by Stephen Kriss
During the last staff meeting in this space in between, I invited my colleagues to share their celebrations and questions for the last month. Without exception, the celebrations and questions had to do with pastors. We celebrate the completion of pastoral search processes, with the beginning of Mike Spinelli’s leadership at Perkiomenville; the call of Maria Hosler Byler to an associate pastor role at Salford; Josh Jefferson’s installation and licensing last Sunday at Souderton as a youth pastor; and Sandy Drescher-Lehman’s beginning as pastor at Methacton. Many of these processes were lengthy discernments. We celebrate the new beginnings and new possibilities that leadership can bring in the life of our communities.
Our questions had to do with how we walk with pastors and congregations through difficult times. We wonder how God will provide with prolonged pastoral search processes at Franconia and Taftsville. We prayed as John Bender from Allentown who was in the hospital making difficult decisions between life and death, as he was readmitted to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia (he made the decision by the time our meeting had ended). We prayed for an upcoming surgery that Charlie Ness from Perkiomenville will be undergoing. These are all things we attend to as staff beyond our meeting time and carry in our hearts and heads.
The last month has meant focused attention on planning for Conference Assembly — a great time to celebrate the work God is doing in our midst, and spend time discerning and equipping ourselves for the future. Registration and the docket are available at http://edc-fmc.org/assembly/ to help us, as a conference, prepare for assembly at Penn View Christian School. Postcard invitations and posters will be coming to your congregations in the next two weeks. We’ve hosted and gotten some feedback from our time with David Boshart (moderator-elect) from Mennonite Church USA. We’re prepping for his return at assembly to discuss more specific issues around human sexuality that continue to challenge our capacity to be church together, while going to the margins to be and proclaim the Good News.
Our conference executive minister Ertell M. Whigham comes back on the job on Saturday, October 1. My season of this stretch of the race as acting executive minister has passed. I’m ready to return the baton and responsibilities back to Ertell as he navigates the next few months. I’ve learned a lot in these months. I’ve been busier than usual with meetings, emails, texts and phone calls. I have lots of hope for us as a community, but recognize our fragility at the same time. God continues to bless us with flourishing, and challenges enough to test and grow our hearts, minds, and souls.
At the beginning of these three months, I felt drawn to the text to “live a life worthy of my calling.” This time, ending this stretch, I want to turn that text back over to us as individuals and a community, to stay focused on the things we’ve discerned together, and to live, work and minister together in such a way that honors the sense of call that exemplifies what God has invited us toward in extending the peace of Christ to each other and to neighbors nearby and faraway.
My Subaru was overdue for an oil change, so I took it to a local mechanic in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont. I needed my out-of-state car to run smoothly while I serve as Interim Pastor at Taftsville Chapel Mennonite Fellowship. “Take a good look,” I said, “this car has a lot of miles on it, over 100,000, and I am putting a lot more miles on it.” He took one look and countered, “With that Outback, you are just getting started!” An Outback, even with PA license plate, fits right into the landscape in Vermont, and Chris the mechanic seemed happy to help.
In a place and time when only 17% of the state’s residents regularly attend houses of worship, the lowest church attendance in the nation, it is no small witness to be known for generating a sense of community ownership of a camp that cares well for local children. When the stories of Jesus are shared in the way of Jesus, a community will remember that camp was invitational, playful, and welcoming.
There is yet another kind of witness that neighbors tell about Vermont Mennonites. I hear it from Charlie Wilson, long-time resident and observer of Taftsville, the hamlet where my interim congregation worships. I am sitting in a presentation at the Woodstock Historical Society, where he is telling stories about Taftsville’s recent past. “If you walk by the Chapel on a summer Sunday morning and the windows are open,” he tells the group, “you will hear the unsurpassed acappella singing of the Mennonites, and at Christmas they serenade the village with carols.”
Throughout the New Testament we see that Jesus intends this word ‘neighbor’ to mean any other person, irrespective of race or religion, with whom we live or whom we meet. This is clearly brought out in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37 and Mark 12:30-33). This commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves is reiterated numerous times in the New Testament (Matthew 19:19; Matthew 22:39; Romans 13:9, 10; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8).
Lord God, we grieve with our neighbors around the country at the loss of two of our neighbors. Both were created in your image, as all of us are. We ask that you comfort those involved in these shootings. We ask that you guide us in your ways and show us what you desire from us at these times and always. We ask, Lord, that as we go through our days, may our eyes be opened to seeing all those we meet as our neighbors. May we see all people as you see them, Lord. In Jesus’s precious name, Amen.
Rahab is often referred to in scripture as a harlot. Yet, she is the great grandmother of King David, a man after God’s own heart, and is one of five woman mentioned by Matthew in the lineage of Jesus Christ, God’s own son. Even though she is known as a harlot, she is also mentioned in Hebrews among the faithful. How could this be? In the story of Rahab documented in the book of Jeremiah, we see that Rahab’s faith led to great hospitality, leading to a victory for Jeremiah and the Israelites over the land of Jericho. The story of Rahab is a reminder that we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), yet our faith in Christ as seen in our actions, such as hospitality, saves us. After all, James 2:17 says, “even so faith, if it has no works, is dead.”