April 18, 2024

To our CKPres Family,

Ministry work in the 21st-century American church is an uphill battle, especially in places like the Pacific Northwest. One of the ways I remind myself of God's presence and providence to our congregation is to look at the wonderful staff members God has continued to bring to us to serve our church. Like the rest of you, I am grieved by Dani's departure, grateful for her friendship and years of extraordinary service to our church (and also grateful that she's not going anywhere!), and excited for her and her next steps.

We plan to have a luncheon after church on June 23rd to celebrate her and thank her for her faithful ministry to us.

And while this initial news had the makings of gut punch, I am thrilled to announce that Mary Hoard has agreed to serve as our new Children's Director. As many of you know, she and Natasha Heino have been filling in as a fabulous and hard-working team during Dani's maternity leave.

Mary brings a love for Jesus, kids, and educational background to the program. A number of you who have been volunteering with the children's program in the past few months have already gone out of your way to share with me how impressed you've been with Mary's leadership, thoughtfulness, compassion, presence, and engagement with the kids. Our staff is already doing cartwheels now that they've learned she's on board. Mary will stay on after Dani returns from maternity leave and the two will work together in May and June as Dani transitions out.

I was talking with a pastor friend of mine last week, whose church has been searching for a Youth Director for nearly a year. I told them we were losing our stellar Children's Director.
"Ugh, I'm so sorry," he said.
"But," I said, "it appears we have an excellent replacement in the wings."
"What?! You guys have sure been fast in finding great replacements for the departures of two well-loved staff members in the last six months."

Obviously, we can't take credit for any of it, and we have had moments in the past and undoubtedly will in the future where finding the right staff person doesn't come quickly or easily. So all we can do for now is be grateful for the way God continues to lead, guide, and provide for this Manna Church, and be grateful for Dani and Mary, finding ways to support them as they lead us in discipling our kids.

Grace and Peace to you all,
Pastor Tyler

April 14, 2024

During this Sunday's sermon, I read a poem I wrote about Psalm 24. Here is the poem for you to read again:

Psalm 24
"To the east he stationed winged creatures wielding flaming swords to guard the way ... " - Genesis 2:24

We came at last to the gates of the old fortress
We called out and were answered with silence
The gates were immovable
Rusted shut for they'd not been opened in living memory
and the history of this old fortress had become
indistinguishable from legend.
It was said only those with clean hands and pure hearts could pass through
and so they had long remained unmoved.

I began to weep and to weep
for no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth
could open those gates or look inside them.

Don't weep, I heard a voice say
Don't you know those gates are not locked
from the inside, but from the outside?
And I saw a lock, but there was no key.
"Who holds the key?" I asked.
It has been lost, said the voice.
And I began to weep again, for I knew
there was no hope.

It has been remade, said the voice
by the one who dwells in the fortress.
He holds the key of David
What he opens no one can shut
and what he shuts no one can open.
He has come down out of the fortress to unlock it.
And I saw a King
Riding on the foal of a donkey
and I heard a great sound as the might gates began to lift
the ancient doors arose
the King stopped and locked at me and said
"Follow me, for all who follow me will enter in."

Who is this glorious King?
The Lord! Strong and powerful!
The Lord! Might in battle!
The Lord of heavenly forces!
Mighty gates! Lift up your heads!
Ancient doors! Rise up high!
That all may enter in
For the whole earth is the Lord's and everything in it.
May all return to their glorious King! 

April 4, 2024

To My Beloved Congregation,

For the last five years I have been blessed to be the Children's Ministry Director. These years have been some of the best of my life. After many hours of prayer, it is with a heavy heart that I have decided to step down from this position. I have truly loved this job and it has changed my life in so many ways. This has been a very hard decision for my family to make. I am so thankful to have worked here in this special place. Please know that I have no intention of going anywhere! I love this church and the congregation.

Even though I am stepping down, I will not be going far - just down the hall. I have accepted a position as the new teacher at Creative Connection. This new job has less hours and will afford me more time to spend on our new family of four. I am excited to see how God will work in my life and in the school.

Thank you all for your support, prayers, and love over the years. I can't wait to see how God moves in this place next.

Dani Sharrett

October 17, 2023
Friends at CKPres-

Hopefully by now you have seen Ty’s letter. To draw on a word he used in his letter, this is one of those Dictionary-definition examples of “bittersweet.” Ty has brought an extraordinary work ethic, humor, creativity, integrity, love and passion for Christ and this congregation, and a willingness to learn and change and grow. He was a stabilizing force during both of my paternity leaves, sabbatical, and the many challenges of the pandemic. We will all miss him. I will miss him popping into my office to talk theology or NBA playoffs. Grace married into this church, and has embraced us with Christlike love; leading us with her beautiful voice in worship, serving in Sunday school and at youth group. Their absence will leave a felt gap. So there’s the bitter.

At the same time, I am so thrilled for the Whitmans. Having had the enormous privilege of working closely with Ty for over four years, I believe strongly that he is someone God has called to serve and lead in this topsy-turvy world of the 21st-century Western church. A mentor of mine, nearing his own retirement from pastoral ministry, recently wrote to me that one of the things that encourages him for the future of the Western Church and God’s continued work in and through the Church here (in spite of all the depressing statistics of decline) is the quality of leaders he continues to see coming up. Ty is another such example. Everything I’ve learned about Ty’s path to this next church seems to indicate that God is and has been very present in this process, leading him in these next steps. And there’s the sweet. We will forever be a part of Ty and Grace’s story, and they will forever be a part of ours. What a gift.

So, what of CKPres moving forward? The first thing you need to know is that we will be holding a luncheon after church in the Fellowship Hall on Sunday, November 12th, Ty’s last Sunday with us. We hope you can attend this celebration and time of gratitude for Ty and Grace.

The second item is the very good news that we have a successor in place for Ty. The position will be restructured somewhat—part-time rather than full-time—with the new title Director of Youth Ministry and Community Outreach. I am thrilled to announce that Amanda Warfield will be filling this position. Amanda was a member here from 2016-19, a fantastic youth leader, and even filled in as the interim youth director for five months before Ty was hired. She and her husband have been unable to resist the pull of Evergreen trees, snow-capped mountains and endless waterways since they moved away and had already planned to move back to Washington State. When I reached out to Amanda on a whim about this, she said, “I can’t even fathom this right now… this is quite literally an answer to prayer. I almost texted you yesterday to ask you to let me know if you heard of any part-time positions opening up.” Amanda loves Jesus and this church, she is great at connecting with students of all ages, highly organized, and a wonderful human being. And, as Dani has been gleefully reminding me, there will be a significant uptick in Disney and Taylor Swift conversations in the church office.

Her timeline is not yet firm—they hope to move within the next six months—and we are once again blessed by David and Stephanie Sweeney, who have agreed to lead the youth group until Amanda arrives.

So there’s more sweet. But the reason for it, again, is still bitter. I have sometimes referred to this church as a “Manna Church.” Like the Israelites receiving only the bread they needed for that day, it seems to me every time there is a gap somewhere, the one person we need comes along to fill it. I am amazed at how often this has happened here, and yet I still forget it sometimes and can get anxious when people need to step down or move away.

He’s no Saint Augustine or C.S. Lewis—he wasn’t even a Christian—but this lyric from Leonard Cohen seems to me pretty sound theology: “There is a crack, a crack in everything… That's how the light gets in.” The departure of the Whitmans will leave a gap, a felt absence, a crack in the life of our church. I am saddened by it. But I do believe that it’s sometimes in these transitional moments, where the cracks are more easily felt or seen, that we discover God’s light in fresh and unexpected ways.

Let’s watch and pray together in this new season.

October 16, 2023

To the Saints gathered at Central Kitsap Presbyterian Church,

It has been my great privilege and blessing to be in communion with you all these last four and a half years. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I wasn’t initially sure about my call to this
body, however, God knew exactly what I needed. This place has been incredibly formative for
me in my growth in the knowledge and love of our Savior and my personal growth as a minister
of the Gospel.

Because of my love for you and this church, and my deep admiration for my time here, it is
bittersweet for me to write and inform you that my time at CK Pres is coming to a close. The
Lord has opened a door and has called Grace and me to a new assignment. Grace and I will
embark on a journey to West Seattle, where I have been called as the new Lead Pastor of a small congregation seeking its new identity in Christ as Christ’s bride in their city. I am thankful for the experience given to me through my time here, and I know that this endeavor will surely be helped and shaped by the ministry of CK Pres. My final Sunday as your Ministry Associate and Youth Director will be November 12th, 2023, and until that time comes I look forward to
continuing in worship with this blessed body of believers and the communion of the family of
saints that dwell here.

While we are excited about this new season of life, and excited to see how God moves in and
through it, this letter weighs heavily on my heart. I deeply love this church, all its quirks, and all
its people. I have been blessed with so many tender friendships and I have developed such close relationships with many of you. Grace and I will miss you all more than you can imagine. We are grateful for technology that can keep us close while we are physically distant from each other. We ask for your prayers, knowing very well that this is a prayer-saturated church — we will need it. As LoisAnne Sykes often says, “It isn’t the least you can do, prayer is the best thing you can do.”

Know that you will often be on our minds, and in our prayers.
In Love and in Christ,
Ty Whitman

On Sunday at the beginning of the sermon I gave the “homework” to the congregation to go and read three books (which really are just individual chapters) from what is known as the Old Testament Apocrypha, or the “Deuterocanonical” books. Catholics include them in their Bible but Protestants do not. They were composed in the time between the Old and New Testament and are “Daniel stories.” Those three books/chapters are the book of Susanna, the book of Bel and the Dragon, and 1 Maccabees 1 (or all of 1 Maccabees!). I also hinted that, as extra credit, one could read the story of the woman caught in adultery from John 8 alongside Susanna.

I had been emailing with Al O’Brien about Daniel (Al is an excellent Greek reader and enjoys reading through whichever book we’re going through for the sermon series in Greek) and I suggested he read these in Greek, as well. I then hinted that maybe something Jesus wrote in the dust in John 8 was a verse from Susanna, maybe something from verses 42-49 (in reality, we’ll never know, and it’s probably part of the point of the story that we don’t know… but it sure is fun to speculate!). Here is Al’s well-thought-out response, comparing the book of Susanna to John 8 (produced here with Al’s permission, of course):

I was thinking about the Susanna and John passages you referenced, and I realized some interesting points in both of them. The first and is that both passages are considered by many folks to be outside the original documents.  For Susanna, it would be the Daniel document, and for Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, in John’s gospel.[1]

Both passages provide us information about the characters involved.  The New English Bible commentators see the Susanna passage almost as an introduction of Daniel to the people of Israel, thereby establishing his status as a wise and thoughtful man, certainly important for the story as a whole.  John’s passage also shows Jesus’ character as well.  For Jesus though, we see a person who really understands, and to some extent trusts, the basic nature of human beings. However, Jesus has also already been established in other sections of the Gospel.

One difference between the two passages is the method used to establish authority, rightness, and wisdom of the actions of both men. Daniel’s actions are based on a very logical and obviously observational approach to the situation, i.e., the using of the two trees to demonstrate the falsehood of what is going on.  For Jesus, he does what he always seems to do:  he throws the decision back to the individual and calls upon them to to make the decision as to what is right based upon their own consciences, and what they know to be true and right.  What is especially significant in this last point are the cultural differences that are pointed by the two incidents.  For the Susanna story, we see the importance of logic and judicial inquiry to establish truth, a very “Hebrew” reliance on law and order to show rightness.  Jesus, on the other hand, really looks to the individual and God’s work in the individual to provide understanding and the light of conscience.

[1] Al is referencing here the fact that this story is not present in some of the earliest manuscripts we have of the Gospel of John. Many Bibles will include a little note such as this found in the NIV: “The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11.” Susanna, of course, is a Daniel story that is not found in the book of Daniel.

I've had a few folks ask me if I'd share the poem I wrote and read at the Annual Congregational Meeting. Here it is!

How many trees were felled
for the making of this place?
And where did they come from?
Some came, surely from not so far away
rooted and raised in the Northwest rain
they knew this land well
its culture and climate
its soil and soul.
Some came from further afield
(or further aforest)
brought here by mighty ships
on mightier swells
bringing the beauty and sins of distant lands
to this home where they came to live and love.

What did the trees look like before they came?
Some had a strength and sturdiness
that came with great age
which they gave to fortify the place,
now mighty beams lifting ceiling and sight
to Things Above.
Some came diseased, deadened, warped
and found in the giving of themselves to the place
that they now had a place.
Some came too rigid
and were softened, bent,
and in their bending they became
instruments for stringed songs
violins, guitars, cellos, violas and basses
from them rose a resonance
a beauty not possible before their bending
a freedom not imagined before giving themselves up.

How many trees were felled for the making of this place?
On the sanctuary ceiling are rows of
planks upon planks upon planks
easy to overlook or to take for granted
and yet if just one was missing
everyone would notice the gaping gap
and the place would feel forever incomplete.
Trees that are now pulpit, font, table
handed themselves over to careful carving
the chipping away, that something
always seen in them
that they could not see in themselves
might be revealed and discovered,
and in the beauty unveiled in the carving,
these containers of the Holy
point to the beauty of the plain elements they hold
bread and cup, water, an old book
a heavenly feast, spring of eternal life, the Word made flesh.

How many trees were felled for the making of this place?
Many trees, and only one tree
that cursed tree
that sits in the center of the place
where the Carpenter gave his life for the forest
in their surrender to the Carpenter killed on the tree
together they have made
and are making and
are being made by this place
felled trees now trees of the field
clapping their hands in joy
planted by streams of water
in giving their lives up
to the place, to the Lord of the place
they have been found
in their dying, here at last, they live.

I remember being in 4th-grade Sunday school at First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma and how our teacher brought out her flannel graph. In the 1950s, a flannel graph was a visual learning tool. It consisted of a sticky piece of cloth to which you could attach other fabrics to make pictures. And so she put a heart on the flannel graph that was broken, scarred, and dirty. And then, on top of that heart, she placed a red heart. "This red heart," she said, is the blood of Jesus Christ that absorbs all the brokenness in our sin-damaged heart. And then she put a bright yellow heart over the red heart and said, "This is what your new heart is like when it is filled with the light of God because His Holy Spirit is dwelling in you." And at that moment, I had an intense awareness that everything she told us was true. And I believed it.  

Over 50 years ago,  when I was in seminary, I read Jonathan Edward's sermon, A Divine and Supernatural Light. And I began to understand that my 4th-grade Sunday School experience was more than an interaction between a teacher and a student, but that God had imparted a divine supernatural light to me at that moment. Edward wrote:

       "There is a beauty so divine, that it is [distinguished] from things merely human, or that men are the inventors of a glory that is so high and great, that when clearly seen, commands our assent to their divinity and reality."

In my workshop during the Edwards conference, we will take a closer look at  Edwards' famous sermon and examine our own spiritual experiences as Christians. We will talk about our doubts and questions but also how the divine and supernatural light of Jesus Christ is experienced in our lives.

In 2018 Joe completed 46 years of pastoral ministry in the Presbyterian Church USA and is now an honorably retired Northwest Coast Presbytery member. Joe came to faith in the First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma and was spiritually nurtured at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. He has served long-term pastorates in Alaska, Arizona, and recently in Friday Harbor, WA. Joe graduated from Stadium High in Tacoma and the University of Washington. He received his Master of Divinity, Master of Theology, and Doctorate of Missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary.

I was immensely helped by Doug Sweeney’s magnum opus, “Edwards the Exegete”. Through every chapter and every page, wading through the exegetical life of Jonathan Edwards, I was drawn into a sense of awe. Edwards at times would miss meals, and spend hours upon hours in his study, as he dove deep into the sea of the Bible. I was at times discouraged, wondering if this was possible as an ordinary 21st century man; could I ever have my days look the way Edwards’ days looked? The discouragement wouldn’t last, as God moved me to consider how I could make my days seem but just a fraction of Edwards days. And so, as a pastor, and as a follower of Christ, this volume by Sweeney captivated my mind and moved me to make changes in my own personal study habits. The first section of the book is not a biography, but it’s a blueprint. One that Christ followers who desire to grow in their knowledge and love of Christ should seek to imitate. Not exactly, of course. Edwards, like many academics was gifted with a vocation that mandated hours of study, and allowed for it. The modern Christian-American would find it difficult to spend 13 hours daily in bible study: they have jobs for 9 hours a day, kids to take care of, and dishes to do. They don’t own by slaves1, like Edwards’ family did, that afforded him the time to focus on study rather than household tasks. So then, how can Edwards’ study habits be a blueprint for us? Well, it’s clear that the Bible and its contents were a top priority for Edwards, and it wasn’t just because he was a pastor. He very well could have said at an early age that his study in the Bible was complete (much like how many modern Christians view their study), as he was well acquainted with Greek by the time he was a young teenager, and he was incredibly well acquainted with the whole counsel of God by his early twenties. However, Edwards loved the Bible, and believed that it was the greatest way to know his Savior, and to hear His voice. His position in American academia was highly regarded, and he could have moved on from the Bible to spend more time in the philosophy of the world, with the John Locke’s of the world. And while he clearly spent time with those authors and thinkers, it always followed deep biblical study, and it was always spent by Edwards trying to understand the spiritual ramifications of the philosophy he was reading. The Scriptures were his guide, and final authority, and it showed in his study and writing. THIS is to be the way we can learn from Edwards. Where do the Scriptures rank on our priority list? I’ve had to ask myself this question far too often. I enjoy my television, a distraction unavailable to Edwards and those like him. I enjoy social media, far too much, and I get lost in unedifying and meaningless videos and posts from people I have never met. I spend too much time considering the political world. Is the Bible my priority? When I look at may days — outside of the time spent in my office at the church, where my vocation mandates I spend time in it — I see just how low the Scriptures are on my totem pole. Doug Sweeney illuminated that to me, and I needed to repent of my lack of love for God’s Divine Word. What Sweeney’s work does for us is give us a glimpse at a man who was immersed in Scripture, and whether it was Sweeney’s intention or not, it calls us to the mat. Where do the Scriptures lie on our priority list? Here’s how Sweeney works out Edwards’ view of the Scriptures:

"The Bible is full of wonderful things" Edwards attest to his people. It has stood the test of time, it is the worlds "most comprehensive book." It is divine. It is unerring. The splendid light that sheds on our world is 10,000 times better than that of the sun. The scripture’s sacred text, Edwards contended, are the most excellent things in the world. In fact, they tower as much above those things we study in other sciences, as Heaven is above the Earth. Further, the knowledge held in these heavenly texts is infinitely more useful and important than the knowledge attained in all other sciences. Scripture was a great and precious treasure. He pleaded with his congregations to search for biblical treasure, and that with the same diligence with which men digging mines for gold. He assured them that the Bible contains enough within its covers so to employ us to the end. Even at death, he said we shall leave enough of the scriptures uninvestigated to employ the ablest divines to the end of the world, or better to employ the Saints and angels to all eternity. He confessed on many occasions that those who have ever tasted the sweetness of God’s scriptural divinity, will live out their days in longing for more of it.” (Pg.4, Edwards the Exegete).
 
It will be my hope, and my prayer, that as we spend time looking at the spirituality of Edwards, we will be drawn into a greater desire to prioritize our own personal study of Scripture and drawn into a greater desire to know our God intimately.

 1It is no secret that Edwards was a slave holder. This has brought many in the evangelical world, and other factions of Christian thought, to remove him altogether. I personally find this to be the wrong conclusion to make. It was a grievous sin for Edwards to participate in the slave trade at all, make no mistake about it. However, I do not feel all that ready to try and chastise a man for a sin that he was blind to. In glory, Edwards now possess the knowledge for his sin (along with many others, since we know Edwards and all other saints were not perfect or sinless) and he has been judged for them. The way I seek to reconcile how a man of such intellect and such biblical awareness could possibly fall to such an evil sin, is by looking inwards. Yes, if such a man, who knew far more about the scriptures than I, who spent far more time in prayer and mortification of his sin than I, who spent far more time studying God’s word than I, if he could fall to such a sin, and be so blind, what am I blind to? What sins have I participated in, what sinful systems have I perpetuated, that I am blind to? So while we must be clear and say that Edwards was in clear violation of the Law and of the teaching of Scripture, we mustn’t cast him out of the kingdom or our academic circles as a result. If this was the case, there would be no theologian on earth, no thinker in modern day, that we could use as a guide or teacher. “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.”(Romans 3:23). 

What was it like for Sarah to be the wife of that famous (infamous) colonial pastor, Jonathan Edwards? What was it like to sit every Sunday, with your 11 children, in the “assigned pew” facing the congregation, seeing every frown, look of puzzlement, half smile, and those piercing eyes which took note of what you were wearing and how your children behaved? What was it like to host house guests at a moment’s notice because the pastor’s home was the place to stay when notable people came to town…not to mention the many young men under Jonathan’s tutelage spreading themselves out in a small house the way young men tend to do? Having been married to a pastor for many years, these questions and more have always fascinated me. How did other women face the challenges of this life and still thrive as Christians, partners in ministry, and human beings? And then, one day I came across an intriguing book entitled, Marriage to a Difficult Man: the uncommon union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards, by Elisabeth Dobbs. THIS I HAVE TO READ!…so I did…and Sarah has been one of my heroes of faith ever since.

When you are married to the pastor, and that is the person you hear preach year-in and year-out, it is paramount that you have a robust spiritual life beyond the Sunday morning experience. Sarah Edwards had just that kind of active relationship with God which carried her through the best of times, as well as the difficult seasons. Sarah was very human and struggled, as we all do, with human weakness. At times, she was overcome with depression, fear of criticism, and loneliness. Yet, throughout her life, it was said that she was of a “good disposition” and “did all as a service of love…with cheerfulness, peace, and joy.”  But there came a time in Sarah’s life when she experienced an intense spiritual crisis from which she later immerged with a greater assurance of God’s love and favor.

During the Sarah Edwards: Pursuing an Authentic Faith workshop we will meet Sarah through video in a one-woman play, written and acted by Maggie Rowe.  Sarah pursued God, and God pursued Sarah. In many ways, Sarah’s story is not too different from our own…for God is pursuing each of us as well. During our session together, time will be given for each of us to ponder aspects of our own experience of God’s pursuit.  

Sarah’s life verse was Romans 8:38-39, For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us (me) from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our (my) fears for today nor our (my) worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us (me) from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us (me) from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our (my) Lord.

This is as true for us, today, as it was true for Sarah in 1742.

Becce has been a spiritual director since 2009, and holds certifications from both the Monastery of the Risen Christ in Santa Barbara, California, and Christian Formation and Direction Ministry in Seattle. She holds a BA in Communication and Literature, and a Master of Biblical Studies. Becce enjoys speaking, teaching, and writing on the topic of spiritual formation. She also enjoys kayaking, hiking, and reading novels late at night. However, her very favorite thing to do is spend time with her family (which includes 5 very interesting grandchildren).

by Josh Lott

Imagine, for just a moment, that we discovered sentient life on another planet. No doubt, this would bring up lots of questions. Can we communicate with these creatures? Are they rational? Do they feel pain in the same ways that we do? Digging a bit deeper, we might ask things like: Do they have souls? Do they sin? Are they in need of salvation?

Perhaps you’re reading this thinking: “That’s ridiculous. Why would we ask these questions. Obviously they don’t have souls. Only humans are created in the image of God and these obviously wouldn’t be humans.” And you’re right. This is a bit of an extreme example. But these questions are actually the exact questions that European colonizers were asking as they came to the new world. Contact with new people groups challenged many of the worldviews held by Europeans as they encountered indigenous tribes.
 
There were some, however, who were passionate about bringing the whole gospel to these people, and loving them with the love of Jesus. Two bright examples of this in history are two men who never met. One, a Dominican friar from Spain who ministered in the 16th century. The other, a protestant pastor born in the new world at the beginning of the 18th century. Both Bartolomé de las Casas and Jonathan Edwards devoted a great portion of their lives and ministries to bringing the gospel to indigenous people of their lands, and faced that great challenge of cross cultural evangelism.  

In our pursuit of an authentic faith, we may never encounter an unreached people group. We will very likely never encounter alien life forms. But we do live in an age of rapidly changing culture. A melting pot where ideas are shared at the speed of a finger swipe and worldviews are shaped by voices on a screen. In this digital age, it is important for followers of Jesus to be willing to walk into unfamiliar cultures, knowing that the gospel is bigger than every culture, and that Christ is at work to redeem all things for his glory. In studying these two men, Las Casas and Edwards, we can learn that bearing Christ to an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile culture will produce change. Change that happens not only in that culture, but also in us. As we share Christ with the world, Christ teaches us about himself: reminding us that he is full of compassion and love for all of us.

Josh is the Associate Pastor of City Chapel of Bremerton. He has been married to his wife Rebecca for 12 years and has two kids, Joey and Evelynn. Josh loves to bake, do puzzles, and ride his motorcycle. Josh holds an MA in Church History and an MA in Theology from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and is passionate about making the local church more aware of its beautiful and rich history and traditions.

Over the coming days on our blog we will be hearing from some of the speakers who will be sharing at our Psalms Conference on June 11th. Today’s entry is from Jim Davis, who will be leading the breakout session “Jesus' Use of the Psalms.” Click here to learn more and register for the conference.

Luke-Acts is the longest continuous narrative of the gospel and it's the only one that includes an account of how Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension into heaven was understood by his followers.  That understanding re-shaped their Christology (their understanding of who Jesus really was and what he had really done) and their sense of their own identity and their mission and purpose.

In this seminar we'll explore the way that the Psalms played a pivotal role in Jesus' life from the time of his birth, through his ministry, during his passion, and after his resurrection as the Holy Spirit he breathed into his followers guided them to discover how to use the Psalms in life-changing ways.  We'll point out some of those ways and learn very practically how we can use the Psalms in the same ways as Jesus and his first followers did.

Jim received his PhD in New Testament in 1982 from the University of Nottingham mentored by Dr. J.D.G. Dunn. He has taught and pastored since then, including as Senior Pastor of CKPres from 1999-2007. He will be teaching New Testament for Gordon-Conwell Seminary and previously taught courses for Fuller Seminary from 1992 until his retirement this year. In 2019 he retired as Senior Pastor/Head of Staff at a suburban Houston congregation.

Over the coming days on our blog we will be hearing from some of the speakers who will be sharing at our Psalms Conference on June 11th. Today’s entry is from Joe Bettridge, who will be leading the breakout session “A Quiet Little Psalm for Noisy Brains.” Click here to learn more and register for the conference.

Lord, I have given up my pride  and turned away from my arrogance.
I am not concerned with great matters or with subjects too difficult for me. 
Instead, I am content and at peace. 
As a child lies quietly in its mother's arms, so my heart is quiet within me. 
Israel, trust in the Lord now and forever
Psalm 131

During the late 1920s, physicist Harry Nyquist and electrical engineer Ralph Hartley investigated how information is transmitted. From their research came the distinction between what is called "noise and signal." A meaningful signal contains understandable information, while noise is the random clatter of unintelligible sounds that interfere with the signal. Think of trying to tune in to a radio station and getting a lot of static. Worry is a signal that sometimes means you are sensing some genuine danger. But most of our worries are just agitating noises in our heads thrust upon us by the devil, the world, and our sin-damaged souls.

Psalm 131 is my favorite Psalm. But it is a peculiar Psalm. First, because it is the shortest Psalm in the Bible. Secondly, it begins with a seemingly anti-intellectual notion quite angular to our educated sensibilities. Consider Verse One, where David says: "I am not concerned with great matters or topics too difficult for me." What is he saying here? Are we not to read challenging books, think deeply about current events, or go to graduate school? Our little Psalm tells us that these questions miss the deeper point, that our problem is ‎not that we are ignorant and need better information but that we ‎are lost ‎and stuck and dying and need ‎Jesus.

Notice how this Psalm itself has both a philosophical and practical side. The Psalmist is proclaiming is the futility of fretting over things that we cannot change. It is the Biblical basis for the Serenity Prayer.' "God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference."

Psalm 131 presents us with the wonderful truth that we can actually hear God's life-giving signal communicating with us from beyond all the noise in our culture and especially in our own heads. Much of what happens to us in this world is incomprehensible. We can't make sense of "great matters." We can't separate the signal from the noise. But God hasn't called us to make sense of everything but simply to trust in Jesus Christ, who is God's clear signal to us even as John 1:18 explains: "No one has ever seen God. But God’s the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, has made God known to us."

Come join me in exploring Psalm 131, where our noisy brains can seek God's calming Presence in this quiet little Psalm.

Joe recently completed 46 years of pastoral ministry in the Presbyterian Church and now is an honorably retired member of Northwest Coast Presbytery. Joe came to faith in the First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma and was spiritually nurtured at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. He has served long term pastorates in Alaska, Arizona and recently in Friday Harbor, WA. Joe graduated from Stadium High in Tacoma and the University of Washington. He received his Master of Divinity, Master of Theology and Doctorate of Missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Becce, are delighted to now be part of the CKPC fa

Over the coming days on our blog we will be hearing from some of the speakers who will be sharing at our Psalms Conference on June 11th. Today's entry is from John Haberlin, who will be leading the breakout session “The Psalms as Pictograph: A Look at Acrostic Psalms.” Click here to learn more and register for the conference.

I was a commuting student to Seattle Pacific College (now University) from 1959 to 1963. Students that lived within the Seattle City Limits could not stay on campus because of the student housing shortage.

I was raised in a very conservative, fundamentalist congregation that stressed the Bible as the “Word of God.” The implication was that scripture had basically been dictated (though I don’t remember actually hearing that but it was just “the way it was”). It was here that I spent my non-student hours as “Youth Director.”

As one of SPC’s requirements, we had to take Bible courses … and foolishly I signed up for Psalms, taught by Dr. Joseph Davis. Of course, I was from a “Bible Believing Church” so obviously I was going to cinch this course … “Look, out “A” I’ve got you aced!” What do you mean a “D” on my first test? I was overwhelmed with confusion. It was like I was in a foreign land and they were speaking a language different from mine.

At that time in history the King James Version was the only available translation; except for a few less known and more “scholarly” translations from England. The landslide of translations was yet come. When I heard God “speak” it was always in KJV English. Every word was equal. To consider the context, the style, the purpose, the words used was meaningless. Now I was presented with an even more subtle concept that was like a foreign language to me. Well, indeed it was a foreign language, yes, even two ancient languages: “Hebrew!” I didn’t even understand it and it was written in weird “hen scratches.” Didn’t God speak KJ English???? And then, of course Greek … well, kind of, a rather “pop form” of Greek and not that of the philosophers … common everyday language. (Yes, the Psalms were translated into Greek by the time Jesus was born). As I focused on a Greek minor I was forced to take “classical Greek”as well and let me tell you, there is no comparison – kind of like trying to speed read the Hebrew of the very different “Job” in the Old Testament.

Back to Psalms: For the first time I had to struggle with a first domino and I was beginning to see that there were some other dominos off in the distance that if that first one fell, I feared that all heck was going happen. Threatening! Scary! Confusing! My simplistic world was beginning to crash. Thank you Lord, Jesus!

It was a tough lesson but one that I am so grateful for. I came to understand that God was not sitting on a cloud dictating through telepathy to the writers of the books of the Bible. No! God was encountering people, somewhat like you and me, in the real world in which we live. The scribes of the Psalms (Yes, plural! and No! David didn’t write them all) were real people, maybe even a bit bi-polar, just like people I know including the one I see from time to time in the mirror. Some were filled with faith. Some reeked of despair. Psalms were poetry, pondered contemplatively with each word a picture, sometimes with acrostic magic. Some were angry. Some I just don’t get. However, what I have come to understand and deeply respect is that God is in each psalm, engaged with real living people like you and me. They speak the whole spectrum of human life. Amazingly we are allowed to hear God’s faithful people vehemently yelling at God, praising God and you name it. God was and is in the Psalms in every corner of life right where we live.

This encounter with the Psalms in Dr. Davis’ class was an open door to me (though the final grade didn’t show it but what a good lesson for me) to move to the rest of scripture. I developed a passion for the original languages, especially the Greek of the New Testament but also for the Hebrew of the Old. I became engrossed in meeting the writers of each book of the compendium we call “The Book” (ultimately not a helpful term). I tried to meet the writers where they lived and hear them as they encountered God in their circumstances just like I am led to do in my life. As a pastor, one of my chief goals was to bring people into an encounter with the Living God which I truly believe is the goal of the LOGOS written and empowered by God’s Holy Gust (some people refer to tou hagiou pneumatos as the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit but I prefer the insight of a young friend of mine “The Holy Gust” (pneumatic – English transliteration of the Greek).

I’m not sure that generally the Psalms are written to be studies with great depth (though I am so thankful for those who have studied them deeply and brought out insights we could seldom discover on our own). What I am thankful for is the unique ability of the Psalms, one here and one there, to hit us right where we are living in that moment. Their ability to identify with our deepest thoughts is beyond human origin. They truly are divine …No! They are more powerful than a divine dictum. The Psalms are encounters with real humans, living real human lives and emotions in the presence of the Eternal and Ever Present God. Emmanuel, God with us.

Presbyterian Seminary. He began at Westminster Presbyterian in Yakima, moved to First Presbyterian in Hayward, California, served as founding pastor of CKPC, was Associate for Church Growth at General Assembly, and finally pastor at Harrison Square Presbyterian in Centralia. He is married to his lifelong friend, Pamela. They have three children and six grandchildren.

Over the coming days on our blog we will be hearing from some of the speakers who will be sharing at our Psalms Conference on June 11th. First up is Becce Bettridge, who will be leading the breakout session "New Conversations with an Old Friend"  Click here to learn more and register for the conference.

There is something very special about a long-time friendship. I have known my friend, Leslie Mauermann, since she sat behind me in AP US History when we were both juniors at Arcadia High School in Arcadia, California. She was the first to know that I thought I was falling in love with my husband, Joe. She took me to church and shared her “white gloves,” a requirement (apparently) at Arcadia Presbyterian Church in 1968. We were in each other’s weddings. I wept on the phone with her when she filed for a divorce. She wept with me when I miscarried my first pregnancy. She knows me as well as anyone alive…and yet we continue to surprise and delight each other as we share how we are growing, and the myriad of ways God is showing up in our lives. Ours continues to be a comfortable, but evolving, friendship.

Many of us, who have known Psalm 23 for most of our lives, tend to come to it with practiced eyes. We know what it says, we have heard the familiar phrases before. But one of the joys of reading scripture, is that it has the ability to surprise and touch us in new ways each time we engage with it. Particularly, when we slow down and ponder the words meditatively. The writer of Lamentations reminds us, “God’s mercies are new every morning (3:23).

• How is God like my shepherd?
• Is God inviting me to rest in “green pastures” … stick my feet in a quite stream?
• When did God walk with me through the shadow of death? Did I know God was there as promised?
• Is God preparing a table for me right now? What’s God serving?
• 
  

All these questions, and more, come to us quietly when we engage slowly and prayerfully with this Psalm.

In The Message, Eugene Peterson grabs our attention by translating the final verses of Psalm 23:

You serve me a six-course dinner
    right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
    my cup brims with blessing. Your beauty and love chase after me
    every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
    for the rest of my life.

An old friend…seen through fresh eyes. Come join us as we welcome God to speak to us in a very personal, perhaps even new, way through this beloved psalm.

 Becce has been a spiritual director since 2009 and holds certifications from both Monastery of the Risen Christ in Santa Barbara and Christian Formation & Direction Ministries in Seattle. She holds a BA in Communication and Literature, a Master of Biblical Studies, and has studied spiritual direction and dream work with the Haden Institute in North Carolina.

In a series of blog posts, several of us have been exploring the question of why a community garden makes good sense for a church. For many of us, the reasons for a community garden are self-evident. But whether or not we need persuasion, we’ll find the reasons are even more extensive than we may have realized. In today’s post, the director of our community garden, Stephanie Sweeney looks at the "spiritual aspect of peas."

The Spiritual Aspect of Peas

I find God in the garden, everyday. The sunstrokes streaming through the pussy willow tree’s branches warm the soil and motivate the seeds I planted to wake. As the pea plant’s cotyledons (the first leaves to appear) break the ground and unfurl, I can seriously laugh out loud. How the heck did that happen? How is God so good?

I’m not sure if you who are reading this can understand the joy I find in these garden moments, but I’m sure you understand the joy of new life. We humans can’t resist it. The appearance of a new, fresh, living thing reminds us of God’s faithfulness and fulfills our God-given desire to “fill the earth” and “be fruitful and increase in number.” Yet, the only way we can pursue this mandate is to eat food, food that originates in plants (even the chicken or cow you ate today was eating plants at some point too), which is why I think I find joy in gardening. A sprouting pea plant not only means new life for the plant, but it means life for me, my husband, and my neighbors in the form of nurturing sustenance.

Have you ever thought of eating as a spiritual exercise? The Lord’s Supper might come to mind, but I am talking about day-to-day eating-- breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Norman Wirzba writes,

At it’s best, eating is a sharing and welcoming movement that makes room for others… We don't really understand food until we perceive, receive, and taste it in terms of its origin and end in God as the one who provides for, communes with, and ultimately reconciles creation. Food is God’s love made nutritious and delicious, given for the good of each other. The mundane act of eating is thus a daily invitation to move responsibly and gratefully within this given life. It is a summons to commune with the divine Life that is presupposed and made manifest in every bite.
(from Food and Faith, xi).

Wirzba discusses in his book Food and Faith (an INCREDIBLE book, by the way), that as humans we are inextricably linked to the land and the gardens around us by our stomachs. We need food in order to survive, and that food originates in a garden of some sorts. The growth of this garden is utterly dependent on God’s providence, his grace, his loving sustenance. In other words, every bite of food we take declares God’s life-giving love for us.

If we view food as a tangible expression of God’s love, this leads me to two thoughts: where our food comes from and how that source speaks to how we value God’s gift, and how we share that tangible sign of God’s love with others.

It’s no surprise that most of our food does not come from small-scale, organic gardens. Most of our food, over 50% in the US, is grown on large-scale industrial farms which often use harsh chemicals, degrade the land, decrease biodiversity, influence human health negatively, and cause extreme pollution. The benefit of this terrible system is that now our food is more affordable, but there are hidden costs. The treatment of the creation and the flourishing of life is not honored in this current system. If the creation is God’s expression of love and hospitality, maybe Christians need to rethink their view of food production and consider how where their food comes from is actually important to consider. As Wendell Berry put it,

The question that must be addressed is not how to care for the planet, but how to care for each of the planet’s millions of human and natural neighborhoods, each of its millions of small pieces and parcels of land, each one of which is in some precious way different from all the others.
 
Growing a church garden organically, mindfully, lovingly, with an attentiveness for the natural rhythms God has set in place, will produce food that honors God via honoring the relationships we have with nature and neighbor. “God’s character is revealed in Genesis as the love that enables the life of another to be itself. Gardening work is thus potentially a powerful demonstration and extension of God’s own work, for what gardeners do is nurture the conditions in which life can take root and grow" (Wirzba, Food and Faith, 91).

What better way to minister to those in our community than to share with them God’s life giving gifts, grown in a way that honors all our connections: to God, to humans, and to creation? This is why I believe in a church garden. This is why I believe that the joy I find in pea sprouts can give life and joy to others who are in need of it. It is God’s love and hospitality for us to share.

In a series of blog posts, several of us will be exploring the question of why a community garden makes good sense for a church. For many of us, the reasons for a community garden are self-evident. But whether or not we need persuasion, we’ll find the reasons are even more extensive than we may have realized. In today’s post, Ministry Associate Ty Whitman looks at the virtue of patience as part of gardening and the life of faith

The Feeling of Birth Pangs

As a member of this church that lacks the ability to keep a single plant in the house alive, let alone the ability to tend to a full garden, I struggle to write to you concerning how a garden makes good, practical sense for a church beyond the obvious reasons of evangelism and service. Ways we can serve our community through the giving of food, and professing Christ as Lord whilst we do so. Yet, as a non-gardener, I ponder what God may be able to teach us through the physical act of gardening.

God often calls us out of our comfort zones, into spaces where success seems unlikely without God guiding us through every step of the way. We can recall Peter being called out onto the water by Jesus, but for the power of the Messiah, Peter falls immediately. However, as the story goes, Peter takes steps ON THE WATER! What faith Peter must have had to be able to make such a profound step outside of the boat. Now, God calling us into the act of trying to garden together is not quite as severe as being called to walk on water, but it certainly requires a faith that is willing to endure when the plants just aren’t growing in the ways we hoped. I can imagine that every good gardener has had that moment when they planted a seed, and it just didn’t grow. They watered it, tended to it, ensured they followed all the necessary steps, gave it sufficient nutrients in the soil, but… nothing. No sprout, just dirt. Or of course the moment that many of us have felt before, where we see the sprout, get overly excited, and then it withers and dies. To many, this may cause a desire to quit, but thank goodness some don’t - otherwise we’d be stuck with very few, good looking, vegetables and flowers.

Gardening requires patience. Just listening to David and Stephanie Sweeney - the two members of our church spearheading this ministry - talk about timing, and how we really won’t see much “fruit” until next year, has floored me. It’s clear this will require patience. Patience I too often lack, patience I think we all too often lack.

I’ve recently moved into a new home, with a yard and everything. I arrived and immediately noticed that the yard was, well, dead. Yellow and brown everywhere, with very little green. So, being just like my dad in being obsessed with wanting a well kept front lawn, I began watering it. Morning and night, I took the hose - because as a group of guys in our mid-20’s we don’t own a sprinkler - and would stand out there for a solid 20 minutes to water it. It’s been three weeks, and well, it’s still dead. I’ve used turf builder, watched far too many YouTube videos on how to make it green, and for some reason, it still remains yellow and brown. I’m impatient, and really don’t like the fact that this lawn isn’t responding in the way I was hoping. It wasn’t until today when our trusty Building and Grounds Elder, Bob Jensen, made the comment, “that lawn isn’t going to be better this year. It’s done, until next year,” did I realize where I was going wrong. Straight and to the point, Bob, without saying as much, was telling me to be patient. The grass will be greener next year, I’m just going to HAVE to wait.

Eugene Peterson, in the Message, paraphrases Paul’s words in Romans 8:22-25 in this way:

“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

The longer we wait, the larger we become and the more joyful our expectancy. What a beautiful phrase. Though, not a literal translation, I believe Peterson has fully grasped Paul’s conversation here around the creation groaning, as if it were in childbirth. Groaning, waiting, for our full deliverance and to be wholly connected with our Lord, God. Waiting for the moment the things of this earth are made perfect.

Think for a moment, about the 9 months a woman carries her child. Such a beautiful time, isn’t it? Full of wonder and joy as this human being, the mother and father’s own creation, grows before their very eyes. The excitement of the baby moving and kicking is elating. However, every mother will tell you that being pregnant isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Their feet hurt often, they experience morning sickness, which really tends to happen more than just in the morning. They experience emotions that makes them feel as if they are a different person than before. Pregnancy comes with pains - not to mention the culmination of that pregnancy in labor. There are also moments of nothingness. Where the baby isn’t moving, and it almost feels as if it weren’t there at all. The whole 9 months is filled with different sensations and feelings, good, bad and neutral. There are certainly moments where the mother just groans, wanting the baby to arrive already. But the longer the expecting parents wait, the more joyful their expectancy. And when they finally get the chance to hold their beautiful creation, it’ll all have been worth it.

So, too, is it with our lives, and with our garden. In life we will certainly experience times of pain, suffering, hardship - as it is with the garden, our plants may die, something may get stolen, maybe our cucumbers will be eaten by the beavers down by our dam. We will groan, wanting our Lord to return and remove all Evil from us and from the world - and with our garden we will groan, wanting our garden to produce better fruit, and wishing that those dang beavers would just leave us alone.

We will, most definitely, experience times in life where it feels as if God isn’t near, nothing good and nothing bad is happening and we feel empty - as with our garden, there will be a season where nothing grows at all. We will groan, wanting our Messiah to come and rescue us from the nothingness - and we will doubt, wondering if our garden is being successful or if it is even worth doing anymore.

The waiting does not diminish us. Why? Because we know our Lord is victorious over evil, and we can confidently proclaim that. Because we know that Christ creates beauty out of nothing. Because, God Almighty, brings us moments where we feel joy, gladness, and goodness reigns - we, too, can know our garden will produce something, and it will be good.

The waiting does not diminish us. Why? Because we know our Lord is victorious over evil, and we can confidently proclaim that.

It’s in the waiting, patiently waiting, as a mother does for her child, that we are made larger. If God can teach us anything in our humble church garden, it’s this. Knowing fully who our God is and what He can and will do, we can wait with joyful expectancy. So, let’s garden. Knowing full well it will take time, love and care. Let’s garden, and may it teach us the power of waiting.

Don’t forget to come to our Community Garden informational meeting after worship on Sunday 7/11!

In a series of blog posts, several of us will be exploring the question of why a community garden makes good sense for a church, and I’ll be leading us off with a series of three posts looking at what I’m calling the “spiritual theology of gardening.” Here is Part I  and Part 2. In today’s third and final post, I want to explore how a community garden can deepen and broaden our love for and knowledge of our community.

The Lord Planted a Garden in the East

The church planted a garden on the east side of the property. In that fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible fruit[1]…

Our church, I deeply believe, has a missional heart. I see this anytime we have someone come share about work they are doing for vulnerable populations, whether in our own community or globally, and the generosity that always pours out from our church to supporting those various missions. I also see this with the large number of attendees we have who volunteer their time at places like Fishline, MWEEP, Coffee Oasis, Kitsap Homes of Compassion and Salvation Army among others. But I’ve always wrestled with ways we can serve our larger community together as a church. Incarnationally. It’s good to write checks to support service organizations which are already on the ground working, rather than needing to always blaze our own trail. But if our primary missional outreach as a church is writing checks, there is a danger of approaching Gnosticism, not serving together incarnationally.

Our garden is designed to be missional, a way we can serve and love our community. One of our elders, Dr. Gwen Dewey loves to quote a good reminder for the church: if this church were to closer its doors for good tomorrow, would the community even notice we had? As Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously put it, "The church is the church only when it exists for others." As David and Stephanie Sweeney will share more about with our church, there is need for good, healthy food in our community, especially for vulnerable populations. The garden will be a way we can love our community by serving incarnationally together.

And so, to bring my three-part post to a close: I hope that in our garden we will gain a richer understanding of the words of scripture, written by people who were no more dependent on health of the land than we are today, but who were certainly far more aware of it than we are today (Leviticus 25:1-4). I also hope that we will broaden and deepen our spirituality, to see that growing food is a religious activity because it is one in which we are invited to collaborate with God, to work the land, to till the soil, and to be in awe of the mystery of our reliance on the creator who continues to bring light and rain and snow from heaven, watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, bringing nourishment and life out of dark soil. One of us may build the fence and the raised bed, another of us may plant and another may water but it is God who makes it to grow. Creator and creature co-laboring. And finally, a community garden will, I hope, deepen and broaden our love for and knowledge of our community.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.
 
Don’t forget to come to our Community Garden informational meeting after worship on Sunday 7/11!

In tomorrow's post Ty Whitman will share about something every gardener knows well: patience!

[1] See Genesis 2:8-9

In a series of blog posts, several of us will be exploring the question of why a community garden makes good sense for a church, and I'll be leading us off with a series of three posts looking at what I’m calling the “spiritual theology of gardening.” You can see yesterday's post here. In today’s post, I want to explore how a community garden can grow us spiritually as individuals and as a community.

The Seed is the Word of God

I’ve mentioned a fair bit recently in various settings that I believe the Christian faith today is in danger of lapsing toward one of the first heresies it combated: Gnosticism. Gnosticism separates the physical from the spiritual and places priority on the spiritual, so that the physical (our hunger, sexual desire, exercise, etc.) is either (a) Evil and to be avoided and/or suppressed, or it is (b) Inconsequential, so do with it what you will (licentiousness, drunkenness, debauchery, etc.). Gnosticism wants to move everything out of the physical realm and into the "spiritual" or, intellectual realm. As I’ve said on many occasions now, we are especially tempted by Gnosticism after this pandemic, to privatize our spirituality and think that listening to a sermon podcast on our Wednesday jog is the same thing as church. It moves spirituality largely into our heads and away from the bodies and body of fellow believers. But I actually think that this temptation to Gnosticism has existed for a while in the Western church.

The theologian Norman Wirzba writes that our technological and information age has “reduced our ability to truly know the world… The medium that increased our access to knowledge… at the same time decreases our grasp of the world’s significance… the irony [is] that today we have more information about how the natural world functions than ever before, yet also are guilty of its most widespread destruction. Should not the effect of our knowing lead to understanding, appreciation, affection, and care?” [1]

When we think of monastic living, we sometimes are under the impression that all monks and nuns do is sit around in seclusion praying, singing, and studying the Bible. But that is a grave misunderstanding of their vocation. For almost two millennia monks and nuns have farmed, brewed beer, made wine, run orphanages and soup kitchens not as an appendage to their important work of praying, singing and reading the Bible but, I would argue, as part of an integrated and holistic spirituality that is not limited to the intellectual or so-called spiritual realm only, but to all of God’s creation. Especially the spirituality of the physical. Gnosticism seeks to separate our prayer from our work and from creation itself, and there is a reason the church roundly condemned this as anti-Christian. As Leah Kostamo puts it “the incarnation shows God’s commitment to creation—the Creator becomes the created in the ultimate act of solidarity.”[2]

Christian spirituality is never removed from work and creation, even if it might have moments it detaches from it, it is inherently tied to “the dust of the earth.”

We often look at the book of Genesis and God’s command there to humanity to till the land, work the soil and we extend that command out to all forms of work, and it certainly isn’t inaccurate to broaden the language by making it more metaphorical. The schoolteacher, for example, tills the land and works the soil of young minds so that they will flourish. But for the first hearers of scripture, those commands to till the land and work the soil were probably understood literally more often than not because a good most of them… were farmers who actually spent their days tilling the land and working the soil.
 
Ellen Davis, who I quoted twice yesterday, I’ll quote now a third time:

I doubt we consider eating to be a genuinely religious activity… [but] the vast majority of cultures and individuals who have preceded us on the planet, up until the last three generations perhaps, have been intensely aware that getting food from field to table is the most important religious act we perform. Every day, taking our sustenance from the earth and from the bodies of other animals, we enter deeply into the mystery of creation. Eating is practical theology, or it should be; daily it gives us the opportunity to honor God with our bodies. Our never-failing hunger is a steady reminder to acknowledge God as the Giver of every good gift. When we ask our heavenly Father for an egg, we do not get a scorpion (Luke 11:12).[3]

Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, gave his disciples a meal. He did it as part of a meal that was over a thousand years old already (Passover). God is known, and our fellow bearers of God’s image are known by sitting at a table, taking the bread, taking the cup, eating, drinking as an act of memory, of faith, of hope, of love. A community garden and the food God produces in it and through it can grow us spiritually as individuals and as a community as we work the land, till the soil and marvel at the mystery by which God brings forth sustaining and nourishing life. But like all Christian spirituality, this is never for our own edification, at least not exclusively. It is so that we can go out and labor for the Kingdom of God in the world, which starts with our own community. And that will be the subject of the third and final post in this series.

Don't forget to come to our Community Garden informational meeting after worship on Sunday 7/11!

[1] Ibid, 9
[2] Leah Kostamo, Planted: A Story of Creation, Calling, and Community (Cascade Books, Eugene, OR: 2013), 23.
[3] Ellen Davis, Preaching the Luminous Word (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI: 2016), 2.

In a series of blog posts, several of us will be exploring the question of why a community garden makes good sense for a church, and I'll be leading us off with a series of three posts. For many of us, the reasons for a community garden are self-evident. But whether or not we need persuasion, I think we’ll find the reasons are even more extensive than we may have realized. I’ll leave the expertise about gardening to more capable minds than mine, but in this three-part series, I’ll be looking at what I’m calling the “spiritual theology of gardening.” In today’s post, I want to explore how a community garden can deepen our understanding and love of scripture.

The Land Cries Out

Ellen Davis has been one of the most helpful guides I’ve found in interpreting the Old Testament for a myriad of reasons, but one of the primary ones is her emphasis on an agrarian reading of scripture. Anyone who has read more than a few pages of the Bible can readily see the agrarian perspective of its writers: agricultural imagery and symbolism abound in scripture, whether that be unruly and obedient vineyards or vineyardists, or mustard-seed faith and parables about soil. I often assumed this was merely incidental. That is to say, it was simply because the biblical writers were using images that would have been familiar to their audience in the same way we might use illustrations about computers or cars, and of course that is true, but Davis has pushed me to go a little further in my thinking.

She describes a moment many years ago when she was meeting with her teaching assistant to prepare the final exam for an Old Testament course she was teaching. The assistant asked her if she was going to include a question about the land.

Why?, asked Davis.
Because you talk about it all the time, her assistant answered.
Hmm.

She writes of her own journey to discovery:

Reading the Bible is my line of work, yet for years I hardly noticed all this detailed attention to [the land and to] food supply… And once I did notice, I still had no idea what to make of it—and the scholarly literature was of no real help. I now realize that this general cluelessness about food sources among modern professional readers of the Bible points to a deep and worrisome difference between a modern cultural mindset and the culture that all the biblical writers represent. The difference comes down to this: for them, eating and agriculture have to do with God, and for us they do not… We might bless the food on our plates, but rarely does that provoke any serious thought about the mystery that underlies it. For the biblical writers, however, God’s provision of food is a key mystery and a core theological concern; eating is at the heart of our relationship with God and all that God has made.[1]

I hope in our current Mark sermon series we’ve done an adequate job of highlighting the fact that God and humanity are not the only characters in the gospel. Jesus enters into territory occupied by “powers and principalities” who are not neutral but are in fact demonic forces actively opposed to the ways of God. In the Old Testament, I’m not sure it would be a stretch to say that for the biblical writers, the land is nearly viewed as a character (as a starting point, see Genesis 4:10, 12; Jeremiah 4:28, 12:4, 23:10 and Hosea 4:3). Davis again:

Rarely does one read through two or three successive chapters [of the Old Testament] without seeing some reference to the land or to Zion, the city that is ideologically speaking the source of its fertility. Beginning with the first chapter of Genesis, there is no extensive exploration of the relationship between God and humanity that does not factor the land and its fertility into that relationship. Overall, from a biblical perspective, the sustained fertility and habitability of the earth, or more particularly of the land of Israel, is the best index of the health of the covenant relationship. When humanity, or the people Israel, is disobedient, thorns and briars abound; rain is withheld, the land languishes and mourns. Conversely, the most extravagant poetic images of loveliness—in the Prophets, the Psalms, and the Song of Songs—all show a land lush with growth, together with a people living in (or restored to) righteousness and full intimacy with God.”[2]

Biblical wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job) is often conceptualized of as little tidbits of advice or perhaps little commands. But it’s probably more accurate to see them as ways of instruction about how to live rightly in God’s creation, cultivated by sages who have learned hard lessons firsthand. Wisdom literature stems from a belief that God has created and ordered the world in a certain way, and when living with the grain of God’s creation (which is what wisdom literature tries to teach us to do), we experience life (life abundant, life to the full), and when going against the grain of creation in wickedness or selfishness, we experience death or deadness. But again, this extends beyond mere morality for the biblical writers (e.g., I have a clear conscience and more healthy relationships, so I feel better). It also relates to the land and whether the land is flourishing and, of course, the people living in that land.

 Wendell Berry put it this way:

“the Bible is not a book only about ‘spirituality’ or getting to Heaven, but is also a practical book about the good use of land and creatures as a religious practice, and about the abuse of land and creatures as a kind of blasphemy.”[3]

(Of course, “spirituality” and good use of the land are not separate practices, which is partly Berry’s point.)

Anyone who has spent even a little time tending to a garden will know that caring for creation comes with a deep sense of satisfaction. I believe that is because in those moments we are going with the grain of how God created the world, and in fact one of the first vocations given to the first humans way back in Genesis 2. But this is to get ahead of myself, for that is to look at how a community garden can grow us spiritually as individuals and as a community. And that will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.

Don’t forget to come to our Community Garden informational meeting after worship on Sunday 7/11!

[1] Ellen F. Davis, Preaching the Luminous Word (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI: 2016), 1-2.
[2] Ellen F. Davis, Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY: 2009), 8
[3] Ibid, x.

The Coffee Oasis asked a number of local pastors to write a meditation for Holy Week on different verses from Isaiah 53, specifically the ways Jesus joins the suffering of our homeless population. You can find all of those entries here. I was asked to write a meditation on verses 4-5 and am including it here.

We considered him punished by God.

Wounds beg for words of explanation
A story that justifies the suffering I see
on this tortured and weary face
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents
That he was born blind?”
If he’s a sinner I can ignore his wounds
they are his punishment, after all.
So I will conjure a story for him
a tale of his laziness
of his selfishness
of his having wasted plenty of opportunities
so that
if I have compassion,
it is because I am saintly, but
if I ignore
it is because he is a sinner
bearing the consequences of his waywardness
struck down by God.
Punished.
Afflicted.

My own wounds beg for words of explanation
a story that justifies my suffering
as they fester into resentment
infecting my soul with a self-righteous sense
of victimhood;
as if they were caused only by others
these wounds I keep reopening
O! I am afflicted!
O! I am stricken!
Or sometimes
they fester into shame;
I am being punished by God
because I am hated by God
despised and rejected by God
unloved.

The wounds of a crucified man
beg for words of explanation
hanging naked for all to see and scorn
in shameful scandal
open wounds festering,
we considered him punished by God.
“Who sinned that this man hangs there like that?”
No,
this man didn’t sin.
This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.
Wounds beg for words of explanation
No story can justify the suffering of this crucified man
but his story
is of a suffering that justifies
this tortured and weary face
suffering with all who have been
naked and homeless for all to see
despised and scorned
suffering for those who would be rejected by God
the punishment that brought us peace was on him
by his wounds we are healed
by his wounds we are loved.

Loving God, forgive me for the ways I try to make sense of the suffering I see in the faces of those experiencing homelessness by reckoning (even if only silently to myself in the dark places of my heart) that they are “reaping what they’ve sown,” scorning them as being in some way “punished.” I shudder to consider what assessment I might have made of you hanging on the cross if I were some first-century sojourner in Jerusalem, unaware of this Jesus of Nazareth. Thank you for loving me in spite of all that is despicable and detestable within me. Thank you for your healing wounds.

The key for getting folks to click on your blog post seems to be finding a sensational, evocative, or controversial-sounding title. I suspect “In Praise of Presbyterian Polity” checks precisely none of those boxes. But this post is, a little bit, about avoiding sensationalizing, so maybe it fits.

As a millennial pastor in a declining mainline denomination, I have often found myself apologizing for our polity everywhere I go. It’s so slooooow. Everything has to go to a committee, even changing a light bulb it seems, ha ha ha.

Even the professor who taught my Presbyterian polity class in seminary seemed to take this posture: he decided to spend half the course on leadership theory in attempts to be “more relevant,” even though the class was called Presbyterian Polity. I remember next to nothing from his lectures on leadership theory, but I’ve run into a whole lot of things in day-to-day ministry addressed in the Book of Order that I sure wish in hindsight he’d spent a little more time explaining to us.

On a recent walk with Brittany she had actually asked me a question about Presbyterian polity (not a regular topic of conversation in our marriage, I assure you), and as I described to her words that seemed to belong to other centuries: synod, diaconate, I found myself marveling at how almost comically out of place they all seemed. I sometimes feel like I’m spitting up on friends who are my age when I tell them I’m a P r esby t e rian, as if I’ve just stained their trendy H&M shirt with some ancient and unwanted-forgotten-for-a-reason word vomit. In an age ruled by immediately Googled answers and on demand Pinterest recipes and YouTube how-to videos for a quick troubleshoot to any problem, the Presbyterian insistence on process does feel increasingly out of place. I confess I’ve lifted an envious eye more than once to trendy megachurches that move with great expediency because they just go do stuff, rather than sending it all through a process.

As our conversation continued and I listed more archaic words, I found myself reflecting aloud to Brittany, “I’m not sure Presbyterian polity is going to be able to last in this century.” Then I was surprised by the next words that came out of my mouth: “but I think we might need it to.”

I feel that even more acutely after watching the chaos of this election cycle… and the past week’s events.

Don’t misunderstand me here. First of all, I have plenty that I dislike about Presbyterian polity. I live in it, and I run up against its shortcomings all the time. It’s a far cry from perfect. My three-year ordination process, for example, usually felt like it fit better with the structure of higher-ed from the 1960s, but not the new millennium, and that it was more about setting up red tape and hoops for me to jump through and making sure I had to do everything older pastors had had to do, than it was about equipping or evaluating me for ministry (or preparing the church for having me in ministry). Secondly, I’m not saying Presbyterian polity will save the world (now there’s a catchier blog title). But. Maybe we need it more than we think.

Some years ago, David Brooks wrote a column about our increasing impatience with process in American political life. We want to get our way, we want to fully get our way, and we want to get our way right now. As such, we elect and idealize leaders who promise not to back down or take no for an answer, thinking we can shortcut the process. And… surprise surprise! We find gridlock when the other party is doing the exact same thing in their own caucuses and ballots, resulting in an inability to collaborate or compromise, to do the true nature of politics: work together for the common good. On the church side of things we follow pastors like celebrities, deifying and idealizing the ones whose star catapults them overnight as their church swells rapidly in attendance under the force of their captivating vision and charismatic persona. Presbyterianism is remarkably unsexy compared with that.

And yet, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to eschew the slowness that process demands for the quick results personality offers to us. Maybe something that impresses upon us slowing down and deliberating with others over even some of the smaller decisions is needed more than ever in our fast-paced, immediate answer world.

We live in an age that where it is easier than ever to make our opinion known to the masses, and that tempts us into thinking we should then always make it known, our individuality of prime importance. As CKPC’s founding pastor John Haberlin is quick to point out: the ruling body of our church is called the Session because it only has its full given authority when it is in Session. Together. Individual elders in our church may have recognized authority within our congregation through their influence or natural leadership, but their full constitutional authority comes only when they are all together. Discussing, dialoguing, listening, praying, voting. No single personality gets to steer it if everyone understands their role properly (though many personalities have of course tried to in the history of Presbyterian churches).

Oftentimes you’ll hear people say: “I want to steer clear of church politics.” And I one-hundred percent understand what they mean and agree. They’re saying, I think: “I want to stay away from drama and gossip and posturing.” We all do, pastors get pulled into that kind of thing all the time, and it’s soul-sucking. But as I spent some of this morning on the phone with Peggy Iversen, our nominating committee elder and chair, I found myself even a little excited by church politics, in a different sense of the word. As we talked about all the work she has set before her (thanks Peggy!), I realized: this is going to take a while. Why? Because our polity is one that is designed to involve a lot of people. It reflects our tradition’s theological commitment to the “priesthood of all believers,” that the people called to do the ministry of the church aren’t just the ones in the pulpits, but the whole church, praying and working together to discern where God is calling us to go. That’s a church politics I want to be involved in.

Our polity is not gospel. It’s time-tested, but it’s not Holy Scripture. It needs more than a few tweaks and reforms (and is actually designed for that). My dad used to say he was a Christian with a capital “C,” and a presbyterian with a lower case “p.” Our polity not perfect, but maybe some of the things about it that cause us to recoil should lead us to reflect just as much on our own shortcomings (like impatience with process) and the problems of our cultural moment as much as we reflect on what we’d change about the Book of Order.  

Maybe our polity can’t survive in this brave (and fearful) new (and chaotic) world, but maybe we need it to.

I recently watched someone post a prompt on social media that was designed to be a collaborative space for church leaders to share ideas about how they were going to respond to the latest restrictions in our state. This thread rapidly devolved into a den of vipers devouring one another, pointing fingers, calling names.

“These leaders are letting fear, not faith, control them.”
 
“Those leaders don’t love their neighbors or the vulnerable and only care about their own rights or sense of normalcy.”

You’ve all seen the reductionistic arguments a million times by now. Even if you haven’t seen that particular thread I’m referring to, you’ve more or less still seen that thread somewhere else.

I’ll be honest, I got a little depressed. These are Christian leaders?

Like so many of us, these past eight months have shaken my faith… not in God, but in the American Church. Problems I knew existed—but naïvely thought were more peripheral—have been brought to the surface; open wounds oozing a witness to the world that looks so little like Jesus’ healing touch. We’ve seen it in Christians’ response to the pandemic. We’ve seen it throughout the General Election. The venom. The vitriol. And I don’t make any claim whatsoever to have any ability to rise above it; I have convictions and concerns too, after all. I’ve been shocked to see thoughtful Christians I respect defending behavior and viewpoints that seem so diametrically opposed to the gospel that I’ve wondered what Bible they were even reading.

But enough of all that. The problems are well-known to us. We’re living them, after all. Instead, I want to provide an encouragement in two simple points.

1) I thank God for Matthew 13:24-30. The parable of the weeds (or the “tares” if you prefer). There’s a beautiful harvest planted by a Good Farmer. But an enemy sneaks in and plants a bunch of weeds in the field overnight. What should be done? Find the weeds, surely, and rip them up. “‘No,” says the Good Farmer. “If you gather the weeds, you’ll pull up the wheat along with them. Let both grow side by side until the harvest.”

Let both grow side by side.

This parable offers me the freedom of humility on two fronts. First, it reminds me that it’s not my job to pull up the weeds. “But they’re choking out the good crops! They’re damaging the witness of the church at a time it’s desperately needed!” No. Go ahead and let both grow side by side. But this parable brings me humility’s freedom in another way: every single Christian in my life who I might be tempted to label as a “weed” is, without exception, absolutely convinced (so far as I can tell) that they are the faithful followers of Jesus.

And that means I might be a weed, too. And so might you. Yes, you. I don’t say that to terrify us or shake our assurance of salvation, that we might be ourselves the ones who are weeds to be gathered “in bundles to be burned.” I don’t think that’s the point of the parable. Rather, I say it, once again, to lead us to the freedom of humble prayer and worship. Only by God’s grace might I be a good crop bearing good fruit, and I throw myself on that grace every moment of every day; in my decisions, in my considering complex questions, in my desire to be a witness to Jesus at a time it’s desperately needed.

2) Jesus among the crowds. I’ll be honest, I’ve craved quiet lately. It’s a strange thing to crave, I admit, amidst so much isolation from one another. But I don’t so much crave auditory quiet, but rather quiet from the din of everyone’s opinions flying everywhere on every single matter. But I’ve been nudged the past few days not to seek God in the quiet, but to ask where God is in the noise. And here’s where I’ve seen God in the noise: Jesus amidst crowds. So many crowds. Those crowds were undoubtedly filled with people who had skewed perceptions of him and his mission. People who were getting the gospel all wrong. People who were following him for all the wrong reasons. People who were trying to fit him into their box, or prop him up into their agenda. Some were even there to try to trap him or defy him. And yet Jesus commands the attention of every single one of them. Misguided or not, they can’t help but keep their eyes fixed on him, they can’t help but follow him. And it’s in that space where Jesus begins the work of transformation for each and every one of them.

In the sometimes disheartening and depressing noise of Christians and Christian leaders shouting louder and louder, this much remains true: they can’t keep their eyes off of Jesus. A distorted image of Jesus? Yes. Sometimes even utterly grotesque. But surely Jesus can break through even that. I hope so. Because I know sometimes my selfishness leads me to concoct a distorted image of Jesus that serves my interests a little too well. And yet he still breaks through all of that.

Sometimes Jesus avoids the crowds, sometimes he escapes them or dismisses them, but oftentimes, he shows up in and amidst them. Jesus spent a lot of time in crowds. In the noise and the clamor and the chaos. And he leads them, and he teaches them and feeds them, and he heals them and transforms them. This is the Lord of the still, small voice. But it’s also the Lord of the crowds, of the noise, the Lord of the wheat and the Lord of the weeds.

I was recently inspired to write a poem for each day of creation–(which are written as poems themselves). I will be posting a new entry each day. Today: Genesis 2:1-4.

The Seventh Day

The ancient rabbis saw
that it was the seventh day
in which creation was completed.
Not a bonus day, not a day of recuperation
in order to make the Six Days' work
possible or more efficient.
No.
The telos of Creation, towards which
the six days are always moving.
                     
Tasks and to-do lists lie
in their places untouched
Statuses and identities of the
workday world are unimportant
and forgotten;
all are at rest in the "palace in time,"
impregnable walls fortified against
the onslaught and tyranny of things
the six-day conquest of space.
         
Turbines and trucks and tractors
power down
Blue glow of unread emails and Reddit's rabbit trails
and Instagram's filtered reality and Facebook's fury
now a dull black.
                    
The sudden Interruption of noise
gives rise to what first appears
as eerie silence but is not silence.
The sounds of the Seventh Day
now no longer unnoticed:
conversation unhurried
laughter unfettered
suppers savored and unrushed
Doves cooing in aspens rattling
their leaves in gentle wind
Spirit songs and people's prayers
Stop.
Cease.
Sabbath.
The Seventh Day.

[1] "Pilgrim bound by staff and faith, rest thy bones", from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54922 [retrieved July 5, 2020]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wooden_pilgrim_-_geograph.org.uk_-_778390.jpg

I was recently inspired to write a poem for each day of creation–(which are written as poems themselves). I will be posting a new entry each day. Today: Genesis 1:24-31.

The Sixth Day

Like rereading a kind text or note from
a loved one sent hours or minutes before
their unexpected passing or
gazing at the photograph of a joyful moment
together with friends taken the day before
the world turned on its head: Sept 10, '01
or December 6, '41 or New Year's on the eve
of 2020, smiling faces unaware of ominous
thunderclouds fast approaching on the horizon,
so is reading the account of the Sixth Day:
a happy memory turned melancholy
by future tragedy, a reminder of what was
and what could have been.
                             
The Imago Dei,
the Crown of Creation
moved by Pride
soon forgot in whose image they were made
soon forgot they were created
soon forgot their fellow humans were also
made in their Creator's image
soon forgot the earth was given to them to be
received with thanks, not taken by force;
soon forsook their calling to steward
choosing instead to plunder, the only
creatures capable of not being what they were
created to be.
                        
The Imago Dei; desecrated but not destroyed
defaced but not effaced, in need of redemption
but not irredeemable
Redeemed by One Uncreated who alone was now capable
of being what these creatures were created to be,
who was taken by force, plundered, crucified
forgotten and forsaken
moved by Love,
the Crown of Thorns on
the Imago Dei.
                   
The Sixth Day a reminder of what was and
what could have been and
a glimpse of what one day will fully be
glimpsed now in the face of my friend who
devotes his life to those with
mental illnesses forgotten by others,
glimpsed now in the hands of the vet
caring for the injured roadside deer,
glimpsed now in the feet of the farmer
walking her field once more in unending
cycle of love and labor, her patch of planet
received to steward, to grow, to give:
the Imago Dei
the Sixth Day.

[1] Raimondi, Marcantonio, ca. 1480-ca. 1534. Adam and Eve, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=50226 [retrieved July 4, 2020]. Original source: http://www.mfa.org/.