Month: November 2024

Gracious God, we celebrate this Thanksgiving Day by rejoicing in the abundance of your many blessings. We are thankful for our nation’s long-ago commitment to setting aside a day of rest dedicated to gratitude. We praise you for your goodness, which makes life meaningful and fills our days with joy. Thank you for the love we share with family and friends, for your claim upon our lives to share our gifts with others, and for your grace, which binds us to one another in community.

As the season shifts from fall into winter, the days are cooler, and the nights are longer; thank you for your light that shines within us and through us as disciples of Christ. We are grateful for the shelter of comfortable homes, for tables overflowing with the food of your good earth, and for the company we share among those we cherish and those whom you beckon us to serve. We give thanks for the church, which brings us together for worship, to raise our voices to the music of the spheres, to enjoy Christian nurture among our congregation, and to reach out in service to those in need.

As we celebrate the uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving, we give thanks for our country’s beauty and wonder, its brave history, and a future of hope and dreams. We ask your guidance among leaders who govern us, our allies with whom we share a common call to justice, and all those who work to ensure basic human needs for your children the world over. May the earliest Thanksgiving meals shared long ago on the shores of this young nation inspire that wonderous peace that comes through cooperation and appreciation of human diversity.

As we feast around bountiful tables, we are mindful of those who do not have enough to eat in our community, in our fair city, and the world. We pray for you to work miracles again of multiplying bread and enlisting us to share it. May our gatherings this day be blessed by your presence so that we may be strengthened to serve you in all we do in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Agnes W. Norfleet

Pastor

Pastors, especially interim ones like me, step into stories that began long before they arrived in a congregation and will continue to be told long after they leave. Why things are done in an idiosyncratic way, why certain people or committees are at odds, or the fabled origins of a beloved tradition are common stories pastors must navigate. Of course, this can be challenging, but other times, it is a delight to step into a story that started before you and will continue long after you. The annual youth Thanksgiving Pancake Breakfast, occurring next Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, from 8:30-11:30 a.m. in Congregational Hall, is one such delightful story.

I have heard the breakfast described as a homecoming of sorts, where the kids whom we have sent off into the world return home as young adults or where families that have moved away return to see old friends. One colleague told me the breakfast pretty much runs itself as people of all ages pitch in to decorate, cook, eat (that part is important), wash dishes, and clean up.

We’re heading into a season that, for many of us, is a time of joy. For others, it is a season of dread that we’re just trying to survive. As relationships change or loved ones pass away, traditions that were once delightful become melancholy. Likewise, sad stories we didn’t realize were keeping us stuck can be told in new ways to become a source of new life and hope.

Whatever else Thanksgiving looks like for you, joyful or otherwise, I hope you start your day by joining us in telling the longstanding and delightful story of the Thanksgiving Pancake Breakfast. Bring a friend. Sign up to volunteer by clicking here. Throw caution to the wind and go for the chocolate chip pancakes. By the way, this event has morphed from fundraiser into funraiser recently… and that’s a tradition I wouldn’t mind changing! Please consider donating beyond the $5/person or $20/family to support the Youth Ministry at BMPC.

This year, I’m thankful to be part of the story being told at BMPC. I look forward to seeing you next Thursday.

This week, every year for the past ten years, I have written to the church about the virtue of alternative giving at Christmas. I have told you that the piles of physical gifts in our house have continued to shrink. I have shared how I use gifts given through AGM to teach my friends and family about the mission work of BMPC. I have even confessed how I send fewer and fewer Christmas cards each year, but when I do, they no longer have baby pictures but AGM insert cards stuffed in them. But this year, I want to highlight something completely different regarding the BMPC Advent Gift Market.

First, I want to celebrate what is again an extraordinary and compelling AGM catalog packed with longstanding partners in mission, relevant organizations working to bring compassion and justice in the world, and gifts that support the actual work that BMPC members are doing in mission in our local community. Each gift is represented in a small card you can insert in your Christmas Cards, holiday hostess gifts, and packages wrapped under the tree.

But this year, I also want to share a growing trend we have seen at the Advent Gift Market in the past few years.

While giving to AGM is higher than ever – last year’s donations totaled over $56,000 – the number of people asking for those small “insert” cards essential to the alternative gift process continues to decline.

That is because an increasing number of members of our congregation and our larger community are using the Advent Gift Market to make generous charitable donations at the end of the year. The donors with whom I have spoken share how much they value using the AGM catalog to learn about the church’s priorities and partnerships in mission and as a guide for their end-of-year charitable donations.

I couldn’t be more thrilled with this development. To me, it is a sign that, in addition to folks giving generously through their pledges and offerings throughout the year to support the wide work of our congregation in the community and the world, when members look to give beyond the church, they still look to the church to help them connect with often small but vital organizations making a difference in a hurting world.

I encourage you to shop this Sunday and throughout Advent, keeping in mind this “alternative” way of giving through the Advent Gift Market. The opening event will take place in Congregational Hall this Sunday following worship, where Councils, Committees, and even representatives from partner organizations will be available to chat. However, you can also shop online today at www.BrynMawrAGM.com.

I will never stop being moved by this congregation’s generosity. It is a privilege to help create resources that support you all in your generosity. I hope that this year’s AGM catalog will encourage you to be more generous than ever this Christmas season.

Grace and peace to you from God and our Redeemer Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

This has been a difficult election season during a time of great division in our country and community. Our families and church family have been anxious and conflicted. This fall, the church has hosted many gatherings to help us consider and claim our values as Christians and as citizens. Through preaching and prayer in worship, classes, special programming, and a Community Forum focused on political polarization, BMPC has encouraged engagement in political dialogue with those of differing perspectives and voting responsibly according to our Christian values and as Presbyterians who affirm the basic tenet of Reformed theology that “God alone is Lord of the conscience.”

Some in our communion are glad the election is over, are relieved that so many outcomes have swung in the Republicans’ direction, and are ready to embrace whatever a second Donald Trump presidency will bring. Others have been repelled by the first Trump presidency and the January 6th insurrection; the xenophobic, violent, and misogynistic rhetoric and mistruths heard at so many of his rallies; the rollback of women’s agency over healthcare decisions; and fear of what may be over the horizon. These folks have shared they find themselves shocked, grieving, and traumatized.

Whether you are relieved or despondent, you are not alone. Many pundits are out there trying to put this election in historical perspective as we wrestle with its outcomes. Our job as members of the church is to take the long view historically and remember that the community of God’s faithful has almost always existed in a dangerous and fraught political climate. Those little tribes of Abraham and Sarah’s descendants were often defeated and exiled under brutal conditions. The prophets summoned them to hope and trust that God was doing a new thing. The Gospels and Epistles show us how the early church was divided and persecuted by the powerful political forces of the Roman Empire. Followers of Christ were urged to live faithfully against the odds, upheld by God’s justice, faithfulness, goodness, and mercy. In this moment, we are still called to put on the armor of light, to reject the power of evil in the world, and to love God by loving and serving one another and those in need.

Our Book of Common Worship has a prayer for a nation in crisis that reads:

God of ages, in your sight, nations rise and fall and pass through times of peril. Now, when our land is troubled, be near to judge and save. May leaders be led by your wisdom; may they search your will and see it clearly. If we have turned from your way, help us to reverse our ways and repent. Give us your light and your truth to guide us; through Jesus Christ, who reigns over the world.

May this time-honored prayer guide our prayers and actions. As we step into the future together, may we heed the call of the prophet to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God, and the call of Christ to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves.