Fear. It doesn’t just gnaw at the hearts of 21st century men and women living in times of too fast change and too slow joys. No. Fear has stalked us since that day in the Garden when our hands were sticky with apple and we heard God calling us. The Bible uses the word fear over 400 times and describes us as fearful, fearful hearted, fearing, full of fearfulness and just plain afraid. The heart of fear never changes even if the causes come wrapped in different clothes. The big ones: death, illness, pain, abandonment. Bad enough to be afraid for ourselves. Agony to be afraid for our children and those we love. The one difference is that we have lost the illusion of times of relative safety unless we turn off CNN and Fox News and our computers which constantly remind that somewhere near us, someone just suffered a tragedy. Who wouldn’t be afraid?

This September 13th and thereafter you are invited to a ‘Fearless Fall” at Shiloh Church. We will begin a time when both in sermon and during our Tuesday evening DVD study time we challenge each other to be more fearless, less fearful. We’ll will read together Max Lucado’s new book “Fearless” and look at the different fears that leave us paralyzed, unable to enjoy and share the grace of God, robbing ourselves of the richness of life Jesus came to give each one of us. Our sermon series beginning that Sunday will be part of this church wide time in which we open ourselves to the radical message of power and hope of our faith. Mac Lucado writes this in his introduction to Fearless:

Imagine your life, wholly untouched by angst. What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, and doubt, what would remain? Envision a day, just one day, when you could trust more and fear less.

Can you imagine your life without fear?

You won’t want to miss our worship on the 13th as we begin our Fearless Fall…you won’t want to miss inviting friends and family in special need of these weeks of empowerment.

Let’s just say Harriet wasn’t a natural for road trips.  In fact, if you didn’t practically knock her out she wouldn’t even make it to the bridge out of Manhattan.  But she was our Harriet, even if my father did refer to as a ‘varmit dog’ (translation:  good only for chasing varmits).  So, each year  we’d give her doggie Dramamine, put her in the back set and head out of town.  About 250 miles out, we’d hear Harriet bound up in the back seat, panting enthusiastically and stick her head up front.  “Where ya been, where ya been, where ya been?” her look clearly communicated.  Where have we been?  You’re the one who’s been out like a light for 4 hours, dear.

Well, it became one of our family phrases.  “Where ya been?” we’d say on those occasions when someone missed that they were the one who’d checked out on the conversation.  It’s   often struck me that I’m the same way with God.  “Where ya been?” I keep asking when I’m the one who’s checked out in my prayer life, my listening, my willingness to act on what God has already shown me.  “Where ya been?” I ask, when I’m the one who’s been asleep in the back seat.

Pentecost is the time in the church year when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on all of Jesus’ followers, then and now.  It’s a time when we will reaffirm our baptisms in a service of music, Scripture and the water of baptism.  We will acknowledge that God has not gone anywhere since our baptisms;  it is we who may have moved away or grown discouraged.  It is we who need to wake up, shake ourselves off and welcome again the Spirit of God who has never left us. 

Join us for a celebration of our

 One God, One Faith, One Baptism

Pentecost, May 31st at 11:00 am

Wear something red !

“It just wasn’t what I had expected…” Who hasn’t murmured those words with tones of surprised delight or rueful regret. By the time we’re adults we have formed many of our expectations of the world and thereafter tend to see only what we already believe.

So why should it have been any different almost 2000 years ago: a week in Jerusalem that began with Jesus’ entry in celebration on Sunday and appeared to have ended on Friday with his crucifixion.

“It just wasn’t what I had expected…” shouted Peter as he fled into the night.

“It just wasn’t what I had expected…” murmured John as he walked Mary to her new home.

“It just wasn’t what I had expected…” cried Mary Magdalene as she woke on Saturday.

But then Sunday morning came…

“It just wasn’t what I had expected” shrieked the Adversary as Jesus Christ broke the chains of Death and walked in the garden full of the Spirit and love of our Gracious God.

Walk with Peter, John and Mary next week. Allow yourself to feel the confusion, the guilt and the pain. It’s just one week each year, but it is the week that tells the story of your life, your death and your life to come. Spend these days with a parade in Jerusalem, an evening meal, an execution. Then rise before the sun and see the dawn of life everlasting.

Easter Sunday. It’s still not what we expect.

The sunlight is so yellow that even if I couldn’t see the leaves, I would still know that it was late November. It’s in between warm, autumnal days, crisp with burning leaves and wet, gray days that pass for winter in Kentucky. Out my patio window, the birds are no longer leery of my neighbor’s cats sleeping by my feeders. Winter is coming and food is at a premium. Yet out my front window, I’m the only one who appears to stop this week for Thanksgiving. Stop before rushing into the Christmas season. Stop and leave the pumpkins on the front steps. Stop and wait.

There’s the rub of course: wait. We come into the world howling with impatience for food, for warmth, for love. And truth be told, we don’t get all that much better about waiting. We just keep quiet longer. Scriptures use the word ‘wait’ all the time: Noah and his family waited for the waters to recede. The Israelites waited in Egypt and then they got to wait in the wilderness. The Jews waited for a savior. Elizabeth waited for John, Mary waited for Jesus. Joseph waited in Egypt to keep his family safe. Jesus waited 30 years to begin his public ministry. The world waited three days while He lay in a tomb. We wait for the return of Jesus Christ in glory.

What are you waiting for? Better times? A thinner waist? A contented family? A world at peace? A church on fire for Jesus? Intimacy with God? Scripture tells us that it is good to wait on the Lord. Scripture promises that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. Each year, the church celebrates Advent, which means ‘waiting’ to remind us that we don’t get to run ahead to the manger and have a party while waiting for the baby to show up. No. We live each day one at a time, waiting for God to move in God’s own season.

This Advent, wait intentionally for Christmas. Wait in prayer…use that devotional you got the 1st Sunday in Advent. Wait in gratitude….talk to your kids about where you all saw God each day. Wait in service…help some one else’s day be a glimpse of God’s goodness through you. Wait on the Lord. Christmas is coming.
Pastor Susan

I want to make God more alive to someone else this year.

To all the saints in Christ Jesus in Shiloh United Methodist Church:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Imagine if we were greeted that way as we began our day…as we ran into Kroger’s for last minute groceries…as we opened the door to our house.  Sounds wildly improbable, doesn’t it? Admit it, sounds kind of extreme,    doesn’t it?  Sort of like we thought we were like those New Testament people.  The ones we call saints.

Guess what?  That is what we’re called to be.  Most importantly, it’s what God gives us the power to be.  I hope you will be with us in worship with us throughout November as we celebrate the saints in our lives.  The people who “made God more alive” to you. We’ll hear stories from the heart of ways saints in this congregation have made each other’s lives richer in love, richer in meaning, richer in laughter and sorrow shared.  We’ll also hear stories of times it looked like we were the ones pouring out God’s love, only to find it flowing over into us as well.

The reality of being the church at Shiloh United Methodist, being the saints who’ve loved each other and served God, is that we promise first, our presence and prayers and then, our money and our time. When we miss coming together in worship and fellowship, we miss the vital love that the Spirit of God uses to connect us to each other.  It’s not our power that makes us saints to each other:  it’s God’s.  When we ignore the vital role that money plays in our ability to worship and minister together, we ignore the words of Jesus that where your money is, there your heart is also.

We can hold onto what we have, and find we have less.
Or we can open our hearts, our schedules and our checkbooks…
And find that the ‘someone else’ God is more alive to…is all of us.

Tallulah, my pug, was scratching around the back yard this morning, looking like her own version of Pigpen from the old Peanuts cartoon.  Her little cloud of dirt surrounded her wherever she went and that’s when I thought, “Boy, do we need rain.”  Tallulah’s my dryness barometer and reminds me each day that if my garden is going to get any water, it’ll have to be from the end of my hose.  But Tallulah also led me to think about what my spiritual ‘dry’ barometer would be if I had one.  While we’ve been talking about Soul Care in our sermon series, I’ve been mulling over dry times in our spiritual lives.  These are times when we’re too overwhelmed or distracted to care for our own souls.

What’s your barometer of dryness in your spiritual life?  Is it a cloud of cynicism like Pigpen’s cloud of dirt?  A wilting of your hope like the end of summer flowers?  A drying up of words to speak to God?  Mike Yaconelli, in a book called Messy Spirituality, wrote this about our soul life with God:

Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality, not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws, but because we let go of seeking perfection and instead seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God’s being present in the mess of our unfixedness.

When my ‘unfixedness’ threatens to leave me in a cloud of isolation, I’ve learned to find water instead of just hoping for a cloudburst of rain.  I’ve learned to tell a close friend how I feel and ask them to pray when my words have dried up.  I’ve learned that a psalm, read over and over, in the silence of the evening, can be a long cold drink.  I’ve learned that my feelings aren’t facts and just because I feel God has left me dry doesn’t mean God has.  If God could lead the Israelites in the wilderness in a cloud of smoke and a pillar of fire, then God can lead us through the dust of long, dry days.

Those who drink the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.    John 4:14

Pastor Susan