Oh, my friends…

To prepare for sermons this summer, I am reading Eugene Peterson’s Leap over a Wall, a study of King David. The book demonstrates that in the many stories of David, we encounter not a perfect, heroic, iconic figure from a blockbuster movie, but an incredibly flawed man who nonetheless was with God. Peterson says: “From a purely historical point of view [David] was a barbaric chieftain with a talent for poetry…but every event in his life was a confrontation with God.” In these confrontations, we see both the limitations of human beings, and God’s capacity to work through those limited human lives.

Peterson does a deep dive into many of the stories we have heard this summer : David, chosen and anointed by Samuel; David facing Goliath; David receiving the news of King Saul’s death; David becoming the king over a united kingdom and making Jerusalem the capital; David dancing wildly in front of the Ark of the Covenant; David wanting to build a fancy temple for God in Jerusalem; David becoming an adulterer and murder over his lust for Bathsheba. Peterson includes other stories we do not hear from our lectionary. All of them, for Peterson, are stories where we may well meet ourselves and our world through David’s story. They are also the lens with which to see the way God works through such broken vessels as human beings.

I laughed out loud when I read the chapter on David being given his own city, the city of Ziklag as a base of operations when he was living in the wilderness. Peterson describes Ziklag as being filled with “moral and social ragamuffins.” And Peterson makes the connection that being filled with “moral and social ragamuffins” is what exactly what every church is.

Peterson writes,

“Every time I move to a new community, I find a church close by and join it—committing myself to worship and work with that community of God’s people. I’ve never been anything other than disappointed: everyone turns out to be biblical through and through: murmurers, complainers, the faithless, the inconstant, those plagued with doubt and riddled with sin, boring moralizers, glamorous secularizers. Every once in a while a blazing shaft of blazing beauty seems to break out of nowhere and illuminate these companies, and then I see what my sin-dulled eyes had missed: word of God- shaped, Holy Spirit-created lives of sacrificial humility, incredible courage, heroic virtue, holy praise, joyful suffering, constant prayer, persevering obedience. I see Christ—for ‘Christ plays in 10,000 places,/ lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his/ to the Father through the features of men’s faces.’”

I don’t know what or who you see when you look around you at St. Andrew’s on Sundays, or what you think on other days when we gather together as a worshipping community, your opinions of our church community when you are not in church. Maybe Eugene Peterson is more curmudgeonly than most, and a pessimist to boot, and he’s wrong about humanity and especially wrong about us. But I don’t think so.

I feel both humbled and exalted in reading that I am part of a community of moral and social ragamuffins. I’m humbled to agree with Peterson that “God doesn’t call nice people to repentance”—and to remember that we’re all called to repentance. I’m exalted to be reminded that this person, these people—we—are exactly the people God does use and has used and will used to bring about God’s work in the world. It is when we cling to an identity as “fundamentally nice” that we begin to miss seeing our own limitations and failures and the ways we might change, as well as our capacity to be the hands and eyes and feet of Jesus. Sometimes I think being designated as “nice” is the root of all the problems in the world! When we are convinced that we are simply “nice” people we may reinterpret evidence to the contrary to fit our “niceness” rather than be convicted of the fact that we, too, are far from perfect.

A time-honored spiritual practice is to take a few minutes each night to consider both the good and the bad in our day, a little honesty before going to bed that might help us sleep more soundly and greet the new day better prepared. Letting go of the illusion of being “fundamentally nice” (whatever that is) doesn’t mean that we have to grovel or be ashamed: it just means everything’s normal and it’s time—as always—to get to work.

Your ragamuffin friend and priest,

Jen+

Rev. Jen has set her office drop-in day as Wednesday of each week from 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. for anyone who would like to stop in and visit. You are always invited to make an appointment for a time convenient for you. Mondays are her Sabbath day. NOTE: No drop-in hours Wednesday, August 21.

In-Person Sunday Morning Worship Service, August 4, led by the Rev. Dr. Jennifer Oldstone-Moore, 10:15 a.m. You can stream the service via St. Andrew’s Facebook Page. Click on this link to view the Live Stream. We will start the Live Stream 5 minutes prior to the start of the service.

Click here for the service booklet for August 4.

AUGUST 4 INDIANAPOLIS INDIANS GAME

The Wabash Neighborhood is having an outing at the Indianapolis Indians baseball game this Sunday, August 4 at 1:35 p.m.

VESTRY MEETING MINUTES

If any of you are interested in what your Vestry is doing, there are two copies of each month’s minutes on the top of the piano in Hamilton Hall. Feel free to read and return!

TUESDAY BIBLE STUDY

Most weeks, the Tuesday Bible and Book group meet at 4:30 p.m. Meetings will resume in early August.

THIS WEEK’S SHOPPING LIST FOR NON-FOOD PANTRY

Please add razors, Stain Remover Sticks, and shaving cream to your shopping list for the NFP for the month of August. Meals and conversation in Hamilton Hall are going well. Patrons are now able to pick out items they most need. Your contributions help our budget go farther in helping meet the needs of those in Putnam County. The next Non-Food Pantry will be Saturday, August 31 from noon – 2:00 p.m.

FREE DAILY DEVOTIONAL

We have some large print Day by Day daily devotionals in the sanctuary that you are free to take home for your personal devotions–and if we know that people would like copies, we can order the right amount. Many of you may also appreciate the on-line version of Day to Day. Click here.

ON-GOING COVID PROTOCOL

We continue to respond to both our county’s current CDC designation and to the current variant. Masking is optional. Decisions on COVID policy have moved from the Reconvening Committee to Rev. Jen and the Wardens.

We have heard that the daily reflections and scripture readings provided during Lent were appreciated. The meditations are written by persons from Gobin UMC and Beech Grove UMC. They will be in the newsletter each week. Whether you enjoy these every day or as the Spirit moves you, may this resource continue to bring you spiritual food for the journey. Blessings!

Click here to view the readings and accompanying links.

Your prayers are asked for: