- Corned Beef Supper on March 14th at 5pm (keep your eyes peeled for details)
- We continue our collections for Fuel Assistance for local families in need
- SOUPer Bowl Sunday Collections continue!
- Death Cafe February 28th at 4pm (we meet monthly)
- Discussion Circle is the Last Sunday after Church; this month we will look at passages from Matthew to inspire, teach, guide, and challenge us–all are welcome to join us
Visit our Calendar of Events to explore our upcoming dates and times
Our Sunday Reflection is recorded and can be found HERE (posts each Sunday late morning or early afternoon).
All are Welcome. If you are uncomfortable with the word God, please feel welcome to insert your own word for the divine or Mystery in your life (Universe/Grace/Spirit/Divine).
One of the questions we might ask ourselves is: what does it mean for Jesus to “fulfill” and what does it mean for us to “fulfill”? Fulfill means to “bring into actuality”, “to make real”, or “to do, perform, or obey”, or “to carry out”. We also might ask ourselves what it means to be or feel “fulfilled”. This passage may be a keystone to real and true fulfillment.
And don’t worry, there’s truth and answers, but perhaps no “right” answers that make your answers “wrong”. Scholars and theologians have been arguing about what all of these words and stories mean for centuries—it is what makes them stand the test of time. They are universal and deeply personal.
Even what Jesus meant by “fulfill” is up for debate. My favorite is that he came to continue to teach and the show us A Way. That is not the only answer or the “right” answer. It’s one I like, but that doesn’t make other answers “wrong”. It is universal and deeply personal.
We also have different ways of coming at the passages. Are we trying to understand in a learned way? What does Jesus mean? What does Matthew mean? What’s Matthew trying to say? What’s going on in the context of the period in time? The background story of life as it was, and life as it is. What does it mean now?
We also might come at the passage seeking help! We might be in a place where we are seekers of mercy and grace and love in our lives. We are in need and these passages can answer that need.
We might come at the passage to learn how to being helpful. We are strong and ready to be the hands of grace in this world. They can guide us to see our part and our work.
This is why truth and answers, but maybe not “right” answers. We might be on the same page, but if you’re seeking help and I’m trying to figure out what Matthew meant and someone else is trying to learn to better engage in the world…we’re going to come up with conflicting answers that don’t help one another. Even though, technically, we’re on the same (literally the same) page.
We come at the Stories from our own stories.
Let’s think about salt. Salt brings out flavor and vitality. We’re (probably) not going to eat salt by itself. We’re going to allow it to enhance the flavors all around it. It brings out colors and lets different flavors meld, allowing them to come together and come alive. The flavors become something better than what they were alone, or without the salt.
There’s a remedy for when we’re feeling “off” to drink a quart of boiling water with a pinch of pink salt in it (pink salt being literally: salt of the earth). It often helps and interestingly, pink salt (salt of the earth) doesn’t tend to increase blood pressure…although, this is church not medical advice, so take that with…a grain of salt please.
Light. I had something else to say about light, but I was talking with a friend this week and he said something different (highlighting the universal and yet uniquely differing ways we come at the passages). He thinks of this light something of a two sided gemstone or a lens that refracts light. One side refracts the light toward God/Grace/Universe. The other refracts the light into the world.
When we turn toward Grace, we are renewed and refreshed and restored with the purest Love lighting up our lives. The light of Grace. After we have been relit with the light of Grace, we can take that love into the world. We become beacons of Lights of love, forgiveness, and deepest compassion for all beings and all of creation itself.
When we turn ourselves toward Grace, we become disciples to learn to “come alive”. We are filled with flavor and freshness. We are filled with Love. It is like God has tipped over us a shaker full of all the flavors of Love.
When we take that aliveness and life-giving gift back into the world, we become followers of A Way that brings flavor and light into the places that need it the most. As followers, we can become life’s “glimmers”. Glimmers are the ”small, micro moments of joy, safety, and connection!”. The light that ripples and bubbles and sparkles; and while it may seem small and insignificant, it creates cascades of ripples and bubbles and sparkles. Glimmers.
We must find the balance of being students to learn and being followers to share. We do this by finding the balance of turning toward Grace and then turning to the world as the hands and feet of Grace.
It’s not easy to keep our lights lit on our own. Perhaps it is even impossible. It’s not where one gathers, but where two or more gather in Jesus/Love’s name—in Community, togetherness (something needed so so much these days).
We need each other. We also need time to calm our hearts and souls, to turn toward Grace. This is the first facet on the two sided gemstone connecting us toward the Greater Mystery where we are reminded that we are Beloveds. We don’t have to be perfect, to be perfect in God’s eyes.
Turning to Grace isn’t always easy. We get tired and we trip over the stumbling blocks and obstacles. We trip over the ones we don’t see, the unexpected ones. We trip over the ones we miss when we hold our lights so high, we can’t see our own feet. We stumble over the ones we know are there, the ones that always seem to trip us. Sometimes we stumble to our feet on the other side and sometimes we fall on our face. Sometimes, we fall on our knees.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The ones who stumble and keep going. The ones who stumble and hold true to hope and faith.
Our stumbling can begin to reduce our quality of life. It can make us feel less alive. It can fill us with despair and anger. But when we turn, Grace restores our Salt balance. We find our way and are restored with Salt and Light. In God’s time, not ours. Blessed are the patient.
It is because we are so loved that we are challenged to grow and appreciate what is most precious.
And then, we carry the light…
We reflect that Grace into the world. We turn to the other side of that gemstone/lens of light and we give away what we have received. We turn our refreshed lights to the world and do our little bit of Good. We light others lights. We burn our light brightly so that others may have a guide.
We follow the Way.
We engage in the world as followers, refracting that love and grace of God into our own lives. Holding up the lamps, as Jesus taught us, to light up the dark places of the world. To be brave enough to go into those dark places as Jesus did. To shine the light on hate, on injustice, on meanness, on fear, on anger, on rage. To shine a light on those places where the meek and the poor, the widows and the marginalized, the outcasts and the sick have been forgotten and left behind.
And then, when we are exhausted, burnt out, and in need of help…we turn again through the gemstone/lens toward God to be refreshed and restored anew. We sit, once again, at the feet of Grace to bring to rekindle in our lives the flavor of salt and the brightness of light…to come alive with all the flavors possible in Creation. To Remember. To Remember.
Community Church of North Orange & Tully 