultural church planting going on in America today. The even better news is that we can all be a part of it in our existing congregations and in planting new expressions of church.
Turning to a New Model of Ministry
At core this new movement is based on a new ecclesiology that I first discovered in Rodney Clapp’s important book, Families at the Crossroads. In it, he points out that the New Testament has little to say about family. However, what it does say is very radical.
Clapp reminds us of Jesus new radical description of family: “Who is my brother, sister, mother of father but he who does the will of God?” He suggests this scripture implies to become a follower of Jesus is to become a part of a new “first family” that transcends race, class and culture.
The social history of the first century church is filled with remarkable examples of followers of Jesus who indeed were creating new communities that routinely cut across race class and culture. It was a powerful witness that God was powerfully at work doing something new.
In the 80’s, the homogenous church planting efforts urged planters to create new churches on the pragmatic premise that it is easier to create new congregations with people of the same racial, cultural and class background. However, I find few young church planters who embrace that kind of pragmatism which led to 11 am Sunday morning becoming the most racially divided hour in American life.
There are a growing number of not only new church plants but also traditional congregations that are seeking to become richly diverse examples of that new “first family” that Jesus called us to join.
An Example for Consideration
At the beginning of this new millennium, First Covenant Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which was planted by immigrants from Sweden 140 years ago, found itself in in an increasingly racially diverse community.
The Spirit of God woke them up to this new opportunity. They started a host of new programs such a tutoring program in the racially diverse schools in the community to engage both students and parents. Now 80% of those who participate in these community programs are non-Anglo.
This led leadership in the Evangelical Covenant Church in America to start an aggressive new church planting program that included the goal of half of all new church plants would be multi-cultural and multi-racial. They also mandated creating new plants where a greater share of both congregational time and money was invested in serious change making both locally and globally.
Efrem Smith planted Sanctuary Covenant Church in a richly interracial community in north Minneapolis in 2003. It started with 22 people and grew to 900. It was 40% black, 40% white and 20% Latino and Asian. They drew upon the music, food and culture of all groups and all were invited into leadership.
Efrem spoke at one of our events at Mustard Seed Associates in Seattle in 2008 describing his growing congregation of 900 and their commitment to neighborhood transformation. They started a Community Development Corporation to help the church provide a broad range of ways to empower their most vulnerable neighbors. Remarkably Efrem told me that over 50% of the church budget was invested in local and global mission in those days.
The Evangelical Covenant Church is a part of God’s good news helping people in multicultural church plants all over America to discover we are all a part of God’s new first family. Over 30% of members in this denomination is multicultural and that number is growing.
One of the brilliant elements of this important growth of new and older multicultural cultural churches is a leadership training venture called “Journey to Mosaic.” Essentially leaders join a week-long bus trip where they sit with a leader from a different race or class than and you share your different responses to experiences that include spending a day with an African American Pentecostal church, to working and visiting with farm workers in Fresno to hanging out with the homeless in LA.
One white participant told me that he quickly discovered that he and other white leaders didn’t have all the answers, and what’s more, that they needed to become serious students of other cultures if they were going to be a constructive part of these new multicultural congregations.
I don’t know of another major denomination in the United States planting more multicultural churches or churches that are investing such a generous portion of their time and resources in making a difference in the lives of neighbors who are increasingly having difficult time supporting their families.
This your invitation, in a racially and culturally divided nation, to join our “Cov friends” by creating and planting new racially rich congregations that look more like the “new first family of Jesus” in times like these.
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