PLYMOUTH CHURCH NEWSLETTERS
(click here for PDF of current newsletter)
IN THE MEANTIME...
Beloved Community
One of our “little theologians,” Olivia Gardner-McBride,
recently asked her moms an important question. As the family
passed a homeless person on the street, Olivia asked:
“Why don’t people with homes just invite a homeless person
to live with them? That way, everybody will have a place to
live!”
Olivia’s question, posed with all the sweet innocence and searing insight unique to children, got me thinking and
praying about two important and interconnected spiritual practices, generosity and gratitude. How does our relationship
with God encourage us to become more generous people? How does our relationship with God encourage
us to become more grateful people?
It often seems to me that those “g” words, generosity and gratitude, are two sides of the same coin. The most generous
people I know are also the most grateful people I know, and – since we’re speaking of “g” words – they are
also the most Godly people I know.
My dear grandmother, Mae Alice Simmons Frazier, who recently celebrated her 97th birthday, is one of those
generous, grateful, Godly people. She’s never had much in the way of wealth or material resources, but she loves
to share whatever she has. If she has only five dollars, she’ll give half to someone in need. If she receives a
sweater for Christmas, she immediately begins thinking about a friend or relative who lives in a colder climate and
probably needs the sweater more than she does. If there’s only one piece of cornbread left, she’ll ask one of her
children or grandchildren, “Baby, do you want to split this piece of cornbread with Mama?”
Mama is also one of the most grateful people I know. She lives with the devout belief that whatever she counts as
“hers” in this life – her time, her talents, her resources – truly belongs not to her, but to God. She gives heartfelt
thanks for each and every blessing, whether it’s the gift of a new great-grandchild or the gift of the new rose bush
my Aunt Dorothy recently planted by the front porch. At age 97, her sense of wonder and delight are not the least
bit diminished. Here is a woman who was only four years old when her own mother died, who grew up in segregated
Muskogee, Oklahoma, and who has lived most of her life in one of the meanest ghettoes of Los Angeles …,
and she still begins each and every day with the exclamation, “God has been so good to me!”
Following my recent birthday and our recent stewardship season here at Plymouth, I find myself asking more and
more often, “Am I being a good steward of my life? Am I using well and wisely the time, talents, and material
resources God has entrusted to me?” I even sat down recently to design a complicated “matrix” so that I could undertake
a detailed “assessment” of my personal stewardship and develop a “strategic plan” for my life.
It was a very frustrating exercise! In fact, it was so frustrating that I ended up feeling like a complete failure and
had to go to God in prayer (and tears), at which point the Holy One said to me, “It’s not about assessment, sweetie
pie. It’s about attitude. A five-year-old girl and a 97-year-old woman are already modeling the way for you. Just
try to live more like them.”
Thank you, Olivia and Mama, for helping show me the way.
Love and blessings,
Much more in the current newsletter...
And another special message from the May Newsletter from Rev. Lois
IN THE MEANTIME . . .
Beloved Community,
My oldest son, Brandon, arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday. After some days of training, he will travel to Jalalabad and then fly by helicopter to a base somewhere near Asadabad, in mountainous eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border. If I heard these names in past, my ears would glaze over. If I hear these names now, my heart will leap into my throat.
All of a sudden, I belong to a tribe of women around the world who cry silent tears because their sons are in danger. I cry along with the other women, even though I know that, as an officer, he will be safer than most. And I know that as an Executive Officer, he’ll be even more protected than many other officers. Finally, if I’m honest, I know that mothers in East and West Oakland worry about their sons every time they walk out the door.
As I said in my Easter sermon, as I anticipated this liturgical season, I said to a friend that I didn’t feel like preparing for Easter, because I was entering an entire year of Lent. I wondered, “How can I possibly preach an Easter sermon when I’m going into the longest Lent of my life? How can I preach hope and new life when I’m so afraid and sad?”
Maybe you, too, are in the middle of Lent, aching for a lost one or fearful of the future. Maybe you’re in Good Friday, where all around you is grim and hopeless. But if you think about it, that’s exactly where Easter begins.
Easter begins in a cemetery. It begins in loss and suffering and death. It begins in despair and confusion and fear. And it stays there throughout the day of Easter and beyond. In each Gospel text, Jesus’ friends need some kind of encounter with the Risen Christ before their hope and trust is renewed. They can’t just hear about it from someone else; they must experience it for themselves. They can’t just think of it as an intellectual exercise; they need to have some kind of visceral encounter before they, too, are transformed.
I don’t know what will happen during the next year. None of us ever do. It is always just an illusion to know for certain that we’ll be safe; that our loved ones will always be with us; that our lives will stay secure. But for Christians, Easter tells us that the Divine unfolding mystery that we call God is alive among all the dying and all of the rising.
Easter ends some might say with more questions than it answers. It doesn’t necessarily answer the questions we’re asking – Will my loved ones be safe? Will I survive? Why is this happening?
But it might answer questions that we’re not thinking to ask – Where and how is God revealed in my life? How might I be renewed through a serious path of faith?
They might not be the questions that we are asking, but they are questions that call us to life. They are questions that reveal the Living God and the power of Divine Love.
Blessings of Peace, 
Download May Newsletter |
