We are blessed to hear such well-crafted and well-executed sermons each week. I was both challenged and inspired by Dr. Brown’s sermon this past Sunday, The Road to Jerusalem. He talked about the road we all must travel with Jesus during Lent. It’s not a trouble-free road but one we must walk if we are to grow spiritually.

Just as Jesus’ own journey to Jerusalem wasn’t an easy one, we too will face challenges and bumps along our own Lenten roads. This often happens as the Spirit woos us to embrace our weaknesses. As scary as this sounds, we are not to despair. This forty-day pilgrimage of self-discovery provides us with the time and space to become more vulnerable with, and thus closer to, an ever-loving and all-embracing God.

Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind. For the Lord satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things. ~ Psalm 107:8-9 (NRSV)

Welcome to the madness of another “Black Friday!” Perhaps your daily caloric intake went “off the charts” yesterday? Are your intentions now to burn off some of those calories by rushing to take advantage of unbeatable prices?

While today is not an official holiday, countless shoppers will nevertheless take to the streets to consume and spend their hard-earned money. Stampedes of bargain hunters will be drawn to the stores with those BIG, bright signs that read: “SALE! SALE! SALE!” Perhaps you will be one among the many hordes of customers?

It’s hard to believe we have already entered another holiday season. This year, my mind isn’t engrossed with shopping ideas as in year’s past. No. My thoughts have been fixed on a totally different concern: a group of people who aren’t thinking about shopping ideas either. In fact, they could care less about discounts of any kind. The people I’m thinking of are the myriad men, women and children who are crossing their fingers, hoping for a miracle as their stomachs twinge for food.

These same people are not satisfied and need our help!

As most of you know, Elvis Presley is considered one of the greatest icons of the 20th Century. He is often referred as “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” or just “The King.” Many still enjoy his music and movies. In spite of his enormous success, Elvis was, according to friends and family, an unfulfilled and unhappy man. He died of obesity and drug dependency at the age of 42.

In an interview with his wife, Priscilla, she said the following about her husband:

Elvis never came to terms with who he was meant to be or what his purpose in life was. He thought he was here for a reason, maybe to preach, maybe to serve, maybe to save, maybe to care for people. That agonizing desire was always with him and he knew he wasn’t fulfilling it. So he’d go on stage and he wouldn’t have to think about it. He just couldn’t quite figure it out.

Such a devastating commentary on an unfulfilled life!

I recently read an article about an Omaha church that paid people to come to worship. Covenant Presbyterian Church of west Omaha paid eight people to participate in a Sunday worship gathering. After worship, these same people were asked to complete a survey about their experience.

This Midwestern church, affiliated with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and led by Pastor Jeremy Grant, ran a small ad in the Omaha World-Herald back in the spring of this year. More than 30 people responded. According to the Associated Press on JournalStar.com, one of the volunteers was a retired woman who reported that she needed the extra $25.

In his book, In the Eye of the Storm, best-selling author and pastor Max Lucado talks about traveling from one speaking engagement to another. He had traveled from San Antonio to Boston and had spoken at a gathering in Boston. Then he was scheduled to fly to Edmonton, Canada in order to fulfill another speaking engagement.

When his plane landed in Minneapolis and he had to change airplanes, he was thinking about how tired and hungry he was, and how crowded the airplane had been, and how his back was aching. His mind was throbbing. Try as he might, he couldn’t even remember who was supposed to meet him at his destination in Canada.

As he was heading to the gate to catch his next airplane he saw a McDonald’s in the distance and thought, “That looks good. Maybe I’ll run over there and buy a hamburger and that will at least satisfy my hunger pains.”

Then he writes, “I passed something better. I passed a telephone and decided to call home. I called and my wife answered the phone. I’m convinced that when my wife gets to heaven she’s going to be at the reception desk welcoming everyone in because when she answers the phone it makes you feel so good.”

On Thursday, September 10, 2009, Dr. Michael Brown and I attended a lecture on health care reform at Central Synagogue. The lecture, “Navigating Through the Scylla & Charybdis of National Health Care Reform,” was made available for religious leaders through Partnership of Faith in New York City. With remarkable perspicuity, The Rev. Dr. Walter J. Smith, President & CEO of HealthCare Chaplaincy, presented the many challenges as well as the ethical and moral imperatives of the current debate on health care reform.

The wonderfully apt image—drawn from Homer’s Odyssey—“between Scylla and Charybdis” (or “between a rock and a hard place”) has come to mean “being in a state where one is between two dangers and moving away from one will cause you to be in danger from the other.” Regarding health care reform, Dr. Smith says: “Scylla: what some of us currently have (and many don’t) and increasingly can’t afford; Charybdis: how we are proposing to change it and pay for it.” This is obviously a very complicated and sensitive debate.

"Death leaves a scar no one can heal;
Love leaves a memory no one can steal."
–adapted from a headstone in Ireland

It seems like yesterday we heard those unbelievable reports that two planes had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It all happened eight short years ago. Roughly 3,000 people lost their lives as a result of the plot masterminded by Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization. It was a tragic day for all of us.

Here at Marble Church, we believe the anniversary of September 11, 2001 should be a time to remember, reflect, reconsider, and pray. Beginning at 8:45 am, a 30-minute service commemorating this day will be offered. Together we will sing, pray and be led in a brief meditation. The sanctuary will remain open for individual prayer until 2 pm.

As some of you know, our historic Marble Church belongs to a Christian denomination known as the Reformed Church in America (RCA). Each year our denomination holds an important gathering known as General Synod (from the Latin synodus, meaning “a meeting”). The assembly of minister and elder delegates meets to discuss and vote on church related matters. This past June, General Synod met on the campus of Hope College in Holland, Michigan. During that meeting a momentous step was made.

With a 72 percent majority, the assembly voted to adopt the Belhar Confession as a fourth statement of what members of the RCA believe to be true about our faith. Belhar would stand alongside the historic Reformed confessions: the Belgic (1561) and Heidelberg (1563) Confessions as well as the Canons of the Synod of Dort (1618-1619). These three documents, according to author A. James Heynen, are the “tracts which fueled the fires of the Protestant Reformation…our first lessons in the school of Reformed faith.” In addition, these confessions have “shaped our teaching, defined our preaching, and tempered our character for better than four hundred years.” 

You may be asking yourself, “What does it mean that we have confessions?” The church values its historical and theological underpinnings. Confessions help the church articulate what it believes—concerning the sovereignty of God, Scripture, God’s will and many other important beliefs. Confessions also reflect that the community always knows more than the individual. They declare and give evidence of God, of believers, and of the church. In some faith communities, confessions are read every Sunday during worship.

So what about this Belhar Confession? Why is it important?

“A human being’s highest achievement is to let God be able to help him/her.”
- Søren Kierkegaard, 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian

I was deeply saddened to read in the news that Freddie Mac’s CFO, David Kellermann, allegedly committed suicide. Such news is always troubling and difficult to accept. Kellermann reportedly told company officials the day before he was found dead that he was working long hours and feeling stressed and needed a break. Clearly, he became overwhelmed with stress due to the many financial challenges he was trying to resolve within this failing government sponsored enterprise. This story is truly heartbreaking.

There is no doubt that we are all a little more anxious these days, especially as the United States continues to suffer from its own financial meltdown. We are learning every day that the unemployment rate continues to rise and that the nation’s housing crisis isn’t showing any signs of rebound. Some successful investors—such as Warren Buffet and Donald Trump—are telling reporters that this recession will get worse before it will get better, suggesting that it may take two years before we really see any “glimmers of hope.”

In addition, Matthew Bandyk of U.S. News recently reported that the countries of Iceland, Mexico, Pakistan, Ukraine, Venezuela and Argentina are currently facing severe economic disruption that endangers their standards of living, attractiveness to foreign investors, and political stability. Bandyk’s list included several other countries that are at also risk.  The current crisis is unquestionably global in scope.

Shouldn’t we still be really concerned about the future? You bet but we need not despair.

We began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday, February 25th. Many of us had our foreheads signed with ashes as we all contemplated the fact that we are mortal and will eventually return to the earth when we die.  Over the past several weeks, we have been encouraged to bare our souls to God, in all our brokenness and failure, through prayer and meditation. When we began this journey we were standing in the middle of winter. Now there are signs of spring all around us, indicating that change is inevitable.

On Palm Sunday (or Passion Sunday), we enter a very sacred time of the year known as Holy Week. The Eastern Church calls it “the Week of Salvation.” On Palm Sunday, April 5th, Dr. Michael Brown will continue his series on the “Seven Last Words” with Part VI: “A Statement of Trust,” preaching at both the 9:15 & 11:15 am services. Prayer Circle will begin at 8:30 AM in Poling Chapel and the Bible & Breakfast class with Sister Carol Perry begins at 11:00 am. You will be blessed should you choose to participate in any or all of these offerings. What better way to begin this consecrated time of the year!