Author: Rachel Shaw

Yesterday afternoon, a group of clergy and lay leaders gathered at a Regional Gathering to hear from our Bishop, Tom Berlin. All this week and next he is meeting at a handful of churches to share his vision for the rebirth of the United Methodist Church in Florida. We met at First Church Melbourne and had worship and a time of listening and preparing for our upcoming Florida Annual Conference the first week of June.

The Bishop started with the image of how he had seen a video of a diver in a cage in open water surrounded by feeding sharks and then one actually got into the tank and everyone wondered if the diver survived. The diver did survive and the shark eventually got out, but there were some tense moments when that shark was in the cage with the diver and it felt like all hope is lost. And then he said, that we are living in times now, where there is a giant shark in our cages and the church needs to be ready to respond. The Bishop went on to explain that there are several areas in our current culture that feel like an angry shark is thrashing around. One place is in our economy, one place is in our constant stream of the news cycle and the other is in the way we respond to the divisiveness of politics as people who love Jesus.

The Bishop then asked the question I tried to ask this Sunday in my sermon: What do we do as Christians living in this divisive country? And his answer surprised me, it shouldn’t have, but it did. He said it is time for us to reclaim our unique identity under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and surrender to him as Lord. We all are pretty comfortablecalling Jesus Savior and asking to be saved from our sin, our broken circumstances and saved for eternity; but it is another thing entirely to surrender ALL of our lives to Jesus as Lord. Every great story in our tradition starts with Surrender. And we surrender not by engaging in the doom and gloom of our reality but in turning those divisive conversations into opportunities to share a witness both with our words and actions.

Then he invited us onto the rooftop with him and asked us to get onto the proverbial rooftops of our churches and to take a few minutes to look outside the walls of the church to see the homes, apartments, schools, communities and concerns that are right around us. The Bishop reminded us that Jesus came to set the oppressed free and to love and serve the vulnerable. In our current economic realities with the shark in the cage, we will have even more vulnerable and oppressed people closer to the zero margin of not knowing if they can pay for rent, feed their children or afford medicine. We are inching closer and closer to this and his advice for us, the people called United Methodists, is to allow that witness of our faith to take action as well. It is not helpful in these times to bury our heads in the sand or assume someone else will fix it. But his encouragement to all churches in the Florida United Methodist Conference is to prepare now for what is coming and to be ready to feed the hungry and speak for the vulnerable and lift up the oppressed when the time comes.

I share a picture with you of Bishop Berlin standing in front of a bunch of food items that he and one other person bought this week that they plan to donate to a church in their area. It was a challenge for us to think about how we can encourage our children and grandchildren and neighbors and friends to be more generous. For Mother’s Day this year, I have asked my kids not to buy me a gift, but to use that money to buy food and contribute to a food pantry or church that is meeting the needs of the most vulnerable and I invite you to join me.

As we ended our time together we prayed through these verses in Proverbs that most clearly articulate the heart Methodists have for personal and social holiness.

Proverbs 14:21 says:

21 It is a sin to despise one’s neighbor,
    but blessed is the one who is kind to the needy.”

I pray that this Scripture, these devotional words and the Holy Spirit will speak to you this week as you continue living into the person God has called you to be and that you may be strengthened to live out that call to feed and tend the sheep.

AMEN

Today I lost my keys and it threw off my whole morning. I am usually not a forgetful person, but I had to run an errand and in the midst of the rain and rushing to get back to my responsibilities, I misplaced my key. For whatever reason, I have simplified my keys to just one car key and not the normal handful of keys, don’t ask me why, I don’t remember but it sure made it hard to find. I had a meeting I had to get to and so I was searching frantically in all the nooks and crannies where I had last been. Long story short, I finally found my key, but I found several other things too. I found some missing socks, an important charging cord for a phone or IPad and where my missing heating pad has been all of this time.

These may seem like minor things and they are, but if I hadn’t lost my key, when would I have eventually found them? I don’t know, like I said, I am not a forgetful person and I don’t lose things often, but maybe sometimes, lostness can be a good thing. Maybe needing to slow down and look can give you a new perspective. It is probably why I enjoy traveling or going on new adventures that I have never explored, because lostness can be a chance to find something you may be missing.

I believe that God is a God that isn’t afraid of our lostness, or our forgetfulness. Sometimes our brains are going a mile a minute and we lose track of what task is before us. Our minds were never intended to be as fast pasted or cluttered as it seems we are this day. I know it is not just me, but in any five-minute block of the day, I could have five or six voices calling for my attention. The voice of a loved one or colleague asking a question, a call on my cell phone or office line, a notification from one of the kid’s school or a news update, an email for work or from the doctor, a person passing by that needs attention or a hug, and that doesn’t even take into effect our heart, soul and mind. It is too much, too much clutter, too much noise.

All of that to say it can be exhausting. Maybe lostness is a blessing.

I don’t know what you are feeling in this new year with new challenges and so much division around us. I don’t know if you are feeling lost or wanting to get lost. But let me encourage you that lostness isn’t always a problem. Sometimes being lost allows you to take the time to look in the nooks and crannies of the places that collect dust and are hard to reach. Maybe those “hard to reach” places are the anxieties you hold deep down, your fear of the future, your anger that hasn’t been resolved, your bitterness toward a person or position that has caused much pain, or your lack of forgiveness for your yourself or someone else. What are those “hard to reach places” in your soul where a missing set of car keys could be hiding? It could be that in slowing down long enough to find essential things like keys, you realize just how much abundance you have in your life (or how much you desperately need to dust under your couch). When those places of darkness and dust have light shine upon them, and preferably the all-encompassing, loving light of Jesus, you can pull out those things that have been tucked away and dirty for far too long and the Holy Spirit can begin to do her good work on them.

Either way, here is my permission to get lost a little bit from time to time because the God that made every nook and cranny within you isn’t afraid of a disordered or misplaced child. I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt because the God we know in Jesus has always been in the business of finding us and shining light on the darkest of places.

Check out today’s video from Pastor David to learn more about our Northern Ireland Pilgrimage that leaves July 21st!

Watch today’s update with Pastor David to learn more about the General Conference.

Psalm 62 NIV

¹ Truly my soul finds rest in God;
my salvation comes from him.
² Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

³ How long will you assault me?
Would all of you throw me down—
this leaning wall, this tottering fence?
⁴ Surely they intend to topple me
from my lofty place;
they take delight in lies.
With their mouths they bless,
but in their hearts they curse.

⁵ Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
⁶ Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
⁷ My salvation and my honor depend on God^[c];
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
⁸ Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.

⁹ Surely the lowborn are but a breath,
the highborn are but a lie.
If weighed on a balance, they are nothing;
together they are only a breath.
¹⁰ Do not trust in extortion
or put vain hope in stolen goods;
though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.

¹¹ One thing God has spoken,
two things I have heard:
“Power belongs to you, God,
¹²     and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”;
and, “You reward everyone
according to what they have done.”

For those of you that know me, you have probably figured out that I don’t rest well. Maybe I was drawn to this Scripture today because I am tired, or maybe the Holy Spirit had something in mind for you today too. In this busy world, we elevate and reward the “go-go-go” lifestyle even though we know it is not healthy or life giving. Even as a pastor, you would think that I had built in insight to resting well, but I clearly do not, and it seems like a habit that the week after Holy Week, I am learning this all over again. As I have pastored at this church over the last four years, so many of you are so encouraging toward me as you see the work I do, the young family I am raising and the many plates I am spinning at one time. I will hear from you from time to time, “I don’t know you do it!” And this is meant as an encouragement and probably also a prayer that you are hoping I can keep on, keeping on and stay the course. But if I can be really honest today, I don’t always know how I am doing it too other than to say that God’s grace is made perfect in my weakness, and I have A LOT of weakness. And it comes out most when I am really tired and at the end of my rope. I have noticed how when I am burning the candle on both ends, God fills in the areas where I am not measuring up with God’s abounding grace.

I believe that Psalm 62 has a good word for us about resting in the right things, so I invite you to sit with this passage of Scripture this week. As we have just walked through Lent and Easter, we felt that it would be helpful to study the Psalms in our devotional time together, especially in light of the resurrection. Jesus often quoted from the Hebrew Bible and used the book of Psalms in his own prayers, and so can we read these prayers through the lens of the hope of resurrection? For the next two months, Pastor Philip and I will be spending time with a few specific Psalms and then sharing how it brings us hope and healing.

As I re-read Psalm 62 today, I am struck by the ambiguity of the “THEY.” In some Psalms, the “THEY” is the named enemy which is usually an oppressive country or brutal army. But if I am reading this Psalm through the lens of resurrection, I could just as easily be to blame. My own unhealthy habits or internal expectations could be the “THEY.” Let me explain. If I am consistently resting in the Creator, to let God be my fortress, and finding my salvation in God alone, then I am truly living into the person God has called me to be. But I am here to tell you that I don’t always nor do I consistently do this. Because sometimes I have created my own fortress of people pleasing tendencies. Or my pastoring and my abilities to live into that calling has become my salvation. Or my rest is based on earning rather than being. When this happens, I am far from resting in God because I have made myself the Lord of my own life, not Jesus.

As I was processing this Psalm, I came across a post from another pastor mentor of mine who quoted these words from one of her favorite authors, Nicola Jane Hobbs.

“Instead of asking, ‘Have I worked hard enough to deserve to rest? I’ve started asking, ‘Have I rested enough to do my most loving, meaningful work?”

What powerful words that really flip the script on our desperate need to find rest in the real life-giving way God intended it to be. I won’t always get this right, but these words hit me deep. This mixed with my own exhaustion and the words of Psalm 62, it seems like God might be trying to tell me something…huh…I wonder.

AMEN

Watch today’s update with Pastor David and Dean Bosco to learn more about planned giving and our upcoming workshop.

Check out today’s update from Pastor David to learn about our church’s core values!

Watch today’s update to hear a financial update from Pastor David!

Do you ever have one of those weeks when your heart breaks over and over again? Over the last 7 days this has happened more than once for me. I have found myself in situations where I sit in the holy discontent of the world and say, “this is just not right!”

Last Thursday, another staff member and I toured the Orlando Rescue Mission, which has been serving homeless and vulnerable families since 1948. I started to cry when I learned that once a month, the children who have had birthdays that month get a group birthday party and get to share a cake that has their name on it and for maybe the first time in their lives, they see their name on the top of a cake. Then I went to Warren Willis Camp over the weekend and remembered with joy how many youth find their faith story here. And while it didn’t break my heart in the same way, my heart ached for the youth that have not yet experienced the power and presence of Jesus in their own lives and are left trying to piece together an empty and unfulfilling identity that the world tells them they are. And then I finished my week sitting on the Board of Directors meeting at the Florida United Methodist Children’s Home and listening to stories of abandoned, trafficked and abused children and how the Home has transformed their lives and given them a new family.

All of this to say, it has been a heavy week. Maybe you can relate.

While I am blessed to be a part of the faith journey in the lives of this church, I also carry the burden of the hurt I hear and the brokenness I see. This is part of my call. And as I was processing this with my Spiritual Director on Monday morning, she helped change my perspective and shone light in a place I hadn’t seen before. It could be, that the things that break our heart about the injustices of the world, the things that keep us up at night, the lumps in our throats, are actually Holy Spirit moments that are spurring us into action. Maybe the things that feel burdensome are actually gifts in disguise that help us figure out what we were uniquely made to transform or make whole.

It could be, that the Scripture from James 2 that we studied on Sunday is really about holy discontent.

The Message version of James 2:14 says,

“Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?”

I read that in light of the week I have just had, as an validation to sit in the sadness of the brokenness, but not an excuse to wallow. I read this modern version of the text to say, whatever it is that breaks your heart, God is giving you a task to fix, or an injustice to make right, or a brokenness to heal.And so I invite you to consider your own holy discontent and how your own heart breaks. Maybe the Holy Spirit is whispering to you about the gifts you have to help address that particular issue. It could be that God made you for such a time as this.

I close with Richard Rohr’s words from his devotion in Center for Action and Contemplation that says this:

“Religion is no longer a spectator sport, an observing of some distant, far-off truth, but it’s an observing of what is true in me, and what is true in me is true of the cosmos. It’s all one reality. Frankly this makes the job of evangelization—if we want to use that Christian word—much easier because we’re not bringing in an extraneous message. We’re simply naming what is.”

And so church, let’s name what is; the hurt, the sin, the brokenness and put our broke hearts into action together.

Check out our “God in a Box” skit by Pastor Rachel & our Children’s Ministry kids! It paves the way for what’s to come in our next sermon series- The Lorax, which is family-friendly and starts this Sunday!