Eden Prairie United Methodist Church
Connect with Us!
  • Home
  • Being Church
    • Crops For PROP
    • Serving Our Neighbors
    • Fellowship >
      • Women's Retreat
      • Church Directory
  • Children | Youth
    • Nursery
    • Sunday School (Preschool through 7th grade)
    • Rooted (3rd - 4th grade)
    • Vacation Bible School
    • Holy Club(5th-7th grade)
    • Confirmation (8th-9th grade)
    • Higher Ground (10th-12th grade)
  • Music
    • Adult Music Opportunities
  • About EPUMC
    • Worship
    • Staff
    • A Reconciling Congregation
    • Tumbleweed Newsletters
    • Notes from Pastor Becky Jo
    • Videos
    • Annual Report
    • Sermons
    • Calendar
  • Prayer
  • Online Giving
  • Contact Us

Weekly Memo: The  Dreadful  and   the  Delightful

8/17/2017

Comments

 
 feel the need to write two very different “memos” this week…One to reflect upon the troubling images of Charlottesville, VA….the dreadful scenes of violence and death and hate. The just as troubling reaction is cause for a renewed conversation around our attitudes of race and intolerance and hatred. Our bishop, speaking on behalf of all the bishops of the United Methodist denomination, has said,
 
Let there be no excuses or political justification for the evil that was on full display in Charlottesville last Saturday. Nor let us forget that many such displays of white supremacy, racism, and hatred go unreported or under-reported in many places. White supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies are abhorrent and entirely inconsistent with the Christian faith. (You can read the entire article here.) 
​

The other memo is to tell you about a delightful worship service on Sunday. Yes, I said delightful… we are going to have a first ever for me, “Blessing of the Animals” service. This is where you can bring any animal that can fit into our sanctuary with you for church. You can bring a picture of one who is perhaps no longer with you or that you choose not to bring with you. You can bring a stuffed animal if you want. It is going to be a celebration of all God’s critters and our responsibility as humans to care for them and our planet.
 
How to comment on the dreadful and the delightful in the same space is a stretch at best.  So bear with me.
 
Often the things that bring us the most joy or sadness are connected deep down to one another. For many of us nothing says unconditional acceptance and love quite like the dog that meets you at the door. And nothing much stands more for its opposite, the conditional approval based on hate and intolerance, than white hoods and black swastikas. These images are rooted deep inside us and not just in our minds… they are ingrained in our soul.
 
We don’t often have what a friend of mine calls “bandwidth,” and what others call emotional capacity, to deal with both at the same time. And yet often… in a moment when we are being stretched to our soul’s capacity, the dreadful and the delightful come together to reveal how important it is not to ignore the connection.
 
Let me give another example. Most of our youth meetings begin with something we call “highs and lows.” It’s like joys and concerns in our worship. Youth share what is important in their lives. I remember a time in confirmation a couple of years ago when one youth hesitated when his turn came. He said something like, “I don’t know if this is a high or a low…well, it’s both… my grandma has died… It’s a low of course, because she has died… But it’s well, not a high… but something because she doesn’t have to suffer any longer.”
 
I want to invite you to have the same courage and the faith to put the dreadful and the delight of your week together and bring both of these images with you to worship on Sunday. The dreadful and the delightful of life are inseparable… they are both are part of our experience…we cannot and should not ignore either. The God we worship is a God of all creation and in Jesus Christ has known this difficult human experience, the dreadful and the delightful and everything in between.
Comments

    Archives

    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2012

    RSS Feed

Connect with us!
office@prairiechurch.org
(952) 937-8781

15050 Scenic Heights Road
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
Picture
Picture