On Sunday, Dr. Kent Millard shared about the importance of hope, drawing on the apostle Paul’s passage in Romans 8, where Paul writes that “hope does not disappoint us” (8:14). Kent went on to speak about hope during a time of loss in his life and how God provides even in times of darkness. Because of what God has done in Jesus Christ, we have hope.
Kent ended his sermon by sharing the famous hymn we sing to proclaim such hope and to remember where hope abides:
     My hope is built on nothing less
     Than Jesus Christ, my righteousness;
     I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
     But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

     On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.
     All other ground is sinking sand.
     All other ground is sinking sand.
 
It is upon this Rock that we have Refuge, that we have Hope.
 
As we move into August, where do you see this hope? How did Dr. Millard’s words help to comfort you?
 
We have been through a time of suffering, but that suffering does not compare to the glory to come. This is our hope.

Dr. Kent Millard 
 

In the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus lowers the walls and builds bridges among people who come to see him. He takes what might appear as insignificant fragments or pieces of food to feed the crowd and to create community, to bring people together. It is a story where the disciples don’t see how they are going to deal with the problems of so many people who have different expectations of Jesus and who are hungry on the one hand, and where Jesus doesn’t see a problem but an opportunity to display God’s glory on the other. 

Indeed, Jesus stands in the center of it all and he knows in his gut that this is a God-moment, even as he knows in his gut that some folks who have gathered have other ideas in their minds as to who he is (Jn. 6:11). After all, the people who have approached Jesus are there because they have witnessed him healing the sick. They are coming with a sense of expectation that he could help them. But Jesus has other things in mind, as Jesus usually does. He is about to reveal God’s abundant love for them. 

And so, as someone with good organizing skills, Jesus tells the crowd to sit down, most likely in small groups, which is itself a miracle! (Think about organizing over 5,000 people!) He then takes what Andrew and Philip give him from a small boy on the scene, five small barley loaves and two small fish, and does what any rabbis would do on the Passover: He takes the bread and blesses it and then he gives it to the people. Even the leftovers are used, the fragments and pieces, nothing is wasted. Twelve baskets full of pieces of bread! A sign of God’s abundance. 

But notice how Jesus’ instincts kick into action when the people, having been fed, try to make him king by force (Jn. 6:15). After being at the center of the crowd and all the action, Jesus withdraws from the crowd (Jn. 6:15). It is an interesting move, as Jesus instinctively knows that the people there are no longer keeping him as the true center. Instead, they are trying to use him and make him into someone he is not – no longer seeing him as the Bread of life, whom God gives to the world, but as a king who will give them what they want. The trust is gone.  In fact, the crowd becomes a kind of mob. 

Yet all but the fragments of the bread remain. And the fragments remain blessed. They are, after all, signs of God’s abundant love, but they are also signs of how Christ’s own body itself has been broken and blessed for us – acting as a bridge over troubled waters, as a center whose life is everlasting life (Jn. 3:16), and as a gut-check to what truth is really is – or better, to who truth really is. To Jesus, our Lord and God, to Jesus the Bread of Life. Amen.
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey

You know how the saying goes:I say “God is good” you say, “all the time.”  And “all the time,”  “God is good.” 

How do you know?  When you look at our world.  When you see the trials, pain, and challenges in your own life or in the life of others, how do you know? What does that mean for our understanding of the nature of God?  How can you trust that indeed God is good?

I have struggled with that little saying myself because if we are honest, it is hard to see how God is good sometimes.  When children suffer.  When war breaks out.  When our family members are in pain.  When our friends struggle with anything from infertility, job loss, and broken relationships, to financial stress, tragedy, or the loss of their own child,  It doesn’t make sense.  How is God good?  I wonder if any of you have struggled to truly embrace, believe, and put your trust in knowing that God is good.  

It wasn’t until I came to understand and reframe that little saying, and say, “yes, God works for good in all things all the time and all the time God works for good in all things.”

The story of the prophet Elijah helps us understand the goodness of God.  1 Kings 17 continues the story of a long line of corrupt and evil kings in Israealite history.  King Ahab was one of them and ruled for twenty-three years.  He was an Israealite King but he married a non-Israealite woman who practiced the religion of Baal worship.  Baal was known as the god of fertility and also called the lord of rain and dew.  Ahab and Jezebel perpetuated a culture of a tumultuous, free-for-all, polytheistic, believe what you want to believe but you better believe what the king, or in this case, what the king’s wife believes kind of atmosphere.  Where honor and shame rule.  Where position meant power.  Money meant status.  Connections meant control.  And the more you have of any of those, the more secure your position in society, the more authority and influence you have over those with less, those who are outcast, deemed unworthy, and those who live on the margins of mainline society. 

Enter Elijah, whose name means, “Yahweh is my God.”  Elijah goes to King Ahab with a word and warning from God.  He basically tells the King, you are not God, you do not have the power or authority of Yahweh God.  He tells Ahab that there was no reality except the God of Israel, stressing that no matter how many other gods you put your trust, there is but one God above all and in that God is where your trust shall be.  

It was the following statement however, that pushed Ahab over the edge: “As surely as God lives, the God of Israel before whom I stand in obedient service, the next years are going to see a total drought…” (17:1) That did not sit well with the king who worshiped a god of rain and dew. The Spirit of God tells Elijah to get out of town for his own safety.  

That is where things change for Elijah.  This bold, courageous, spirit-filled, nothing will stop me prophet, now must learn that he too must completely trust that God is good and will provide and protect him in surprising ways..  He learns this in the most unexpected way, through the actions of a widow, who doesn’t even believe in Yahweh God.   She is a nobody with no standing, worth, or significance in that society.  She was not an Israelite, but a foreigner. In other other words, God's command to Elijah sends the faithful prophet to receive nourishment from outside all the expected and predictable places of well-being.  (Brueggeman 81). 

What does this tell us?  What does it take to trust God?  Strength?  Status? Answers? Influence?  Power?  Highly developed spiritual formation and discipleship skills and practices?  None of that.  To trust God takes vulnerability.  

Who are the most vulnerable among us?  In Elijah’s day it was orphans, widows, and strangers (foreigners).  Both the widow and Elijah are vulnerable in this interaction.  Out of her vulnerability, she provides food, water, and a place to stay for this stranger.  From Elijah’s vulnerability, he experiences the faithfulness of God even in the toughest of times and in unexpected circumstances.  Elijah is sent by the Lord to depend on the gifts and resources of a “nobody.”  

What is happening here is that God is doing what God does best: breaking into our ways of thinking, challenging our ways of doing, and turning on end, our ways of being with the purpose of using the absolute unexpected to show us we can depend on God no matter what.  To show us even when we think we know, there is more to learn.  To show us that God’s goodness is made known through our courageous acts of vulnerability. 

God works for good in all things, all the time.  All The time, God works for good in all things. May we have the courage to trust such truth.  Amen
​
Pastor Jenothy Irvine

Does anyone actually like the feeling of being lost?  I know I don’t like the feeling you get when traveling and you take a wrong turn or have to make a detour and regardless of how many “re-routes” you get from Siri, you end up somewhere you shouldn’t.   Or the feeling you get when visiting someplace new and you get turned around or misread the directions and find yourself surrounded by unfamiliar buildings, unknown street names, and the faces of strangers.  

There is a moment when you are lost in which you feel the panic in your gut begin to rise up against the rational voice in your head.  In that moment, a hundred things can go through your mind and heart.  It is a moment you have to fight to stay in control of your emotions and your imagination.  It is a moment you have to work through the fear, anger, questions, and frustrations, and work toward finding your next best step.    

What if the wilderness is not trees and rocks, or mountains and rivers? What if it is not an unfamiliar neighborhood or a strange city.  What if it is a wilderness of another kind?  The kind you can’t always see or define or wrap your mind around.  Are the feelings the same?  What can we learn from a wilderness we cannot name?  When I look at our world today, I wonder if we, as a society, aren't a bit lost and trying to find our way.  I wonder if the last two years haven't thrown us off course and into a kind of personal, social, cultural, or even global wilderness.  Professionals agree that the last two years only exacerbated underlying issues in our society and our world.  Many believe the pandemic shook an already faulty foundation exposing long-hidden cracks and weak spots within systems of government, healthcare, education, and religious institutions.  Emotions have been raw and all over the map.  Politics heated.  Conflict elevated.  And even on local levels and in the homes of our neighbors, stress has been heightened, finances stretched even farther than before, and all the struggle, neglect, abuse, and tension that comes with such circumstances has only increased.  From within this wilderness, all of us, at one level or another, have felt the fall out and results of  change, fatigue, controversy, conflict, transition, frustration, and anger.  

It is safe to say that many people today feel lost.  And if they don’t feel lost, they feel our government or our country, in general, is lost.  And if they don’t feel our government or our country is lost, they feel like something has been lost; something they might not be able to name or define or even recognize but something they know is gone. 

The story found in Exodus 16 illustrates the powerful presence of God in the wilderness with God’s people.  It reveals the faithfulness of God in times of trial and tribulation as well as God’s abundance when all we see is scarcity and God’s provision when all we feel is empty. 

The thing about this wilderness experience and every wilderness experience the people of God encountered, then and now is that a wilderness experience is a time of transition - a time of existing in between something and something else.  The Isrealites were between a life of bondage and a life of freedom.  Between despair and hope.  Between what was known and what was unknown.  Between a secure existence even though it was slave labor and persecution at the hand of Pharoah, and an apparent insecure existence at the hand of God.  They were between doubt and trust.  Fear and courage.  There is but one thing the people of God had to do and they simply could not do it.  Trust. TRUST.  The people of God, then and now, are faced with the question and task of whether or not they would trust God in the midst of their wilderness; in the midst of the struggle and discomfort that comes with navigating the in between.  

This day (and every day) demands that those who follow Jesus trust him; trust God.  The question to ask is not what are we doing or what’s going to happen?  It is not where do we go from here?  Or how long is it going to take?   The question to ask and keep asking is, “What is God up to and how are we a part of it?”  When we have the courage to ask this question, we begin to let go of our plans and assumptions and become more aware of what God is revealing to us in the midst.  When we find the discipline to ask this question, we learn to surrender our expectations and demands and look for what God is bringing about in our midst.  When we have the endurance to ask the question “what is God up to and how are we a part of it” we begin to see the wilderness as an opportunity, not as punishment, failure, or separation from God.  Our eyes are more open to see God’s presence and restoration in action. To see God’s healing unfold.  To see God’s provision, promise, and our potential in God come alive.  

Whether it is the wilderness of self, faith, pain, new beginnings, grief, change, divorce, addiction, mental health or any number of other moments of life, the question remains, “what is God up to and how are we a part of it?” 

In Exodus 16:1-7t, God provided the mana, the bread, in the wilderness but the people had a responsibility and instructions to pick it up - to accept it, to use it, to allow it to sustain them.  To trust what they were given and that it was enough.  God provided quail but the people had a responsibility and instructions to prepare and cook it, to use it for good and not abuse it or overuse it, but to trust what they were given and that it was adequate.  

People of God, hear the good news: when we are lost in the wilderness God provides.  When we are lost in the chaos of our world, God sustains.  When we are just plain lost, God knows right where we are.  

Will You trust such good news?  May it be so. 

AMEN

Pastor Jenothy Irvine

​You will remember that in the scriptures there is the language of covenant or promise. A covenant is the way God promises his mercy to provide for us and to care for us. In the Bible, there are several covenants that God makes with the people. The first is the covenant God made with Noah and with every living creature in Genesis 9. In this covenant, God promises never again to destroy the earth. Instead, God is going to restore and recreate the earth according to his purposes. God promises in this covenant life not death.

Later in Genesis, God makes a covenant with Abraham and Sarah (12:1-3). Through this couple, God will call forth the people of Israel to become a great nation through which God will bless all nations. In this covenant God promises Israel a land and a future, to be a people.

In Exodus, God makes a covenant with Moses through the giving of the law (13-16). In this law, God sets the bounds within which Israel must keep the land and relate to others. It is a law that promises fruitfulness in the face of challenges. 

But we are not finished. Following the giving of the law, God makes a covenant with David; through David, God will bless those who follow as rulers of Israel. God will promise to sustain Israel via faithful and obedient leadership.

All these covenants have a common theme, and that theme is promise. God promises to be Israel’s God, and to abide with Israel through thick and thin, through obedience and disobedience. After all, God’s promises are irrevocable (Romans 11:29), a reminder of the biblical principle that once God calls Israel God provides for Israel. This is the promise at work in scripture: once God calls us, God provides for us, even when we might fall away, even when we think we don’t have enough, God will be faithful.

It is the message we hear again, and again in the prophets of the Old Testament, of how God will forgive and restore the people when they go in another way. It is the foundation of God’s covenant.

In the end, of course, the ultimate answer to God’s covenant or promise is Jesus, as Jesus is the new Noah and the new Abraham, the new Moses and the new David. Jesus embodies the salvation of Israel, if not the whole world. Indeed, Jesus is the One who is faithful and obedient. He is the One who won’t break "covenant" with us. As the Lamb of God who suffers in his body the pain of all broken covenants, Jesus works to forgive us and reconcile us. He is the Good Shepherd who goes after us as lost sheep and brings us into the fold of a new and unbreakable covenant, which is the basis of who we are and what we do as Christians.

How may we respond to God’s covenant with us? What can we do to share in God’s covenant of promise and mission? How may we trust in God's good work?

Andy Kinsey