Month: September 2023

It was far too quiet. And by the time I noticed, the sacrilegious deed was already finished. I had purchased the loaf of bread that I would break the following morning during worship in my small congregation in Kentucky. When I left it unattended in the center of our dining room table, our dog, Sophie, jumped up and took a massive bite out of the yet-to-be-consecrated body of Christ our Lord. Jesus wept.

As frustrated as I became, I also was reminded by my better half that “You always say the Table is for everyone.”

This Sunday is World Communion Sunday in the morning and Blessing of the Animals as part of our multigenerational Evening Worship services. We will celebrate the gift of God’s saving grace for humanity at the Communion Table, and we also will bless our companion animals and give thanks for all creation. I hope you’ll join us for both.

In truth, our prayers of thanks and love for all the cats, dogs, goldfish, and hamsters that bring us so much joy is a small reenactment of the love that God has for us, the sheep of that divine pasture who are quick to run from the safety of the Good Shepherd but who get rescued anyway.

Mary Oliver wrote a poem about her dog that I offer here. I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t exactly how God feels about us, rolling over as we do to be reminded that we are loved, and to hear our names called as we are welcomed back into the safety of Home.

“Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night”

He puts his cheek against mine

and makes small expressive sounds.

And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws

in the air

and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over

he gets to ask it.

I get to tell.

An essential part of our congregation’s identity is its foundation in mission. From the beginning, members of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church were especially committed to sending and supporting mission workers around the world to teach and heal and share the Gospel. But it in the 1960s, the church significantly expanded its mission paradigm and considered what it would mean to give and work in mission in underserved areas of Philadelphia.

Session records describe an intentional effort on the part of Dr. David Watermulder to be in open and thoughtful conversations with African American clergy from Philadelphia so that the leaders of this church could better understand the ways that our culture and institutions disenfranchised people of color.

This is from the minutes of the Session on April 13, 1964:

Elder Baker recommended for the Personnel Committee that the Department of Outreach and its work be reorganized, with our Minister of Outreach designated to serve specifically as our “City Parish Minister,” whose work will be largely in the city under the supervision of the Director of Urban Work of the Presbytery and the Senior Minister of our Church, and that the total cost of this work be included in the benevolence budget of our church. On motion, the Session voted to make this change.

The Moderator presented the Rev. Bryant George, Assistant Executive Secretary in the Department of Strategy of the Board of National Missions, and Elder Hattersley introduced the Rev. Shelton Waters, Vice President of the Philadelphia Council of Churches and Minister of the First African Church at 42nd and Girard Avenue in West Philadelphia.

The Revs. George and Waters were the invited guests of the Session for a frank and thorough-going consideration of today’s racial problems. At the conclusion of an extended discussion, extreme appreciation was extended to both our guests for coming – as well as for their spirit of helpfulness.

More than 30 years later, BMPC leadership and the Session, inspired by the vision of Dr. Eugene Bay to recommit and reimagine the ways this congregation intentionally engaged in mission in West Philadelphia, launched the “Urban-Suburban Partnership.” This is from the fall of 1997:

As part of its 125th anniversary celebration, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, in all aspects of its life, undertakes a journey in faith with the peoples of West Philadelphia, expecting that our mutual ministry will lead us all to a better place.

Primary Goals:

To reaffirm and build upon BMPC’s longstanding commitment to urban ministry. To develop a fresh way of engaging in urban ministry, which is consonant with the realities of our times. To be a community of faith which grows spiritually as a result of creating authentic partnerships across geographic, racial and socio-economic boundaries.

Rational:

After studying how the Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia engages in urban ministry, we see three key themes BMPC needs to accentuate:

Instead of DOING FOR others, we will do everything in partnership WITH them. As a community of faith, we minister to others in a way that enables us to absorb the spiritual lessons offered to us by those we serve. Individually and collectively, we affirm that love freely given expands and grows, but when horded and packaged in material form, it contracts and loses its potency.

In this 150th Anniversary year, we celebrate all the relationships built, lives impacted, communities shaped, and organizations created over the past 25 years because of the commitment, time and funding invested in this partnership.

Organizations birthed out of this program still thrive today. The Other Carpenter, which assisted residents with home repairs, made a significant impact on the lives of homeowners in West Philadelphia. That work continues to be done by Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia because of funding from BMPC.

West Philadelphia Alliance for Children continues to reopen school libraries in West Philadelphia, encouraging literacy and reading for young children and families. The West Philadelphia Children’s Choir, which eventually became Singing City Children’s Choir, carries on the mission to share a love and commitment to the arts for children and families in the West Philadelphia community. The Urban Suburban Book Group continues to thrive today as a living embodiment of the relationships envisioned when this initiative first began.

This Sunday we are privileged to welcome to our pulpit and to our adult education hour the Rev. Eustacia Moffett Marshall, pastor of New River Presbyterian Church in West Philadelphia. New River is a merger of three historical churches in that community: First African, Calvin and Good Shepherd.

As we celebrate not only our 150 years of mission work, but our 25-year commitment to West Philadelphia, we once again rely on our relationships and partnerships to help us understand how God is calling the church at large and our congregation to respond to the concerns as well as the hopes and visions of our fellow Presbyterians in Philadelphia.

Rev. Marshall will share with us the exciting journey that has brought New River to where it is today, as well as their vision for this next moment of ministry in West Philadelphia. As a recipient of a $50,000 150th Anniversary Grant from BMPC this summer, New River is positioned both to help us value and celebrate our past in mission, while also leading us intentionally and faithful into this next moment in urban ministry as a church.

I especially hope that all of you who have given your time and energy to working and building relationships as a part of the Urban Suburban Partnership will come celebrate with us this Sunday, and even more importantly, hear how we are being called in this next moment.

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

While I have spent my entire life reading from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, those words from the King James Version were on a bookmark that my grandmother gave me shortly after receiving my third grade Bible so many years ago. I found the words intriguing and a little bit scary: dividing asunder felt almost like a threat!

The Bible bearing my name did not seem particularly dangerous or very sharp. Those rounded onionskin pages were not a high papercut risk, and yet, over time the Word of God carefully marked on each page proved to be quick, powerful, sharp, piercing, and discerning.

That Bible, and the many that followed it, helped me define my values (1 John 4:7-8), helped me understand who I am (Galatians 3:26-29), showed me God’s world and God’s people through new eyes (Psalm 104). It has given me words when I thought everything was lost (Psalm 139:11-12); it taught me about God’s love (Luke 15); and scripture shared a vision of God’s community that gives me hope (Isaiah 2:2-5). Each day I return to familiar and less familiar texts and find God speaking in new ways.

This Sunday our third graders will receive their Bibles. We will begin the long process of learning how to find things within it, how to read through difficult names, where to find the stories of God’s Covenants and the Good News of Jesus, how to read texts from long ago with 21st century eyes. We will learn together just how powerful these words can be. I hope that as we do, our students will begin to find words that shape and form them.

The very first thing we will do together is practice opening our Bibles. I know that our third graders are more than capable of opening a book, but in that silly and sacred act we remember that it is not the book that is holy, but the words within it. It is our reading that makes the Bible so powerful.

Part of our tradition at BMPC is pre-highlighting each Bible with key passages, tiny markers to help them as they begin searching through the pages. These are passages that are central to our faith and passages that are especially meaningful to different members of our community. You can read the list below. What passages would you add? What stories have shaped you? What passages have convicted you and comforted you? What sections of the Bible do you avoid, and which pages are well worn?

I wonder if you would be willing to join our third graders this Sunday and bravely open your own Bible and see what quick, powerful, sharp, piercing, and discerning word you might find.