HELLO!

I look forward to seeing some of you in person on Sunday at 10 am. Some of you will be with us, at 10 am, watching online, and some of you will watch our July 19^th gathering later in the week. Please know, when I stand to greet you with HELLO! I am speaking to you, wherever and whenever you find us. Our focus will be Palm 139, one of my favourite pieces of scripture. I love the way it describes the intimate nature of our relationship with God. In fact, the pronouns “you” and “me” are used more than 30 times in the entirety of this Psalm. Further, I note verse 5, “You hem me in, behind and before”. I always thought this hemming in was a protective embrace. It feels like a comforting image of God. But I have since learned the word “hemmed” used here, is the same word used to describe a city under siege. Instead of God surrounding us with a protective and cozy garment, the Psalmist saying to God “you besiege me. You entrap and beleaguer me. You will not let me go.”

This learning took me back to something I read by one of my favorite Christian authors, Anne Lamott. She was raised parents who were hostile to organized religion and faith, and we all know the church has given parents many good reasons to feel this way. But Anne felt there was something “besieging” her as she experienced her lowest moments in life. “I never felt like I had much choice with Jesus; he was relentless. I didn’t experience him so much as the hound of heaven, but rather as the alley cat of heaven, who seemed to believe if it just keeps showing up, mewling outside my door, I’d eventually open-up and give him a bowl of milk. Of course, as soon as you do that, he’s in your face. He loved me. He picked me up like a mother cat, by the scruff of my neck, and deposited me in a little church across from the flea market in a ghetto.”

We all have put up barriers, to keep Love’s deep penetration into our life at bay. What things about yourself do you keep hidden because you think you are not worthy of God’s or anyone else’s love? Are there fears you have about what God might do with you and your life if you were to let go and let God in? What comes to mind when you think of surrendering yourself to God, to Love? I wonder, if we allow ourselves to be fully known by God, if we do give up and give in, it we will discover how fearfully and wonderfully made we truly are. This passage is especially meaningful to the LGBTQIA community, who all too frequently are told that they are not worthy of God’s love. Here we are told, God created you. Every aspect of you. God is intimately acquainted with you. God created a good work in you. Irenaeus (b.130) said, in the second century, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” We can offer the welcome and kindness of Christ, as a community—when the church is truly being church—providing a setting, a safe place for people to love and be loved, to step into, live into one’s full humanity, to come fully alive. For doesn’t everyone need to know that they are fearfully and wonderfully—and, yes, even wounderfully—made? Peace, Kevin