BMPC Pastor's Column

I have a special memory of working with one of our congregation’s Associate Pastor Nominating Committees. We had met almost weekly for nearly a year soliciting input for the position description, networking, reading seemingly countless applications, holding initial phone conversations, small group Zoom interviews, and full committee interviews to discern God’s leading us to the right candidate. Toward the end of that search that was leading us to our final candidate, one member of the APNC said, “There was a moment in which it seemed like the Holy Spirit just entered the room.”

That’s what every search committee prays for, hopes for, and anticipates – a moment of palpable clarity. A moment in which it seems like the choice is a God thing and not just human intuition, the melding of the mind and heart, the discernment of a call. For this reason, I am fond of reminding committees early in the process that, by their work together, they will become greater than the sum of their parts. In community with one another we open our circle of discernment to make room for the Spirit.

The Congregational Meeting to call our new Associate Pastor for Congregational Care this coming Sunday following the 10 am worship service is the joyful celebration of the Spirit’s work on our midst. The APNC that has been meeting together this last year to find the best candidate for BMPC represented the diversity of our congregation and the constituent ministries. Sometimes we did not fully agree on some aspect of the search process or the fit of a particular candidate. However, when we began to engage our finalist in conversation there was a clear and palpable unanimity of discernment.

At the candidate’s request, we are not posting her name in this column, which appears on our website, to help prevent word getting to her current church before Sunday, when her call is confirmed by us and she can freely share the news of her departure there.

However, by now you should have received the brochure in the mail which fills out the details of her sense of call to ministry, her love for God and the church, and her excitement about joining the pastoral staff at BMPC. Not only does she bring the level of experience and gifts for which we had been looking, but she carries a winsome presence that attracts others into easy conversation about life and faith.

The candidate had planned to be here in person for worship and the Congregational meeting, but unfortunately while on vacation this week she sprained her ankle which prevents her ability to travel to Bryn Mawr. Our Presbyterian polity does not require her to be present when we vote to call her, but I encourage you to read the mailing in anticipation of the meeting so that you can join the APNC and pastoral staff in our excitement that the Spirit has indeed entered the room.

The candidate will announce her departure from her current congregation on July 14, after BMPC acts to call her, so please hold any details in confidence until then.

While several folks extended their stay in France, most of us who joined the BMPC Choir Tour to France returned Tuesday evening, tired perhaps from travel but also exhilarated by the experience. There are stories to tell, pictures to share, videos of the choir singing in stunningly beautiful and historic cathedrals, from Aix-en-Provence to Paris, with stops in between for sightseeing, community building, and, of course, amazing meals. Larry and I were privileged to be among the guests who got to tag along with the choir and support them with our presence during their five concerts.

Among the memories, one of the most special was the first concert at Basilique-Sainte-Marie-Madeliene in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, about a 30-minute bus ride from Aix-en-Provence. The small village boasts a memory of Mary Magdalene crossing the Mediterranean on a boat with neither sail nor rudder and miraculously landing there, where she spent the rest of her life living and worshipping in a nearby grotto. The Basilica, dating back to the early 12^th century, treasures relics of her body in a lovely chapel there, a destination for the pious who adore Mary Magdalene as the Mother of Mercy and for her taking the Christian faith to Provence in the south of France.

The joy for us in that special place was having dinner with members of the Ukrainian community who had gathered in that region to escape the war, mostly young families with children, and to have their choir join ours for three special choral pieces sung together in their native language. During dinner, some of us heard their stories of how they had to flee their homeland after the Russian invasion, their fears that they may never return, the challenges of raising children in another country, and their hopes that someday peace will come.

It was especially poignant to have that experience at the beginning of a week that included reports of political violence at home, as well as increased devastation in Gaza, Israel, Iran, and Ukraine, a week that ended with the United States dropping massive bombs on Iran. And yet, there we were together in a full church listening to music offered in multiple languages to the glory of God. The concert was a fundraiser to purchase the ambulance you see in the picture for the front lines in Ukraine, providing emergency dental surgeries and care. Needless to say, we gave generously toward this crucial mission toward wellbeing and peace.

Presbyterian pastor and author Eugene Peterson suggested that song is the result of excess energy. He noted, “When we are normal, we talk. When we are dying, we whisper. But when there is more in us than we can contain, we sing.” In a world at war and mounting despair, that special evening of the BMPC choir tour was a beautiful demonstration of uncontainable hope, faith, and joy in being part of God’s beloved community.

The Wednesday before camp begins marks the start of a precarious countdown. It’s the moment we start moving our carefully laid out supplies and begin setting up shop in the Ministries Center.  This Wednesday, we were facing a bit of a conundrum. Looking at the radar, there was a large swath of green heading for us.  In the education building, there were boxes and baskets packed with supplies, giant tissue paper flowers, and a team of volunteers with the singular question, “Can we beat the rain?”

“Of course we can.” Everyone moved into action: boxes that were larger than the volunteers, carts packed a bit beyond their capacity, carefully prepared props, and a pile of tarps all started to make their way across campus. Even when the sky began to spritz, the team didn’t slow down.

On the one hand, Vacation Bible Camp is a week designed for our youngest members and friends to learn more about God and themselves. But camp is also an expression of the church.  It is a multigenerational affair with an 80-year age span. It is a leadership incubator with our youth stepping up to lead and to guide. Camp is an expression of gifts as adults share their expertise and their willingness to learn.  It is an expression of love shared in 1,000 different ways from the materials you collected that will become art projects, gardens, bird feeders, instruments, and more. Camp is love expressed in the time given to preparing materials, and in those who take a week of vacation to serve. Camp is the trust families extend by bringing their children to our care.

I have one last request!  Please keep VBC in your prayers next week:

• Pray for our 3-year-old campers as they experience camp for the first time.
• Pray for our Prek-3^rd-grade campers as they explore God’s Very Good Creation.
• Pray for our 4^th and 5^th graders (and their leaders!!) as they head out into the community to serve.
• Pray for our youth volunteers as they step into leadership.
• Pray for our grown-ups as they pour themselves into a high-energy week.
• Pray that we stay cool, despite the heat.
• Pray for wonder and awe to shape our time together.
• Pray that every child has a sense of belonging.
• Pray for new friendships to grow.
• Pray that we don’t miss the incredible gift of growing in faith together.

Earlier this spring, I went on a mini-retreat with a group of high schoolers to start considering spirituality in college and beyond. I gave them three questions to wrestle with throughout the day, questions that I think are core to faith development in emerging adulthood.

Who are you?

Who are you in God?

Who are you in community?

It won’t surprise you to learn that their engagement with these questions was thoughtful, engaging, and enlightening, and I’ve been thinking since then that these aren’t just questions for young people going forth into the world. These are good questions for us all to wrestle with as things change in our own lives.

Diagnoses, job changes, deaths of loved ones, relocations, changes in our communities: these are all good times to ask again, “Who am I? Who am I in God? And who am I in community?”

The school year is coming to an end. Seniors are moving on to the next phase of their lives. Their lives are very much in flux, but so are ours. So, during this graduation season, I thought I’d reprise the prayer I offered in worship a few weeks ago, which is adapted from a prayer for leaving home in Call on Me: A Prayer Book for Young People by Jenifer Gamber and Sharon Ely Pearson. Let this be a prayer of blessing for seniors, and for us, as we all discern who we are in God and in community.

God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah, and Rachel, you call us to new and sometimes unknown places with the promise of a full life through your grace and mercy.

We pray today for those leaving home for a new place. Empower our bodies, minds, and spirits to receive this new journey, and give us a spirit of anticipation and delight.

Take away all the fear of the unknown, for whatever lies ahead, for you will be with us.

We pray that you sharpen our ears to hear your call. Clear our eyes to see your path. Strengthen our hands to do your service.

Protect us from the perils of this world. Grant us wisdom to make good choices. Fortify our faith to take risks to do your work.

As we leave this familiar place, help us continue to grow in love and service to you.

We make this prayer of many names, in the name of your son, Jesus, who was born, who grew up in a faith community, who left home. Amen.

I am always grateful when elders and deacons are getting ordained and installed (as recently happened at BMPC), and we all get to hear the vows they take. But there is one question that always brings me up short, because it was also a question for me when I got ordained as a pastor over four decades ago. “Will you in your own life seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, love your neighbors, and work for the reconciliation of the world?” Okay, on my personal to-do list: an oil change for the car – check; cleaning out the gutters on the house – check; and working for the reconciliation of the world – checkmate! It is a good thing to recognize that we, by ourselves, are lacking the capacity to carry out the expansive ministry to which God calls us.

And yet, in spite of all the problems with a model of ministry in which God partners with folks like you and me, and with congregations like ours, God seems to be committed to carrying out ministry within and through regular (and even irregular) disciples of Jesus Christ. I guess a spirit can’t actually be called hard-headed – maybe God is just deeply committed to such a model of ministry. Evidently, God wants to take things to the next level. We sense God’s loving presence now and then, but God desires for us to embody divine love. We have experienced heavenly grace, but God wants us to become a means of grace. We have been touched so often by God’s generosity that we ought to be able to trust in the God who will lead us into the future. This heavenly method, which utilizes human partners, appears to be part of the mission – transforming others while also transforming us in the process.

Such a theology sounds better as an abstract idea than it does in reality, particularly when a very gifted, dedicated, and effective senior pastor has announced her plans to retire at the end of October. I look forward to the opportunity to share gratitude for Agnes’ ministry. However, I do want BMPC folks to understand that, by God’s grace, this congregation, with great continuing lay and staff leadership, along with a broad and profoundly effective ministry currently in place, is very well-positioned for a coming transition. With what I have experienced with God, I am confident that BMPC will not only make it through the transition, but that God will work within and through this congregation during the transition in ways that lead to our spiritual growth.

For the changes that lay ahead, BMPC is going to need a generous dose of the Holy Spirit to empower and unify us as the body of Christ. We’re going to need boldness and commitment. We’re going to need God to help us focus less on our reservations and more on our prayers. If we might be so bold, we might suggest all of that as God’s to-do list. Somehow, I can imagine God going over such a to-do list – check, check, check, checkmate. That doesn’t mean we lose. Somehow, God’s win is our congregation’s win, even when it feels like we are getting closer to losing someone whom God has used so well in our midst. I am confident God will provide the faith and all the other gifts we need for the coming journey. God does better with a to-do list than we do.

This Sunday, we look forward to welcoming 19 young people into adult membership in the life of our congregation. They have worked over the past year in Confirmation class to gain a deeper understanding of the history and basic tenets of the Christian faith, as well as what it means to be an active part of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church.

It has been a great privilege for me to have spent this past year as their teacher. It gave me the opportunity to return to the Confirmation classroom, which had been a significant part of my ministry during my first call in South Bend, Indiana. It also allowed me to reclaim the joy in ministry that comes with teaching a young person the things that are most essential about not just who we are as disciples of Jesus Christ, but in particular, what it means to be a Presbyterian.

I always say, and I will remind us all of this again on Sunday, that my primary goal in any Confirmation class is NOT to teach adherence to a particular set of beliefs or to even test a student’s level of knowledge of the Bible or theology. The goal of Confirmation for me is teaching students how to ask and answer questions – to reflect on how the church has done that in the past, how we do it as BMPC, and how they will do it throughout their entire life of faith.

It was once a tradition that Confirmation students were taught through the use of a catechism – a predetermined set of questions and answers that were to be memorized to teach the essentials of the faith. The problem with this as the sole teaching tool is that it doesn’t always help us learn to ask the new questions that every person and church faces in a changing world, or to know how to find new answers.

We also spend time in Confirmation Class reflecting on another kind of question – the questions that are asked and answered when any of us makes a public profession of faith and commits ourselves to the life of the church. Helping these students be comfortable and confident in their answers has also been a focus of our year.

Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world? I do.

Who is your Lord and Savior? Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his word and showing his love? I will.

Will you devote yourself to the church’s teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers? I will.

We as a church will also be asked a question this Sunday about our continued commitment to these students, but I would hope that hearing the questions put before them and listening to their joyful answers will be an important moment for all of us.

At this moment, we won’t just help them reaffirm their Baptisms, but we will all ask ourselves these questions as well; we will reaffirm our own faith and our own commitment to the life of the church in the world.

Mostly, I hope that this Sunday we will all reaffirm our commitment to asking and answering new questions of ourselves and one another as we seek to be the Body of Christ together.

Every year during the season of Eastertide, the Common Lectionary appoints scripture readings which lift up the image of God as the Good Shepherd. On the fourth Sunday of Easter, in each year of the lectionary’s three-year cycle, Psalm 23 and a selection from John 10 are offered to the ecumenical community as appropriate readings for the day. Some churches call it Good Shepherd Sunday, the annual reminder of the powerful biblical image of God’s love and care to protect and guide all people.

Today, while the world’s eyes were fixed on the chimney rising above the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, awaiting the next plume of smoke to arise, we could already see in our mind’s eye a newly elected Pope walking down the aisle of St Peter’s Basilica carrying that familiar gilded shepherd’s crook. Even for urban people who rarely cross paths with a herd of sheep, the symbol is a powerful reminder of God as a strong and gentle guardian who encourages us to follow the example of Christ in love and service.

Peter Gomes, who was Professor of Christian Morals and Minister of the Memorial Church at Harvard, noted that the late 17th-century congregational churches in New England are never described as “founded.” Their signs will not say, Founded in 1690… or 1724… or 1802. Instead, they used this evocative nomenclature and said, Gathered in 1690. Gathered in 1724. Gathered in 1802. A church gets founded once with minutes reflecting the decision of a governing body and recording a finite list of the names of charter members. However, a church that is gathered marks its founding date but also carries a promise of the future. A gathered congregation describes a living community that will continue to grow while the Risen Christ blesses the church as a Good Shepherd, welcoming more diverse people into the unity of God’s fold.

This Sunday, the fold of BMPC will expand to welcome a large class of new members. Always a celebration of Christian hospitality, I am fond of saying that when we receive new members, God is making of our old congregation a new church. It’s true because of the unique gifts, commitments, and needs each new member brings. Our welcome of each one affirms God’s good intentions for everyone to be bound together under God’s guidance, protection, and care.

It’s a lovely coincidence that the reception of new members this spring falls on Good Shepherd Sunday as together we celebrate how our church gathering is welcoming, inclusive, dynamic, and growing. Join us on Sunday to hear beloved Good Shepherd passages of scripture and to welcome new friends into our fold.

My preschool teacher, Jossette Maddison, taught us to sing “Jesus loves me” in French, Spanish, and American Sign Language. We spent hours on the playground singing at the top of our lungs, sometimes merging three languages at once, but never doubting the meaning of the words. I remember the first night at church camp, gathered around a fire singing, “Be Thou My Vision” as the words took on new meaning when it was accompanied only by the sound of a river and the wind winding through aspens. Despite a language barrier, I knew it was “Christ the Lord is Risen Today!” being sung in a packed Catholic church at 6:30 am in Chengdu, China, and I even knew when to sing the “Alleluias!”

At different stages in my life, different hymns have provided comfort and guidance. There was a period of Taizé music that taught me how to meditate on the word of God. There was a period of ancient hymns that gave me a rich theological vocabulary and compelling images of the divine. There was even a brief foray into praise music that taught me something new about worship. At each stage, these hymns, ancient and modern, helped to show me that the church could be bigger than I had imagined. At each stage, the music helped remind me that I was connected to a community far beyond the one I thought I knew. Even the progression of hymnals from the Red to the Blue to the Purple was a visual sign that the church continues to grow.

Sometimes when we are surrounded by stone and reading ancient texts, it’s easy to forget how dynamic the church is. This Sunday, we will celebrate a church that is alive and growing. We will celebrate as we recognize our 5th graders receiving hymnals and being welcomed into Youth Ministry. They are closing out their time in Children’s Ministry and beginning something new. They will teach all of us about God’s invitation to continue exploring our faith in new ways. When they receive their hymnals, they will be tied back to a man who loved the church deeply and who hoped these words would help guide a new generation of Christians. We will pause and offer our prayers and encouragement to our High School Seniors who are also leaving known things behind and are stepping into something new, and not yet defined. In that moment, we will be praying for one another, remembering that no matter what, God goes before and with us. When we leave worship, we will be invited to connect with our Confirmation Class as they share their Confirmation Projects in the Gym. An opportunity to learn how spirituality looks and feels to a new generation.

Our worship on Sunday will be different. Woven in with our celebration of our 5th graders and our Seniors will be an exercise reflecting on who we are as a living congregation through this year’s Hymn Fest. As we acknowledge the growth in our young people, we will also celebrate our own growth as a community. Through the words of the hymns, the beauty of the music, and the collective work of singing together, we will celebrate and embody the growing, learning, loving church God calls us to be. What a day to celebrate!