The Weekly View

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Dear St Luke Community,

Let me get right to the point. I am hoping you’ll all have a part in this week’s sermon. 

Hear me out.

On Monday I attended Rodef Shalom's online Yom Kippur worship. At one point they showed a video of different members answering a question. I don’t remember the question verbatim, but it went something like this: “What have you learned or how has your life changed in ways that you’d like to hold on to when we ‘return to normal?’” Return to normal is in quotation marks because in truth, we can’t come out of this COVID experience without being changed by it. And some of the ways we’ve experienced this change have been for the good. 

(Keep reading, assignment will become clearer at the end.)

In this Sunday’s scripture, God gives God’s people the commandments (Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20) The first four commandments are about how to live in relationship with God, and the last six are about how to live in relationship with one another. They are all about relationship and they are the ways we’re to live in covenant with God.

So what about how we’re to live with God and one another when we ‘“return to normal?” God is always creating something new out of the old, life out of death and doing a newthing.

How is this experience changing the way you live in relationship? And if you were to make a commandment of your own to yourself, how could you make it as a promise to God as a way to live in deeper relationship with God, self and others? In two or three sentences what would you say? That’s your part in this Sunday’s sermon: either by being called on or sharing in the chat box, you can name what new thing you’d like to take with you when we “return to normal.”

If I were to write one right now it might be as simple as:

I hope to continue to move more slowly and stop multi-tasking. I will spend five minutes every morning staring at the ceiling before getting out of bed instead of picking up my phone.  I will never again take for granted smiling at a toddler in public and having them smile back. I will continue to Zoom with my mother and sisters till death do us part.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea.

What will you write for Sunday? I can’t wait to hear.

See you Sunday,

Nicole

Sunday, September 27, 2020

Dear St Luke Community,

This Sunday we return to the wilderness (Exodus 17:1-7). The Israelites are complaining to Moses and are completely justified in doing so. In turn, Moses complains to God. I’ve never had any trouble complaining to God. My hope is, that after Sunday, neither will you. If we can assume anything about our God, maybe it’s that’s God wants all of who we are, which means expressing our truth, our honest feelings to God and that includes our complaints.

As one person said in Bible Study, “If you’re going to complain, make sure it’s to someone who can do something about it.” Many of us were taught as children to pray reverently, which we often interpret as politely. But what if we could understand complaining and even anger as an expression of self compassion when expressed to God, who is the one being who can do something about it.

If I had a dime for every time someone said to me, “I shouldn’t complain,” I’d be rich. Sometimes that’s true, but sometimes we have every right to complain, especially when change is completely out of our own control and the situation is horribly unjust. Our God, the God of grace and mercy, can take it; he can take all of what you have to hand over as he carries us through these wilderness times.

See you Sunday,
Nicole

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Dear St. Luke Community,

I hope you were able to open the windows and sit outside these past few days. The simple gifts of God’s grace take on an entirely new level of appreciation when the things we normally take for granted are no longer available. During the worst of the smoke-filled skies, many of us felt forlorn and a few felt it was unfair as they compared themselves to those in other states or countries who were enjoying clean air. I read somewhere that there’s a term being used called “Covid Envy.” Some folks can escape to second homes and others cannot. Some have to work and others do not.  Some have to work with children at home and others do not.

In this Sunday’s scripture, Matthew 20:1-16 (The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard), we’re presented with this idea of what is fair and what is unfair. Workers show up at different times, some working all day and others only for a few hours, but everyone receives the same wage. It doesn’t seem fair.

Because this is a parable, I invite you all to think about the details, the characters, the back stories of all the players. Who are the ones who didn’t get hired till the end of the day? What were they doing all day? What were they capable of doing? How we imagine the answer to these questions and the intonation we use to ask them will reveal the lens through which we look.

I very much look forward to unpacking this parable in light of our present moment in history, when so many are out of a job and struggling economically, those who have lost their homes, those who are disabled, those who are working, and those who stand on street corners hoping for work. 

God’s sense of fairness is not ours. Does our way of living, our laws and our attitudes reflect that of God’s or does it reflect our sense of entitlement around what’s fair?

See you Sunday,
Nicole