Light in the Window - July 26, 2023

Serenity Garden at Christ Presbyterian Church in Chesterland

Dear Covenant Family,

Last week I drove the winding road to Chesterland for a gathering at Presbyterian pastors and elders. We call it a Presbytery meeting. This one was outdoors under the shelter that Christ Presbyterian Church uses for outdoor worship. It was a hybrid meeting, so unfortunately the people online did not have the chance to experience the dessert potluck table! We began with a land acknowledgment of the people who have gone before us on the very same earth, and a moment to pause and breathe in the evening air while listening to the birds. We greeted friends, old and new. We welcomed new pastors. We sang together and we shared communion.

Dinner that night was served by The Metro 45 Cafe and Catering food truck, operated by Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries (LMM), serving food to hungry customers while also fulfilling LMM’s work in helping those experiencing homelessness and others with job training, civic engagement strategies, and safety net services like food and shelter. Meanwhile, community members were stopping at the back door of the church to pick up free groceries served by church members. I found a small part of the landscape devoted to a serenity garden, decorated by rocks painted by children.

In her book Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans writes, “We baptized, broke bread, preached the Word, and confessed our sins. We created a sanctuary where people told the truth without fear. We fed the hungry and filled out paperwork with the sick. We worked through our differences with care and grace. And we learned, perhaps the hard way, that church isn’t static. It’s not a building, or a denomination, or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Church is a moment in time when the kingdom of God draws near, when a meal, a story, a song, an apology, and even a failure is made holy by the presence of Jesus among us and within us. Church was alive and well long before we came up with the words relevant and missional, and church will go on long after the grass grows through our cathedral floors. The holy Trinity doesn’t need our permission to carry on in their endlessly resourceful work of making all things new. That we are invited to catch even a glimpse of the splendor is grace. All of it, every breath and every second, is grace.”

I have caught glimpses of that grace at Covenant, in a Presbytery meeting, at a community meal, during youth Sunday, at a funeral and through the waters of baptism. I hope you have too.

Peace,

Pastor Jessie

Pastor@covenantweb.org

God, go with us. 

Help us to be an honor to the church. 

Give us the grace to follow Christ’s word, 

to be clear in our task and careful in our speech. 

Give us open hands and joyful hearts. 

Let Christ be on our lips. 

May our lives reflect a love of truth and compassion. 

Let no one come to us and go away sad. 

May we offer hope to the poor, and solace to the disheartened. 

Let us so walk before God’s people, 

that those who follow us might come into his kingdom. 

Let us sow living seeds, words that are quick with life, 

that faith may be the harvest in people’s hearts. 

In word and in example let your light shine in the dark like the morning star. 

Do not allow the wealth of the world or its enchantment 

flatter us into silence as to your truth.

Do not permit the powerful, or judges, or our dearest friends

to keep us from professing what is right. Amen.

-- Prayer attributed to Alcuin, a churchman and scholar from York who had a significant influence on the Emperor Charlemagne (d.815) and his court.

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