Dear Siblings, the note below is in two parts. The first was written on Tuesday morning. The second was written yesterday(Thursday) evening. And, as such it is a far longer note than I intended. Nonetheless, I appreciate your reading it. 

Woah! There were so many of you in worship last Sunday, and it was wonderful to see. Several of us took the short trip next door to celebrate Interfaith Children’s Movement (ICM) 25th anniversary. Our own Evelyn Brewer was awarded the Diamond Joy Award for exceptional volunteerism. 

This Sunday promises to be just as big! After worship, we’ll have our Discovery Expo and Pizza on the Playground. Please stick around for one or the other… or both 🙂

The UCC recognizes this coming Sunday as both Faith Formation and Just Peace Sunday. We’ll focus on the faith formation part, while exploring the Parable of the Lost Sheep and considering what the prophet Jeremiah might offer to us today. 

Faith formation is work that is never really finished. As I often share, I am inspired by these words from the UCC’s organizing documents:

[The UCC] looks to the Word of God in the Scriptures, and to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, to prosper its creative and redemptive work in the world. It claims as its own the faith of the historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers. It affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God.

Yes! We look to the Scriptures and the Sacred Texts, invite the Holy Spirit to journey alongside us, and together we find our way. This too is part of the UCC’s practice of “continuing testament,” or the commitment to encountering God’s ancient story anew in our lives today.

—

I wrote the above on Tuesday afternoon. 24 hours later, a leading conservative commentator, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed at his “American Comeback Tour” event in Orem, Utah. There has been much offered in the past few days about him, his murder, and what it means for our body politic. Indeed, Kirk is not the only political figure who was murdered this year. Just a few months ago, Minnesota House Majority Leader Melissa Hortmann and her husband Mark were killed in their home. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot, but survived. Gov. Josh Shapiro saw his mansion set on fire in April. There have been so many substantiated threats against the lives of federal lawmakers that unprecedented security measures are now being enforced. 

We have answers for some of these events. Rationales and motives have been shared too. As someone whose chief priority is the care of souls. I lament my diagnosis of the American condition: The Soul of America is sick. I refuse to believe that this sickness is terminal, but it is very clearly, very swiftly tearing through all of the organs of our society.  The signs and symptoms of this disease have been present for some time. Those who called them out were often called “agitators,” or worse. Yes, the signs and symptoms have been present for some time, and now the reality of our condition is too far advanced to ignore. 

There are book groups, podcasts, studies, articles, and more that might offer some sense of “here’s where we go from here.” But I also think that our faith and our sacred texts offer something too. It was quite serendipitous that in my reading of commentaries and other texts in preparation for Sunday, I found a transcript of a sermon offered by our own Jon Gunneman in the days following 9/11. He closed that sermon with these words:

Perhaps we should at this time [read a psalm], standing in solidarity with more than two millennia of Jews and Christians who have turned to the Psalms at times of personal and communal agony, when the question “Why?” defies answer, and we find ourselves able only to express the pain and suffering in our hearts while at the same time singing praise to the maker of heaven and earth, the wind of life, the author of our being. That too shapes the impulses of the heart.

To be clear, I am not comparing 9/11 to Charlie Kirk’s murder. Jon’s words seems to capture much of my own thoughts about the sum of our body politic today. 

My siblings, the Maker of Heaven and Earth challenges us to sow seeds of justice and to know peace. The Maker calls us to seek the lost and to celebrate the found. And amid all the agony and despair of the world, The Maker invites us to join together and lift our hearts in praise. Can we commit ourselves to such tasks? Are we ready? My answers, at least right now, are yes and kind of. 

I hope that yours are close to that too.

With unyielding confidence in our ability to make real the kingdom of heaven,

I hope to see you Sunday,

Rev. Thomas