This Sunday is a Big Day at EPUMC.  It’s….  “The Great EPUMC Get Together,”  “The EPUMC Family Reunion… “ “The 2019 Annual Meeting.” 
 
A couple of weeks ago I was trying to explain to Nancy Miller who hasn’t been to one of these things before what it is like. I told her, it’s a little like church because we’ll meet in the sanctuary and sing and pray. It’s a little like a “Pep Rally” because during church we will hear some things to make us feel proud and glad we are part of this place. It’s a little like Wednesday Night Live because we’ll also eat together. It’s also about 10 minutes of electing leadership and a few other necessary pieces of what we might call a meeting.
 
Over the last five years our Annual Meeting has indeed morphed into something like a family reunion. Many people have described their relationship to EPUMC in words that refer to a place of being safe, accepted, needed, wanted.  Not all families do this, not all churches do this. We are fortunate to have the gift of a church family that does all these things. 
 
We have learned to share this wonderful gift. On Sunday we’ll report on some of the ways we’ve done this in 2018.  Mostly though it’s a day to dream about what will be the next great thing that will happen here. 
 
Sunday is a day in which I will suggest some common language for our family to approach this coming year together so that we can…

• Grow in our vitality,
• Face the challenges to that vitality
• Embrace our mission to be Big Enough to Make a Difference and Small Enough to Care. 

 
Beginning on Sunday we will be exploring the parables of Jesus in our worship. Parables are stories or illustrations told by Jesus in the scripture. In his parables Jesus gives us an idea, a glimpse, a snapshot of what “God’s Kind of Time” looks like in our lives. He calls this God’s Kind of Time “The Kingdom of God” in Luke and “The Kingdom of Heaven” in Matthew. In one parable, Jesus is using a celebration as a way of illustrating his point of celebrating God’s kind of time.  He says,
 
"When you’re celebrating (a wedding,) you don’t skimp on the cake and wine. You feast. Later you may need to pull in your belt, but not now. No one throws cold water on a friendly bonfire. This is Kingdom Come!”
 
On Sunday we may not have a friendly bonfire, but we will have a great time for you to join. I want to encourage you to be a part of what I think is a “Kingdom Come” kind of experience this Sunday as we celebrate living in God’s kind of time together at EPUMC.  

Keep the Faith,
​Pastor Dan

This Sunday in worship we will renew our baptismal vows and also baptize “back up baby Jesus” Harrison who  would have been baby Jesus on Christmas Eve in the event baby Analiese had caught a cold or otherwise been indisposed. I’ve had a lot of fun with Harrison’s family calling him “the back up baby Jesus.” Looking at him here, you can tell he has inherited the gift of enjoying a little fun. 
 
One way of thinking about our baptisms is that we are all something like “back up baby Jesus(es).” Baptism is the moment when we all say something like,
I am willing to stand by Jesus,"
"to stand with Jesus,"
"to stand for Jesus,”
"to back Jesus up.”
On Sunday when we renew vows that we made or were made for us at our baptism, this will be what we affirm. 
 
The words I use to invite us to make this affirmation are not “Will you be the back up baby Jesus?” In our worship we will observe the longer order of service for the reaffirmation of our baptismal vows. I’ll ask some very deep and important questions including, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior, put your whole trust in his grace and promise to serve him as your Lord in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations and races?”  Words like Savior, Grace and Lord, I know are not ones we use everyday.
 
We will also recite the Apostle’s Creed together. Some people take exception to reciting this ancient affirmation of our faith because it says things and suggests things that well… we have some serious questions about. I get that.
 
I have a thought to share about answering these questions and reciting the Apostle’s creed together from my experience of faith. When we answer, “I do” to questions in our baptismal covenant, we are identifying our common questions and concerns about our faith as much as affirming our certainty. We all struggle with what one theologian called an “Ultimate Concern,” something others might call “Lord.” Most of us are not looking for all the right answers, but a path to follow in life that asks the questions we can live out of. On Sunday we recognize that we need someone to help us, to perhaps even lead us, on this journey… we need what some call a “Savior.”
 
And when it comes to that creed…let me just say….I have throughout my career used the Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer as a way to teach young men and women about our faith. We spend an entire year studying each phrase. I believe everything in this creed…perhaps not in the way some one who is using it literally. The Apostle’s Creed is a way of asking the difficult questions of faith not because it leads to the comfortable feeling of certainty, but as it encourages us to embrace the uncertainty of being fully alive in faith.
 
The questions we will answer and the creed we will affirm are ways we physically identify ourselves with all those who have grappled with what it means to live faithfully.
 
All that is to say, come to worship Sunday and explore in your heart what it means for you to say that you will be the back up baby Jesus with Harrison and all the rest of us here at EPUMC.
 
Keep the Faith,
 
Pastor Dan
 

Christmas Eve at Eden Prairie UMC involves a “living” nativity. This picture is our “Three Kings” in 2018, from right to left, Dan and Spencer and Nick.
 
I enjoy sharing this picture in this week just after the New Year to remind us that Christmas in the scripture is not quite over. Traditionally January 6 is remembered as the day the “wise men” arrived at what Matthew calls “the room.” In church, we have a special word for this day; we call it “Epiphany.” This year January 6 falls on a Sunday, and so our worship this Sunday will consider what the presence of the wise men and their gifts have to add to the story of the birth of Jesus.
 
That meaning is caught up in the word “epiphany” which is an odd word, but not quite foreign to many of us. Epiphany means recognizing something or someone in a new way or seeing something in a new light. The light for the wise men in the story is “the star.” And stars such as the one these wise men followed in the ancient world were thought to be divine guidance. In the scripture, these “wise men” follow God’s star to Jesus.
 
There is a lot more to say about who these wise men really were and how they tell a very different part of the story as we read about them in Matthew. They tell of what goes on behind the scenes, in the places of power and influence, instead of the more desperately common and ordinary manger scene in Luke. We’ll find out that the sentimental scene we are used to dressing up and displaying each Christmas Eve quickly gives way to a more realistic version of life in this sometimes tragic, sometimes-beautiful world.
 
I don’t mean to so quickly wipe the smiles off the faces of our wise men in the picture above, but life has by now returned to something like normal for Dan, Spencer, Nick and the rest of us. Given this, what gets me about the wise men is that they recognize that even they need divine guidance to deliver their gifts to the Christ child, and as the scripture will remind us, to also find their way back home.
 
Keep the Faith,
Pastor Dan