November 5, 2020

Welcome to this week's edition of our e-letter, Presbytery Matters. Our goal is to highlight things going on throughout the Church: within our Presbytery, in our congregations, as well as in the Synod of the Northeast and across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). We hope that these are things that will be helpful, informative, challenging, encouraging and supportive. In other words, we hope that these things will matter. Your input is valued, and your comments are always welcomed.

In the cycle of prayer our Presbytery, please pray for these congregations, faith communities,and individuals: Columbian, LaFayette; First, Liverpool; First, Marcellus; First, Mexico; Morrisville Community Church

Hello, Cayuga-Syracuse,

 

The family I married into has strong genes. At gatherings of the Chamis clan there is no mistaking who carries similar genetic code. There's some hint here and there of other families and their stories (my daughter absolutely has my mouth) but generally you know that Chamises come from the same stock. Our daughter looks so much like her father that when she was born good friends arrived at the hospital to greet our new arrival and asked Bill if he was certain I was the mother.

 

It's like the time when the Pharisees approached Jesus and asked him about taxes, and Jesus responded by asking for a coin. Now, he may have done so to see what was in their pocket (or, rather ... whose pocket the Pharisees were in!) but when they showed him a graven image of Caesar instead of the local imprint of wheat ... they showed Jesus who they most resembled.

 

Jesus then responded to their question about taxes. The word he used wasn't simply "give" but "give back." Give back to Caesar what belonged first to Caesar (and if you think Jesus didn't get political, consider what these words implied during a time of occupation!)

 

I write this the morning after the election and like many I find myself wondering what the results say about our own family resemblance. What does this election say about what drives us as a people and what does it say about Whose we are? I think about our churches here and throughout the country that are unpacking the impact of this on their communities and wonder at the work ahead. How do we even begin to relate to one another ... let alone believe that we are related?

 

I think we do so in part by sharing the family story. We tell the version where Jesus and his parents were refugees and fled the wrath of a tyrant. We tell the story of how he addressed the powers and principalities of his day (and got all up in the politics of what was happening) and how we broke down walls in the ways that he broke bread. We talk about how he spoke about the oppressed and we don't leave out those stories that are uncomfortable. We tell the version of the Gospel that doesn't gloss over the sacrifice and the crucifixion to get to the chocolate bunnies and the egg hunt. We preach Christ.

 

We make this story OUR story ... because it is in the telling and the hearing that we are challenged to resemble the one we claim to follow, and then as disciples we call others to join us at this work and in this fellowship.

 

As I sign this, the results of the election are still unknown but the work ahead of us is clear. Let us begin by remembering Who we belong to, and work towards resembling that side of the family.

 

Prayers for us all.

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Did you know that Sexual harassment prevention training is required for all employees of churches (from pastors to day care workers and sextons and all in between) in NYS on an annual basis? We're grateful that our new partnership with the PRC means access to their webinar on this topic which fulfills NYS's mandates.

To register, click on the date below.  For people watching as a group only one registration is needed. Send a list of those in your group to charlaine@prcli.org 

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Stay tuned for updates. 

'This is a time of pause'

LOUISVILLE - The Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) had a pastoral message Wednesday for Presbyterians anxious about the outcome of Tuesday's presidential election even as ballots are still being counted.

"I am convinced the Lord has given us this moment of pause to think through who we are in this present age," said the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, during a virtual chapel service put on by the PC(USA)'s Office of Public Witness and attended by more than 90 people. "How will we respond? How will we conduct ourselves in ways that will remind the world that God, through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit" fills God's children with love "even among the hatred and bigotry out on the streets of the United States of America."

We're in a period of waiting not unlike Jesus experienced when he asked his disciples to stay awake and pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane hours before the Lord was crucified. Instead, the disciples fall asleep.

Nelson said we're being asked to pray "to the only wise God we know ... This is a time of pause, of deep contemplation, over how we conduct ourselves in the midst of what seems to be a great deal of tension ... I believe God has given us this moment for justice, to prepare ourselves to represent the peaceable kingdom, to an openness to God even though we don't get the outcome we were looking for - or maybe we do."

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It's time to let go of doubts and start shining

A lone candle in the middle of a darkened room greeted the small-group participants.

They had gathered for an evening of identifying their gifts - not the spiritual kind of prophesying or speaking in tongues as Paul talks about in the letter to the Corinthians. Those sometimes perplexing and seemingly elusive gifts to the average Christian would require a more intense workshop. Rather, the gifts to be unwrapped were those disguising themselves as talents, passions, interests and even vocations, which could do much in building God's kingdom.

After taking their seats in the circle of chairs, the facilitator began with a reading from Matthew 5:15: No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. Then, a moment of silent reflection was broken by a much harder question: How often do you hide your light, and what good has it done you or the world around you?

In her poem "Our Deepest Fear," whose lines are often miscredited to Nelson Mandela, author Marianne Williamson writes about how we were all meant to shine in the world and that "we were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us."

"We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world," she writes.

Yet playing small seems to be the default button many in the church hit for a variety of reasons, among them the ingrained Christian virtue of humility, says the Rev. Lynn M. Portz, associate pastor for parish life at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.

"We can't compare our gifts to others, thinking ours are not as helpful or good as someone else's. Nor should we downplay what we have been given because of this sense of being humble. There are a lot of gifts out there that are needed in building God's kingdom. We need to use them, and that can only start by people coming forward and using his or her gift. And that starts by being invitational," she said.