Summer time and the menus begin to change a bit. Grills get a workout as do picnic baskets. Ice cream makes a frequent appearance…for some, almost daily in the heat of summer! Food is good! We work up an appetite in the activities of work, vacation, travel, and play!

As we come to the Lords Table this Sunday we are reminded that however we understand The Lords Supper or Holy Communion it is a taking of spiritual food represented by bread and the cup. As with most meals, at any season, we should look forward to it!

As United Methodists we continue the practice of John Wesley of inviting ALL to join in, all ages, all denominations. The table is the Lords Table not ours to restrict or judge who is worthy. We each are invited to examine ourselves, our conscience before we approach the Sacrament but all are invited.

This sounds a lot like any meal between friends and family when all are assumed to be welcome. And if a visitor drops by we usually say, “pull up a chair and eat with us!” If someone wants “seconds” we don’t think twice about passing the plate or bowl! And there is most always an abundance at hand so no one goes away hungry. Sunday dinners growing up were often THE big meal of the week!

We truly feed upon the Word and upon the Sacrament of Holy Communion and are well fed and nourished for each week of life’s journey toward the final complete Heavenly Banquet. May it be so this Sunday as we gather together to ask the Lords blessing! Bring the family, the visitor, the friend, bring those who hunger and thirst for the Bread of Life in every season, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring!

Pastor Barry

Isaiah was given a vision of angels, hot coals, his uncleanness, and a heavenly voice. From that encounter he says “Here am I, O God! Send me!” Nicodemus is told he “must be born again” through the Spirit and all his future before him will change! Paul in Romans 8 says it’s either us and our sinful nature leading us….or it’s the Spirit leading us!

Three remarkable passages about change, transformation, and Who is bringing this change to pass! True enough, we can coast along in routine and habit to a point and then….what once worked, doesn’t work anymore! At this point, God is already ahead of us like a Father waiting on a prodigal to come home.

This Sunday we will remember how important change is whether at times by force or by persuasion. Memorial Day weekend reminds us that service to a greater cause can result in the greatest sacrifice of our own life. We remember and honor those who died in service to our country. Those who died to bring about change from threat or injustice. It is also Peace With Justice Sunday where we acknowledge that if there is no justice amongst us in community many are left without real peace. The struggle to live by the Spirit (Romans 8) is never ending and is always about Social Holiness not just private, personal piety.

We remember that John Wesley’s “transformation” at a church study on May 4, 1738 was not just about his change but was to lead to change in English society for the better. Some historians say that the Wesleyan movement in England saved that country from the violence like that of the French Revolution!

Change and transformation leading to peace in our lives and justice throughout the land. Such is the message of the Prophets, Apostles, and Jesus!

Amen!

Pastor Barry

Another Sunday, another “bases loaded!” Using our Spring and Summer pastime sport to illustrate this coming Sunday is fitting as we have (at least) three wonderful occasions to celebrate:

1. The 50th Year of the United Methodist Church
2. Pentecost Sunday
3. Our local church heritage at both Locks Memorial and Kedron

You can decide which “base” you would place each on. Wherever, we want to “bring them ALL home!”

There are at least 19 Wesleyan denominations in the USA. Largest of these is US the UMC at about 8.7 million. There are 29 million Methodist members throughout the world in 108 countries. We are a presence most everywhere to bear witness to the Gospel, the grace of God upon us, “warm hearts, trained minds, extended hands to help.”

And Pentecost reminds us of the indwelling Holy Spirit, our Advocate, the Lord Jesus bestows on us to renew us along our spiritual path. John Wesley had the Holy Spirit empower him to spread the Methodist movement in spite of his previous failures as a missionary and as a despondent, beaten down Christian!

And here we are today off Almaville Road and Rocky Fork Road continuing to offer the Gospel in word and deed following both old and new ways of sharing what previous generations in these two congregations have done since the early 1800s!

A lot to be thankful for, a lot to look forward to! Bases loaded? Step up to the plate and help bring all of our historic, spiritual blessings home in worship this Sunday!

Pastor Barry

Mother’s Day has deep roots in Christian Faith and originated as a day of recognition by a Methodist mother and daughter, Ann and Anna Jarvis, in 19th century America. And to this year of 2018 we have almost a century and a half of publicly honoring the great persons we call “mother.”

And the list might go on a bit since grandmothers, sisters, aunts, cousins and friends have often been AS mothers to many of us. After my grandfather died in 1961 my grandmother came to live with us. She lived with us until her death in 1976. I was blessed to have her as a “second mother.” She also was indeed my widowed mother’s strongest advocate and best confidante.

If we step out of the pews this Sunday and let people give witness to the women in their lives we would go way into the night! And sure enough….mothers (and others like them) would go into the church kitchens to fix us supper while the testimonies went on!

From the Blessed Mother Mary to a 20th century Saint in Mother Teresa, no age nor generation has been without the influence of the personal characteristics of Proverbs 31:10-31 and Ephesians 6:1-3. And add to that all the scriptures which uphold the command to love, we are left to marvel at how God blesses us with relationships which endure to the end.

“God couldn’t be everywhere all the time so God gave us mothers,” is not theologically correct but tells a welcome truth we have experienced!

Come celebrate your mother and her kind this Sunday! And why not continue that celebrating and honoring from here on out!

Blessings!

Pastor Barry

As I write this from not-so-sunny S. California (57 degrees and overcast), I am still appreciative of the time away with family and catching up with friends who have moved West. I also am appreciative of our United Methodist connectional life that we can have Rev. Gayle Watson, friend AND former pastor at Locks and Kedron fill in for both Word and Sacrament. Preaching and Communion!

The scripture will sound familiar perhaps from last Sunday but it should be interesting to hear another’s words on these texts. God’s love expounded upon and our living it out can hardly grow old!

And our hymns and songs on the love of God and neighbor available in our hymnals are bountiful! I am eager to hear the worship as captured on CD when I return!

And the forecast for sunshine out West is picking up! Hope the same in both congregations!

God bless~~~see you soon!

Pastor Barry

On April 29, 1945, American forces liberated the Dachau concentration camp where tens of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, and resistant Christians had perished at the hands of the Nazis. That same day, Adolph Hitler married Eva Braun and designated Admiral Karl Doenitz his successor in Germany’s shattered government.

Sunday April 29 marks 73 years since those dramatic events. Our scriptures to be read and preached from are in such marked contrast to any of those events. What happened then through the Allied nations was a victory of sorts for justice. Justice should be an expression of love, however. The Allied nations acted in justice such that love might be operative once again in a nation overcome by evil intent toward those in the minority, those perceived as “unacceptably different.”

In both the Gospel and Epistle of John the call to love as God has loved us is paramount for Christ followers. We know this but how difficult it is to sustain when our loyalties to other earthly kingdoms and desires take predominance! We need government, we need values and loyalties, but when they demonstrate attitudes the opposite of “loving neighbor and God” the path to destruction is likely to be taken.

To make love actual (and not merely romantic or when convenient to do) requires a community of the beloved PRACTICING week after week! And not just practicing but celebrating the examples and moments when we see and know that “God is love.”

Over time we might actually find that these practices, examples, and moments are as close as we will get to “Heaven on earth” or “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

John 15:9 has Jesus’ words: “As the Father loves me , so I also love you. Remain in my love.” And I John 4:8 says that “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”

These April and May Sundays of our Easter celebrations are continual reminders that God is still working within us to bring about the Kingdom of God “in our midst” and to have a “foretaste of glory.”

With God’s loving help we will never have to bitterly relearn the lessons of WW II in our own age!

See you at worship this Fifth Sunday of Easter!

Pastor Barry

Sure enough….our weather service is calling for RAIN this coming Sunday! Enough already?!

But….look at this week unfolding with sunshine, blooms, and grass to cut (?). And, looking back who hasn’t appreciated some of the Winter beauty and the gift of rain for crops, lakes, and streams. Fishing and boating anyone? Hiking and walking and playing anyone?

This Sunday’s worship reminds us that “the earth is the Lords, and the fullness thereof….” Psalm 24:1. We have been given a bountiful earth with forests and lakes, mountains and wilderness, land for planting and harvest. These gifts do provide for humanity, and God’s people, in response, commit to be good stewards of the gifts.

In worship we praise the Creator, Sustainer, and ultimately Redeemer of all that is. We will hear the scriptures and other voices commending to us to remember and be glad, to conserve and pass along to future generations.

So, our agricultural and rural heritage is to be celebrated this Sunday and our task to be good stewards is ever before us. Join together in praise and wonder!

Pastor Barry

Worship services on Sunday are not usually a full hour of laughter! But it might be a long hour if humor was totally absent! The Bible is not noted for jokes or material for standup comedy but it DOES have humor. We should rejoice and be glad for that! Much of the Bible IS about “trials and tribulations” and it does contain numerous accounts of suffering and death, but there seems to be a strong tilt toward joy and gladness as it progresses from Genesis to Revelation.

Reading the texts for April 15th (no tax humor though!), one can see the subtle humor that jumps out at us. In the startling appearance of the resurrected Jesus to his disciples, the words fear, terror, troubled, doubts, and ghost describe the feelings of the disciples. The Lord lightens the mood by dryly saying, “Do you have anything to eat here?” I imagine that may have cracked up some and helped them shift to “joy and wonder (v.41)”. And the passage in Acts, has been the source of many a joke about long winded sermons and a captive audience in the pew….or on a window ledge!

Indeed the Sundays after Easter are meant for us to reflect on joy and wonder in spite of what troubles we have had or are going through at the moment. So, a joke or two is not inappropriate. In some churches, Bright (Merry) Sunday is observed the Sunday after Easter with very intentional fun and humor present. Some practice harmless pranks while sense of festivities often abound. We may not come close to an out and out “party” but we may have more jokes from the congregation than we are accustom to!

“Did you hear the one about the minister, priest, and rabbi who walked into a bar?”

Join the Resurrection Party this Sunday then cast your vote for the source of all Final Laughter where all tears are finally wiped away~~~+

Blessings!

Pastor Barry

We get together for about anything! Sports, birthdays, anniversaries, politics, yard sales, and just about any parade. Turn on a yard light at night or set out a table in daytime and you get a crowd! We are gatherers.

After Jesus’ died there was to have been a prescribed time of family mourning. Together but immeasurably sad that time was definitely cut short. Cut to the Resurrection gatherings! Disciples here in a room, at a meal, traveling on the roads, fishing at the lakeshore, you name it…..Jesus shows up! Unexpectedly, for the most part. Together again!

These moments certainly reflect our Old Testament reading: “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.”
Instead of a time of grief and mourning when the disciples and Jesus’ kin met together it is instead a time of amazement, joy, and often a meal! It’s hard to cry when you are with friends and everybody is eating!

We will gather at The Lords Table this Sunday April 8. There is a certain solemnity and seriousness when we receive the bread and the cup… and rightly so. It reminds us of both Sin and the cost of dealing with Sin. But, back of that is great joy in the salvation work of God! Keep that in mind when we gather this Sunday. Good Friday had to be, but Resurrection Sundays have a way of reminding us that such Fridays of Death must give way to a Big Get Together of the Family Of God on Sunday! And an Eternal Sunday at that!

Confess your sins (I John 1:9) and then just sit down with friends to eat well and have a great time!

Invite a neighbor! See you Sunday!

Pastor Barry

Easter Sundays come and go and each one is likely to catch you in a different place in life; Child, Youth, Twenties, Thirties and….you get the drift! Each life season a different way of seeing and hearing the remarkable answer of God to the puzzle of death and injustice, tragedy and sin.

I remember going to a sunrise Easter service at Lee Memorial Gardens in Virginia with my parents when I was about 8 or 9. I wanted to go back to bed! It was nice and all but REALLY! 6:00am!!

Easter was different at about 11 after my grandfather died, the first family member to die that I was very close to. Then at 14…my father. Then for all the years since….well most of you have had something akin to what I just said. One DOES “grow in wisdom and in stature” in the face of reality both harsh as well as happy.

Yes, many an Easter Sunday is just bright and cheery with a hundred things in your life to go on about in joy and thanksgiving. You could leap for joy if your knees work well! Some Easter Sundays….nothing, “nada,” it hurts too much in either body, mind, or spirit.

What we are ultimately given from first to last, regardless of the time or condition on earth we have, is the Final Word from our Creator: “I have made you, I have provided a Way for you in Jesus raised from the dead, and what I began in you I will bring to completion.”

It’s what we have on any Easter Sunday. Or any day of the week for that matter! Sometimes it catches us with a hearty laugh and sometimes with a face all tear stained. If laughing, our faith reminds us that the best joke is finally on the Devil; if crying, our faith tells us “this too shall pass….”

For most of the Gospels there is mostly walking. On Easter morning Biblical people pretty much RUN! Breathless! Something has happened! Is happening! And will happen! If you can’t run anymore…SOMEONE will still get you up and moving! Then you will only cry tears of joy!

Thanks be to God~~!

See you Sunday! Easter!

Pastor Barry