Author: The Rev. Dr. Agnes W. Norfleet

This past Monday, I watched the evening news and the fact that April 22 was Earth Day came to the fore in the last thirty seconds of the broadcast, almost an afterthought. The Supreme Court was taking up a state law cracking down on the homeless, the trial of the former President began in Manhattan, there was some big basketball news as I remember it, and major university campuses were in an uproar of protests, the likes of which the nation hasn’t seen since the Viet Nam War. Earth Day? There wasn’t much room amid the national and international coverage for Earth Day 2024.

However, the news from our delegation to Peru this week has been quite startling. Rebecca Kirkpatrick sent this photo and wrote to those who are subscribed to her mission trip reports:

After worship, they took us close by to see the impacts of dumping and pollution on the Chillón River. It is hard to describe how polluted the river is. A local factory had been dumping its waste directly into the river, and it is not unusual for folks all over the community to dump their trash directly into the river as it passes through the community. The activists from the church who took us along the river told us stories of their childhood when the river was clean enough to drink from. Some even recalled being baptized in that very river. Along the coast, it leads directly to the Pacific. As we walked along the river and eventually to the beach, we were overwhelmed by the pollution. Jed shared when we got there that it is considered the most contaminated beach in all of Latin America. It is hard to convey how much trash is on the beach, and photos don’t really capture it.

While we may seem far removed from that riverside in Peru, evidence is growing that microplastics are invading human organs and our bloodstream. We’re not so removed after all.

In this season of Eastertide, which we are observing in worship each week, the images John’s gospel uses to describe the presence of resurrection are from nature. The fields of God’s sheepfold last Sunday and Jesus’ lovely image, “I am the Vine, you are the branches,” upcoming. Martin Luther, the great 16th-century reformer and theologian, said of Easter, “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” We cannot separate the most basic promises of our faith from the natural world, from the glory and intended goodness of God’s creation.

Look at this picture from our church’s mission partner in Peru and join me in imagining that every day is Earth Day. Let’s make even deeper commitments to reduce our use of plastics and disposable waste. Together, let’s admit our complicity in polluting the earth. Together, let’s remember we cannot separate our faith from our practice, our mission from our mission partners in places like Peru. Together, let’s live more fully into our vocation as caretakers of God’s good earth.

Sometime in the latter half of the 3rd Century, the Christian church began to observe Holy Week. The gospels describe in considerable detail the final days of Jesus’ life as the intense scrutiny around him heightens to a fevered pitch. Those early church Holy Week observances were dedicated to reading the gospel narratives of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, crucifixion, death, and burial. Participants went to worship in sorrow, penance and fasting, and to linger at the foot of the cross, mindful of the suffering love of God revealed through the person Jesus. By experiencing the full depths of Jesus’ passion, the joy of Easter morning led believers to ecstatic praise.

This evening, you have opportunities to join us for Maundy Thursday communion and tomorrow’s noon and evening Good Friday worship. I encourage you to join in these rituals of discipleship that have formed the church’s Holy Week practice for more than two thousand years.

While biblical scholars and historians have debated aspects of the life of Jesus and of the early church, one thing they agree on is that a Christian is, by definition, someone who believed that the God of ancient Israel raised Jesus from the dead. The pagan world at that time thought this was ridiculous. What is dead stays dead, they postured, but the Christian communion believed something extraordinary, something unnatural, had happened. As the Apostle Paul said, without the resurrection, we really have nothing interesting to say. (1 Cor. 15:14).

Come Sunday, we will celebrate the resurrection in our customary ways at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, at sunrise and in the sanctuary, with the beauty of flowers and extraordinary music, with a full congregation of believers and skeptics, with great joy. I have come to believe that the joy is heightened for those who show up on Thursday and Friday and are willing to ponder the depths of God’s love for the sake of the world.

Join us for these last few days of Holy Week and Easter’s glorious proclamation and praise!

On Monday, March 4, at 7:00 pm in the Sanctuary, we will host Matthew Desmond as our Community Forum Speaker.

Matthew Desmond, Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, is one of the leading voices in our country on issues of poverty in America, city life, housing insecurity, public policy, and racial inequality. His range of expertise is precisely the kind of subject matter for which these forums are intended to address.

Desmond promises to be a compelling and engaging speaker. His book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, and he is the recipient of the MacArthur Genius Fellowship and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award.

His Monday evening lecture will be based on research and insight from his most recent book, Poverty, By America, which many of our congregation, including the Outreach Committee, have read as we seek better to understand the issues BMPC seeks to address through our witness and mission. Desmond writes that we are “the richest country on earth, with more poverty than any other advanced democracy.” His book is praised for describing the complex realities of poverty and giving practical ways that individuals and institutions can address it and alleviate it.

One of the strong convictions that emerged from our church-wide discernment process that created the 150th Vision was the call to “Partner in local mission (Lower Merion Township and Montgomery County) by enlisting volunteers to help address affordable housing and access to resources, services, and support.” Because recognizing issues of poverty and finding ways to address them as a congregation has become a priority, Desmond’s presentation is both timely and urgent. I hope many of our congregation and community will attend.

Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church is blessed to have a fund that enables us to host free public forums “to explore issues of significance for the vitality and well-being of the larger community.” The Community Forum was established by a gift from Herbert Middleton, Jr., in honor of his parents, Anna and Herbert Middleton, Sr. This living legacy is a blessing to our congregation and community. I hope you will join us on Monday night to hear Matthew Desmond, whose work and research critically informs our call to discipleship.

The holidays are only holy if we make them so.

These words popped off the page of one of my Advent and Christmas devotionals a couple of weeks ago when I was perusing the books in my pastor’s study while crafting the Advent sermon series. They seemed to pierce through the holiday distractions, as if to ask: Is the holiness of God’s light and love, mercy and grace, finding room in the devotion and action of my days amid the hurried rush of this busy season?

The holidays are only holy if we make them so. I began thinking about those places where I experience holiness in the bustling, joyful, painful, complicated season of Advent which is about something so much deeper than all the stuff we often get caught up in.

I imagine I’m like most of you. On top of the usual daily rhythms, I’ve been buying gifts and wrapping them up, writing notes and scurrying to the Post Office, donning the dog with a Christmas collar and hosting friends for dinner, making family plans and packing a suitcase for travel. I would suggest that all of this busy-ness is a form of holiness, in that it is bound up in love and joy, but not all of it is pure devotion to God.

When our children were young and Christmas was even more chaotic, I used to wrap their presents in my church study and store them in my closet under my robes and stoles because there was no good hiding place in our house. On Christmas Eve, the four of us went to the afternoon family friendly service, then home for dinner, and I returned to lead the later one. Before preaching and presiding over communion, I’d load all the Christmas presents into my car so I was ready to head out when worship was over and the church locked up. What I remember most about that midnight drive home was its holiness. Gratitude for candlelight and Silent Night, a quiet and solitary sense of peace and joy, awareness of wonder while I gazed at the stars on my drive home. Holiness.

That’s what I hope for each of you come Sunday. In worship may you find the holy in your holiday, and may the quiet holiness of peace, joy and wonder lead you home.

The big 150th Anniversary Celebration weekend is now just hours away! We are excited that so many church friends have indicated plans to be here from among our active congregation as well as from afar. Many months ago, out-of-town members received a Save the Date mailing, and former pastors, Lilly residents and staff received a special letter of invitation.

Because I issued the invitation on behalf of the church, I have been privileged to receive notes from those unable to attend but who are cheering us on from a distance. Pastors Kellen Smith, Charles Grant, George Wirth, Sherri Hauser and Rob McClellen, for example, have corresponded with regret that they are unable to be here and with expressions of gratitude for their time serving Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church as treasured years in their ministry.

My immediate predecessor as Pastor and Head of Staff, Wes Avram, sent a lovely note to share with you, which reads in part:

Lynne and I were touched to receive an invitation to join you for this grand celebration of BMPC’s 150th anniversary year. God’s faithfulness to this congregation is long and deep, as is God’s faithfulness to the world through you. We were honored to share a small slice of that long faithfulness with you and continue to hold you and your good ministry in prayer.

Your inspiring commitment to worship and arts, love for education, deep and thoughtful support for global ministry, and sense of responsibility to Reformed and Liberal faith will surely shape your life for generations to come. You have a role. You have a voice. You have a mission. And you have faith in a God who has chosen you for ministry. Please know that Lynne and I are part of a chorus of support for you, your mission, and your leadership.

I’m entering my fifteenth year at Pinnacle Presbyterian in Scottsdale and will be retiring when I turn 65 this coming spring. Lynne has found a strong vocation in high school nursing here in the Valley of the Sun. After graduating from Luther College, our oldest son Andrew took an assignment in Peru with the Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteer program and has followed a number of interests since. He is now embracing life, coaching soccer and pursuing other goals while living on St. Simons Island. After graduating from the Berklee College of Music, our younger son Paul is living and working as a musician in Nashville. You loved and prayed for Andrew and Paul when they were children, and we’re grateful.

Thank God for you, and may God bless the work of this congregation for generations to come,

– Wes Avram

At Saturday’s events and during Sunday worship, we will enjoy the sense of reunion with many special guests and church friends. We also will be mindful of partners in ministry, unable to be with us, who have sojourned through the life of this historic congregation, gifted its ministry with their commitments, and have moved on strengthened by their time among us to serve the larger church in many and various ways. Thank God for the breadth and depth of this congregation’s 150 years reaching into the community, the city and the world in Christian service!