Church News – Weekly Scripture Reading

From Pastor Ara Guekguezian

Sunday, September 10th is Homecoming at the Big Red Church. Sunday School, Chancel Choir, Sacred Pursuits, and other Congregational activity resumes with a great celebration. One month after an ugly reminder of the need to live an engaged life in a community that at the very least acknowledges the full humanity of every person, we gather at the place that welcomes almost every person. The gathering of Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, the home of the University of Virginia, and near Thomas Jefferson’s beloved home, was an insult to humanity.

‘For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;’

-Romans 3:23

The truth is, as we stand before the wholly Holy One, there is no degree of difference between the best and worst of us. But…in the meantime…there is a great difference. I had joked that every place of worship I drive by has a sign proclaiming “all are welcome”, knowing that this statement is not true. Even at the Big Red Church, everything does not go. Even at this Open and Affirming Community of Faith. We are a community that not only tolerates, but affirms the humanity of people of any color, even the palest among us; we hear and actively listen to children; people lead—any faithful committed person we know, be they CIS, trans, gay, straight, whatever their race, wherever they are in their faith journey, they can be fully immersed in the life of the church. We give first with our commitment to God and to one another. This is settled.

All who want to affirm this are welcome here. You may struggle with this idea—and we will walk with you in the struggle—but it is a settled issue.

I have been blessed to hear the stories of thousands of people over the course of my life. I have heard the stories of the Genocide of 1915 (but not from my grandfather, who could not/would not talk about it with his precious grandchildren). I have heard the story of many who served during World War II, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam War. Not a single person has ever expressed any regret over their service in WWII, however, not so for Korea or Vietnam. Fighting and defeating fascism—no regrets.

None of the storytellers was perfect, but by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, forgiven. We are not perfect, but we can be great. We start by standing with those who yearn to live fully and freely, moving with anyone who is marginalized toward a full seat at the table. We work to dismantle institutional obstacles that deny access to some and welcome only a privileged few. We live in a place where there is still hope and possibility for this to occur, where progress can be made manifest through committed, faithful, reasonable, intelligent effort.

I thank God that—in the meantime—we are not ruled by a monarch, but by the law. I thank God that our first president was a wise, not perfect, but great and wise person, rejecting the proposal to be a new “king” that would serve for life, instead serving only his eight years and moving over. I thank God for Abraham Lincoln,  Fredrick Douglass, Dolores Huerta, the Rev. Dr. King, and scores of not perfect, but great and beautiful people who led and served this great nation. I thank God for this not so perfect, but great and beautiful, congregation and I hope to be with all of it on Sunday, September 10 and every other Sunday as we gather as one to worship the One, the source of our being.

Peace,

Pastor Ara

We are “opening a can of worms” at the Big Red Church—by talking about some of the hard questions that we have. They might be scary questions or embarrassing questions or even dangerous questions. But they touch the essence of faith, life, and doubt. As the story in Genesis goes, Jacob, a trickster who stole his birthright from his older brother Esau, wrestled with God. After that, he was called Israel, a name that means “wrestles with God.” We have not lost that wrestling spirit at the Big Red Church, and we are not afraid to be surprised by the results.

Earlier this year, the Faith Development Vision Group sent out one of its members to have conversations with people in our congregation to gather some of the questions that we wrestle with privately. We wrote those questions down and put them in our “can of worms.” Here are the first four questions that we intend to wrestle with. They were drawn from our can by the children during our August 20, 2017 Sunday morning service:

Did the resurrection literally happen, or is it just a symbolic story?

Do I have to believe in eternal life, even if I don’t want to live forever?

Why do we bother being a Christian church if we only talk or think about specifically Christian ideas for an hour a week on Sundays?

What makes the church special as a group of people?

From Kim Williams
Director of Facilities, Technology, & Communication

Pastor Ara and I were talking about bookshelves. It all started with a conversation about the shelf full of little binders with every order of worship from 1995–2007-ish in my office. I stare at this shelf all day long. They were in a cabinet behind me, and every time I tried to open it, they’d slip and slide out. So I put them on the shelves to make myself look at until I can figure out what to do with the hundreds of liturgy and sermon titles and announcements contained within the plastic un-throw-away-able three-ringed fortresses. But if we take them out, then the question becomes, what do we do with those empty shelves?

Ara then mentioned how bookshelves are so seldom used for books these days. I remember when this room WAS the church library, so it’s especially stark in contrast that the only books we have in here now are binders of meeting minutes, orders of worship, and eight books I keep close at hand on nonprofit marketing, design, Google Adwords, and grammar. There’s a vase. Two of them, even! And I have a votive candle surrounded by some of my favorite crystals and minerals for my Morning Prayer ritual to center myself before jumping into work.

But not many books.

“Isn’t it weird when you visit a home of well-read people, and you can’t find a bookcase? You walk around, but all you find are shelves of knick-knacks and coffee table books.”

Pastor Ara isn’t wrong. There’s something that’s off-putting about not being able to see someone’s book collection—we can probably thank Kindle for that one.

I’ll admit that my home bookshelf isn’t organized for the books, but for show. While the books on the shelves are the books Chris and I are reading, or are books we’ve read and loved, I have them organized according to the incredibly less-than-functional ROYGBIV. It’s so pretty, but I dare you to find “The Alchemist” in under five minutes.

What made this conversation stand out is that this phenomenon of no-book shelves is (disappointingly) similar to how I display my relationship with God. I am so uncomfortable with talking about my faith. Even at church, even WORKING at the church, sometimes I’ll choose my words so that the divine delivers less of a punch. You know, just in case you’re as uncomfortable as I am with *gulp* Jesus.

That’s not to say I don’t love Jesus, or that I don’t feel God working out these amazing plot lines in my life, but when I sit down and say “Alright, let’s go! Time to check my email!” I don’t know how to pluck out the way God is there in that moment. And sometimes it’s because I don’t know how you’ll react if I use the “J” word. We may be here in a church but how deep into Jesus are you? Will it make you squirm if I say it? And am I in deep enough? Will my talking about Jesus sound legitimate enough? Will I sound hesitant?

Will you know I’ve wrestled in my adulthood with impossible questions that require faith, and have grown frustrated that there may never be a concrete answer in my lifetime?

If I put my books out on the shelf (and organize them alphabetically or by genre instead of ridiculously by rainbow) you might see the titles like “Two Years on the Stage at Karaoke Night Singing Queen Songs on Saturday Nights and Skipped Church the Next Day” or “Believes Without Question in the Healing Properties of Crystals but Questions Christ” or, my favorite, “Hates Feeling Ignorant When Talking to Atheists, Plays Along”. That last one is a bestseller.

You might see me as the flawed person I am if you can see all the bindings. It’s the equivalent of putting the Twilight series books out next to Anna Karenina on my shelf. It doesn’t fit the narrative I’m trying to sell, and yet I have a hard time forming my mouth around the words “Jesus”, “Lord”, and “God”. I won’t fully be the Christ-follower I want to be unless I can become comfortable with my spiritual book case, Twilight Saga and all. And we’re a community of faith, I should trust that you’ll take my “Genuine Love of New Moon” over my “Space-Filling Vase” any day.

From Kim Williams, Director of Facilities, Technology, & Communication

Dear Cary and Mollie, (Add your kid’s, your BFF’s, or your own name here if you want. This one goes out to you, too.)

On Sunday you were handed a pretty rad gift. I know it looks nothing like the Avengers Tanker Truck Takedown Lego set you’ve been pining for, but trust me, this one will last you longer — and as a bonus, it’s less likely to cause your parents to caw and curse when you leave it out on the floor and they find it with their bare feet in the middle of the night.

You probably weren’t even expecting to get anything extra on Sunday — just the usual snacks during coffee hour. But there you were, sitting on the steps at the front of the sanctuary, an antsy, excited bunch, when Pastor Ara came out with two stacks of Bibles! I remember receiving mine, and it felt like a pretty huge deal.

When you receive a Bible from the church, your name beautifully lettered on the front cover, it’s actually a promise.  It’s the Church’s commitment to you that we’re all here to help you find your way. It’s hand-held proof that we will be doing our very best as your church family to provide you the tools you need to grow in your faith.

So now you have this super cool new bible (with such a soft cover, as you pointed out in the car on the way home, Cary), what are you supposed to do with it?

Mollie — you had a good idea, if a little grandiose, to open a church up at your dad’s house in the playroom. The great thing about your bible, though, is that it can be used for the big-scale things like writing a sermon, or it can be used for the small things. The inspiration to follow your dreams, or the answer to a question you have about a decision you must make. A lot of wisdom can be found in between Genesis and Revelation, and so can some epic battles, love poems, stories of friendship, advice on life, and yeah, there’s even a proverb out there that talks about dog vomit.

What’s the best way to discover these things? Use it! Open it up! Don’t be afraid to crease the pages or leave a grubby fingerprint. God doesn’t mind a Cheetos smear as long as it means you’re reading your Bible. After all, this Bible is yours. It has your name on it, for goodness sake! It’s yours to lug with you up to summer camp every year. It’s yours to keep under your pillow with your book light for those nights when you can’t fall asleep. It’s yours to highlight, to bookmark, to dog-ear, to write your thoughts in, to doodle in, and to press flowers in.

And the absolute beauty of it all? It’s yours to keep forever. Even if you move away to college or attend a different church, you can keep this piece of the Big Red Church with you. Even if you go through a rough patch and you don’t so much as look at it for a year or more, it’s still yours to crack open as soon as you’re ready for the abundance of the words within. Even when you think to yourself “I’m way too sophisticated for that Bible I got as a kid!” and you buy the fanciest fancypants Bible on the market, your church Bible will be yours.

And when you do open it again, you’ll see those underlined passages, or the note your summer camp friend passed to you in 5^th grade, and the time you spent weeks obsessing over that passage from Ecclesiastes and you had notes filling all the margins. You’ll find the prayer you wrote the day after something tragic happened, or the itinerary from your mission trip. Your favorite song lyrics. A friendship bracelet. A picture of you at your confirmation.

I know this because this is what I see when I open the Bible I received from this church as a kid. I had to put it in a zippered case to keep everything from falling out! My Bible is the story of my relationship with God, and I invite and encourage you to do the same. It can be just a book, or it can be the most awesome conversation with God you’ll ever have.

Joyfully yours,

Mom

KIDmunity is a wonderful opportunity for children to learn music and enjoy a fun community to kick-off their summer vacation. View the KIDmunity 2017 gallery below, and check back for updates throughout the week!

The KIDmunity Finale will be on Saturday, June 17 at 10:00 am. All are invited to the Finale celebration!

Parents are invited to join us for a coffee reception before the finale show at 9:00 am.