“O Great God”

Meditation in Memory of Harriet McMahon

November 16,1942 – July 23, 2025

The Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

Smithtown Cemetery

Sept. 12, 2025

     Not long after I began serving our flock, Harriet’s family contacted the church. They were emptying out the home in Saint James where Harriet had lived for many years with her husband, Harold.

     “Did anyone in the church or community need a table?” they asked.

     By chance, my family and I didn’t have a kitchen table at the time. We were eating in our dining room for all our meals. But I wanted to be able to eat our informal family meals in our kitchen so that we could look out onto our deck and watch the birds and other wildlife in our backyard as we ate. Like Harriet, I am an animal lover.

     I asked about the table. Next thing I knew, I was visiting Harriet’s home and loading up my sedan with wooden chairs, cat pillows, and, of all things, a working fan in the shape of a cat! It still works! We went back later with our SUV and my young adult son, Jacob, to help move the table and small, matching hutch, just the right size for our space.

     I was so happy and grateful for the generosity of Harriet and her family! I still am, every time I see their gift. They told me, when I said this, that Harriet was happy knowing that the new pastor of the church that she loved wanted her table, where she had enjoyed countless meals with her husband and other family and friends over the years. This was even before I met Harriet, for she had already moved into a senior care home.

     After Harold went home to the Lord in 2021, Harriet wanted to continue to live in their home, where perhaps they had lived since their marriage in 1980. But as her health became increasingly fragile, there came a time when she was no longer able to live on her own, even with caregivers coming to help during the day.

     Later, I visited Harriet at the senior living community with June Auer, a longtime friend of Harriet’s from the church. And when I saw the cats on her bedspread, and the many cat knick-knacks and other decorations in her room, I felt like I had already known her for a while. She told me about her last cat and I think she showed me a photo. She missed him, but knew he was doing well in Michigan with her grandson, Kevin. Her cat’s name was Banjo, named for the instrument that Harold played. Patty, Kevin’s mom, tells me that Banjo, a handsome, well-cared for cat, lived to be 21 years old before he passed in January of this year.

     The day that I visited, I learned about Harriet’s love for music, and her amazing gift as a pianist! She talked about playing piano at the senior community where she lived. She even had people singing with her. I am sure it brought back happy memories of Harold, maybe even helped her feel as if Harold was still with her. For the two of them, he with his banjo, used to travel to bring the joy of their music to senior care homes, much like the one where she had just gone to live.

     Harold and Harriet called themselves the “Ivory Strings,” and played not only for nursing homes and family gatherings, but for their church, for parties, and at restaurants. Their material ranged from hymns, such as “How Great Thou Art,” to Dixieland/folk/Americana tunes, such as “O Susanna” and the song, “Secondhand Rose,” written in 1921 for Fanny Brice.

    Her family shared that Harriet had been playing since she taught herself songs on a miniature piano when she was 4. Her parents bought her a full-size piano when she was 10, and she could play just about any song that she heard. She knew the words to 100s of songs!

     Just before she moved to Michigan, June and I visited, again. I hugged her and said a prayer of blessing. I told her, once again, that I was grateful for her gift of the table and chairs and the beautiful matching hutch, just the right size, where I keep my grandmother’s dishes. I showed her photos of my kitchen, with my own orange cat, Liam, naughtily posing on the table, and she smiled. She was sad to leave her church and her friends, and was anxious about the move, but she had had more struggles with her health. She needed more care than the senior living community on Long Island could provide.

    Off she went to Michigan with Patty, about 2 and a half years ago, to a new senior living community with more skilled nursing care and eventually was moved to a memory care unit. The piano that her parents had bought her when she was 10 went with her to Michigan!

    I don’t know if Harriet remembered us as her memory loss progressed. But I am here to assure all who are gathered that Harriet’s church never forgot her. She has remained on our mailing list for our newsletter, One Body, One Spirit: Connecting the Faithful, along with my weekly messages, posted at my blog. We sent her birthday cards and Christmas cards.She has remained on our prayer list.  And whenever there have been updates from Patty that information was shared during our joys and concerns during worship.

     Today, after our service here at Smithtown Cemetery comes to a close, the ladies of the church, led by June, will host a lunch in her honor for her family and church family. It will be a time of sharing food and table fellowship and loving memories of Harriet.

     To be honest, a day didn’t pass that I didn’t think of her—and I’ll tell you why. It wasn’t just because her name was on our prayer list. I had her table, chairs, hutch and cat-shaped fan in my kitchen to remind me daily of the generosity of my faithful, cat-loving, musical friend.

       This is what we believe. With Harriet going home to be in our Lord’s embrace, she has joined with all the saints in the Great Cloud of Witnesses that is now cheering us on as we try to persevere and run the race of faith. This is in a day and age when fewer people feel a strong connection with church and the Triune God of our faith, so it truly is a challenge for we Presbyterians, who have always been seen by the world as a peculiar people. I believe Harriet and Harold, with their unique personalities and gifts, fit right in with us at the little, historic white church over yonder with the clock tower and bell ringing on every hour. Now, though she is no longer physically present, she is more connected with the church that she loved more than ever before. Harriet joined the congregation in 1972 and became ordained and served as a deacon beginning in 1982. She is spiritually present with us now and every time we celebrate Communion at The Lord’s Table and partake of the bread and cup.

   Today, we will comfort one another with the words of David the shepherd boy to Psalm 23 in the King James, especially when we say this part with gratitude for our blessings:

“My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

The one thing that makes me sad is that we have no one to play music or sing on this day as we give thanks to God for the precious gift of Harriet’s life and lay her to rest beside Harold. If I were to choose a song to sing here at the grave, I would choose, “How Great Thou Art.” Coincidentally, I just learned from Patty a couple of days ago that this was one of her favorite hymns.

The original text to “How Great Thou Art” came from a poem by a Swedish preacher named Carl Boberg. He was inspired to write the words after experiencing the presence of the Lord while visiting a beautiful country estate on the southeast coast of Sweden.


Boberg said of the experience,

It was that time of year when everything seemed to be in its richest colouring; the birds were singing in (the) trees and everywhere. It was very warm; a thunderstorm appeared on the horizon and soon there was thunder and lightning. We had to hurry to shelter. But the storm was soon over, and the clear sky appeared. When I came home, I opened my window toward the sea. There evidently had been a funeral, and the bells were playing the tune of “When eternity’s clock calls my saved soul to its Sabbath rest.”

 That evening, he wrote the song, “O Store Gud,” or “O Great God,” published a few years later in 1886. The poem would be matched with an old Swedish folk tune and sung in public for the first-known occasion in a church in the Swedish province of Värmland in 1888.

Here is a literal translation of the hymn’s first verse and refrain:

O great God, when I behold that world

You have created with your omnipotent word,

How your wisdom guides the threads of life,

And all beings are fed at your table:

Refrain:

Then my soul bursts forth into praise:

O great God, O great God!

Then my soul bursts forth into praise:

O great God, O great God!

You and I, we look forward to our glad reunion with Harriet and Harold and all the saints, when Jesus returns in glory for His Church or when we join our family and friends who have gone before us to eat from a seat at Christ’s banquet table in the world to come. But if we pause a moment right now and listen with the ears of our hearts, with our soul bursting forth into God’s praise, we can feel the presence of our loved ones with us, here in this place, in the song of the birds and the whisper of a breeze. Harriet and Harold and all our loved ones will remain present with us as long as we hold tightly to our memories and keep on sharing their stories.

 As an old Irish saying goes:

Those we love don’t go away.

They walk beside us every day.

 Unseen, unheard, but always near.

Still loved. Sill missed and very dear.

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal.

Love leaves a memory no one can steal.

Amen.

Being Made Useful to the Lord

Meditation on Philemon

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

Sept. 7, 2025

 My mom and I just returned from our cruise, traveling from Norway to The Netherlands. It was amazing at times, especially when we were in the little village of Flam, and we had breathtaking views of the fjords.

We began our journey in Oslo, arriving after an overnight flight from JFK. Oslo is Norway’s capital and largest city, founded at the end of the Viking age in 1040 A.D. first as Anslo. Fire destroyed the city, built from logs, more than a dozen times. After burning down in 1624 during the reign of King Christian IV, a new city was built of stone, with the help of Danish masons. The new city was relocated closer to the fortress and re-named for its king—Christiana. In 1925, it became “Oslo,” a Norwegian word that might mean meadow at the foot of a hill or meadow consecrated to the gods or both.

We had two different bus and walking tours of the city with two different guides—first before the cruise and as a stop in a port along the way during the cruise. Our female guide, whose name I don’t recall, was a retired teacher who went with us to the Ski Museum and Tower, where the world’s oldest skis (thousands of years old!) are on display.

Then we went to the Vigeland Sculpture Park with 200 sculptures of bronze, granite, and cast iron, inside Frogner Park. The park was still beautiful, though it was pouring rain.

Our guide Roger, a teacher in an international school on a gap year, led us to the grounds at the king’s palace. We could walk right up to the gate and have our pictures taken with the guard! He pointed out the Munch museum and the building where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. We admired the architecture of the library and the new opera house. He took us to a scenic overlook, where we could view a new line of 12 tall buildings, each with distinctive architecture, between Central Station and the waterfront called the “bar code.” He pointed out floating salt spas at the waterfront that encourage people in winter to heat up in saunas, then jump in frigid water.

Then we went to a maritime museum, where we saw a man building a replica of a wooden Viking boat. Turns out, Vikings traveled all over the world with these tiny and medium sized wooden boats. New Viking settlements, from the 8th century to the 11th century when the Viking Age ended, are still being discovered and excavated.

What was unexpected to me about the Viking cruise was how they attempted to re-educate us on the Vikings and dispel myths and stereotypes (such as the horns on a Viking helmet. Vikings never had horns on their helmets!) They attempted to rehabilitate their unsavory reputation.

As our guide, Roger, said, matter-of-factly, “Yes, there was the pillaging.”  Chieftains led raids for gold, silver, and other valuables from monasteries and churches. They ransacked Medieval villages. They captured people and sold them as slaves and kept them as wives and concubines. But then they gradually turned their focus to trade—not just food staples, such as grain and dried cod, but luxury items such as textiles, pottery, silks, spices, reindeer antler combs, walrus ivory, and jewelry. They built settlements on shores and became integrated into communities.

We are looking at one of my favorite of Paul’s letters in Scripture—the letter to Philemon. Paul, too, is attempting not only to rehabilitate the unsavory reputation of a runaway slave, but to reconcile a man with his community of faith and two siblings in Christ with each other.

Philemon lived in Colossae, in an area that is now Turkey, roughly a hundred miles inland from Ephesus, also in what is Turkey. The letter to the Colossians was being sent there at the same time as this letter. Philemon had become a Christian after hearing Paul preach.

“Paul had been thrilled with the way Philemon, a man of some means and influence, had responded to the gospel. It had gripped his heart and made him a man of love and generosity. He and his wife, Apphia, and their son, Archippus, had joined Paul in the work of the gospel. They had gone home to Colossae and made their home a place of love and hospitality, where the handful of Christians in the area had begun to meet.”[1]

Philemon, like every other person of wealth and substance in the biblical world, owned slaves. Scholar N.T. Wright says, “To them, this was a natural as owning a car or a television is for people in the Western world today. Indeed, most people would wonder how you could get on without them.”[2] One of Philemon’s slaves had run away, which was a capital offence. Worse, the slave may have taken some money to help him while he was on the run. He had gone to the nearest city—Ephesus—and perhaps when the money ran out, he had met Paul.

 The slave’s name was Onesimus (Own-ee-si-mus). The Greek name means “useful.” Paul is playing with words when he says, “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.” In gratitude to Paul for telling him about Jesus and his love, “he had started to look after Paul in prison, to attend to his needs with a devotion”[3] that he may not have shown to his master. “He and Paul had become friends, brothers in the Lord Jesus, close partners in the gospel.”[4]

I read this letter with mixed feelings. Something in me questions why Paul would send a runaway slave who had accepted the faith and was partnering with him in ministry, caring for him in his time of need, back to his owner. Onesimus may be punished, though his master Philemon is a Christian, because he has broken the law! This week I had a new thought.  What if Onesimus wants to go home to his family and his faith community? What if he is tired of living as an outlaw? Now that he has accepted Christ’s forgiveness and the new life that Christ offers those who believe, what if he wants to be forgiven, reconciled, and restored to right relationship with the people whom he loves? Maybe whatever caused him to run away doesn’t seem like such a terrible offense anymore, not after all he has seen and experienced in the real world and all that he has learned from watching Paul suffer in jail. Maybe he who has received Christ’s forgiveness wants to extend that forgiveness to those who have hurt him.

And what if Paul worries that he may die in prison, for many people did perish in prison, and he wants to be sure that Onesimus is safely returned to his family and Christian community?

I can’t help but think, though, that when he asks Philemon, near the end of his letter, to prepare a guest room for him, he writes as much to encourage Onesimus that they will be together again, as it is to stir Philemon to hope for Paul’s release and remind him of his need for the church’s prayers.

And what of Paul’s promise to pay Philemon whatever Onesimus owes? Wright says that this is a reminder to Philemon of what he owes Paul—his very life! Paul, probably in his 40s or 50s at the time of this writing, “will stand in the place of risk and pain, with arms outstretched towards the slave and his owner…He will close the gap not just between Philemon and Onesimus but between the two sides of the great divide,” Wright says, “that ran through, and in some places still runs through, the life of the world.” This is what Paul is trying to communicate in 2 Corinthians when he says that he has been “entrusted with the gospel of reconciliation.” Like us, Paul is seeking to put his faith into practice and discover what the cross means for our daily lives!

The phrase that touches me the most is when Paul says that he is making his appeal on the basis of love. On the basis of love. As I come to the end of my message today, on this day when we mark the World Day of Prayer for Creation, I urge you to consider the broken relationships in your life. We all have broken relationships in our families and our communities, but also we have broken relationships with the earth. Here on Long Island, we are frustrated with the deer and rabbits eating our trees, shrubs, and gardens. In Flam, where herds of reindeer graze, villagers plant grass and wildflowers on the rocky landscape, so that the animals have food to eat.

I can’t help but marvel at how Norway and The Netherlands are making use of green energy. They are tapping into the power of wind and water; the people are walking and bicycling more and using trains and buses that run on electricity. Gas stations are being converted to battery charging stations because if and when they drive, they are driving electric cars.

At the same time, Norway and The Netherlands and much of Europe these days is secular. Churches are empty or are being used for secular purposes—as libraries, coffee houses, stores, museums, and such. The people, more and more, refuse to identify with any religion at all. Yet they have this strong connection and concern with the earth.

And we, who believe that God made us and all Creation, in this country, don’t necessarily connect our Christian faith with our need to care for and be concerned about the health of our water, soil, forests, animals, and air.

So, what I am trying to say today is that those who are seeking to follow Christ therefore must also accept the great responsibility of which the apostle Paul spoke. We are entrusted with the gospel of reconciliation—reconciliation between God and human beings, reconciliation between human beings with one another, and reconciliation between humanity and all Creation.

What can just one person do, you ask? The problem of brokenness is so big. It’s overwhelming, at times, when I think about it. And then I remember Paul writing this letter to Philemon, seeking to restore what was broken between not just a master and slave but two people now on equal footing and value in the Church—those who have been made siblings by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Though I can’t say for sure, I have to think that if Paul’s letter is included in our Holy Scripture, Onesimus must have gone home to his master and family of faith and experienced welcome and grace. Why else would it be in our Bibles? This letter stirs me to consider how many people over the years have been inspired by the story of Onesimus—those who went astray, but then bravely came home? I believe that many broken relationships, because of the letter to Philemon, were made whole!

This is my hope for my flock. May each of us be open to the Spirit of transformation and be empowered to be instruments of Christ’s peace and healing. May we who have received Christ’s forgiveness learn to graciously extend that forgiveness to others. May we, like Onesimus, be made truly useful to the gospel mission.

I appeal to you, my sisters and brothers, on the basis of love.

Let us pray. Holy One, we give you thanks for this world of natural beauty that we enjoy—that feeds us and sustains our lives. Thank you for the way that you provide for all our needs through the abundant bounty of the land and those who labor in the soil. Forgive us, Lord, when we have forgotten our dependence on your wonderful world and taken for granted that natural resources will always be abundant, without our need to change our consuming habits. Stir our hearts, Lord, to embrace the call to be reconcilers, like the apostle Paul, and be made truly useful to the gospel mission, like Onesimus. May your Spirit empower us to be instruments of Christ’s healing and peace. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

     [1] N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters (KY: Westminster John Knox, enlarged print edition, 2015), 198-199.

     [2] Wright, Paul, the Prison Letters, 199.

     [3] Wright, Paul, the Prison Letters, 199-200.

     [4] Wright, 200.

Run the Race of Faith!

Meditation on Hebrews 11:29-12:2

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Reverence Dr. Karen Crawford

Aug. 17, 2025

Any golf fans in here? Any golfers? I admit that I don’t know much about the sport. I have never played golf before. Well, only miniature golf.

My husband persuaded me to watch a new American sports comedy TV series called, “Stick.” It is and it isn’t really about golf. It’s about the things that cause us to stumble when all that seems to matter is winning and being rich and famous. It’s about the struggle of relationships, the ups and the downs. It’s about grief and loss and forgiveness and how to rise up from the ashes when you have crashed and burned. It’s about having hope and faith to endure—till the end.

It stars Owen Wilson as Pryce Cahill, a former professional golfer who is now a golf club salesman and coach. His wife, though she loves him, left him because he started drinking heavily and doing drugs and could no longer work as a professional golfer. You find out later that what stirred him to fall into this deep depression, drinking, and drugs, is that their 4-year-old son died of cancer. He can’t move beyond his grief. He loses the will to really live.

But one day, when Owen is coaching a beginner, he hears what sounds like a professional player swinging and striking balls nearby. He discovers a teenage boy with surprising skill and accuracy. Something stirs in him, when he hasn’t cared about anything for a long time. He approaches the young man, Santi Wheeler, who at first refuses to talk to him and leaves quickly. Turns out, he was there illegally. He works at a grocery store and has been chased off the course before.

Santi had quit playing golf after his father left his mother. You find out that it’s because the young boy, frustrated with his father’s criticism and obsession with Santi being the best, says he doesn’t want to play golf anymore. Santi’s mother, Elena, is still hurt and angry at her husband for leaving them. She is smart, hardworking, and ambitious, but no one in the business world will take her seriously. She manages a small store that sells, of all things, helium party balloons. Then there’s Owen’s best friend, Mitts, his former caddy, who is disgusted with Owen’s bad behavior, including compulsive lying. But Mitts is stuck in his life because he is grieving the loss of his wife. His depression comes out as anger and grouchiness.

All four characters (and another one you will find out about if you watch the series) end up going on the road together, taking Santi on a golf tour in Mitts’ RV that he bought for his wife and him to travel around the country in their retirement—a dream that was never realized.

Along this journey, Santi shows great promise. But his personal struggles and unwillingness to trust Owen after he catches him in a big lie, hold him back. All the characters begin to change from their experiences and as they learn more about each other on the road with Santi. The energy and excitement that Santi’s gift gives them carries them a long distance. But that’s not what takes them to the end. It’s their enduring hope in one another and in the promise of a brighter future. The story, though not overtly religious, is about redemption.

The writer of Hebrews uses the metaphor of a professional athlete running a race when he encourages his persecuted congregation of fledgling Christians to persevere in faith. Run like all the faithful ones in Scripture who, though they are imperfect, are models for us.

Look at this intriguing list of faithful but imperfect people, which begins with the Israelites, who didn’t trust Moses, constantly complained, and weren’t sure that God was still with them in the wilderness. Notice that this list includes both men and women! The author of Hebrews, much like Paul, applauds the gifts of women, when he lists Rahab second, emphasizing that she was a prostitute.

Another one on this long list includes David, whose character was so flawed, I can’t begin to tell you everything he did wrong, all the terrible sins he committed. And yet he was the shepherd boy chosen by God to defeat Goliath and become king, leading Israel as a man “after God’s own heart.”

We serve a gracious God, dear friends! We never have to be afraid to ask the Lord for forgiveness. We can count on God’s mercy. We can trust in God’s love. It almost seems like the Lord specifically chooses flawed people (and the Bible isn’t shy about telling us their flaws!) to accomplish God’s bigger plan to reconcile human beings with God and one another. The Lord chooses people who are going to stumble and fall and, importantly, get up, once more.

All these people, the author of Hebrews insists, are still with us now in the Great Cloud of Witnesses, cheering us on as we keep running what seems sometimes like an endless marathon. This isn’t a sprint! As we run this race, we hold onto the vision of the One who gave his life for us. We covet the image of the finish line, the end, when we will meet the One who “disregarded” the shame of the cross “for the sake of the joy that was set before him.” This joy for Christ is completing the work of our salvation—making peace with God through his own sacrifice.

Today, we have the joy of welcoming new members into our fold: Susan and Bob Buroker. After being invited by one of our families to come to worship, they discerned a call to minister with us, to become part of our family of faith, though we were already brothers and sisters in Christ. The amazing thing to me is how God continues to use us and grow us, though we are flawed like the characters in “Stick.” Sometimes, we can hit a hole in one with our ministry! Other times, it may seem like we just keeping swinging and swinging and missing or hitting the ball into a sand trap. How am I doing with my golf talk? We are Presbyterians, so we don’t make changes without careful deliberation, consideration, and agonizing over details. Am I right? We like everything to be decent and in order. And we like to work in committees, which sometimes take a while to make decisions!

 In fact, we are just like all the other people of faith who have worshiped God in these pews for 200 years. And like the people of faith in the Bible whose heart was to serve the Lord with their lives but they didn’t always get it right. Still, they were loved by God and used for God’s loving purposes.

We are just like the unknown first congregation inspired by the preaching of this unknown first century author of Hebrews, who wanted to make sure that all the people knew Christ as God’s great high priest. This is the only place in the Bible where you will find this imagery of Christ as high priest. And that because of “Christ’s priesthood, followers of Christ have access to God’s mercy and grace.”[1]

Another thing unique to Hebrews is that Jesus is the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Christ is the source or originator! Christ, whose faith is perfect, has perfected our faith through his priesthood. So we don’t need to pick ourselves by our bootstraps. Trying harder isn’t always the answer. But persevering always is. We ask and trust the Lord to show us God’s will and lead us on. Just think! Even when our faith is flawed or lacking, in Christ, our faith is made perfect.

One thing that stands out to me in this first season of “Stick” is when Santi can’t move beyond his mistakes. I think we all get stuck sometimes. It’s as hard to forgive ourselves as it is to forgive others, sometimes harder. He lets the memory of his failures haunt him and hold him back from being his best self for the rest of the course. Owen gives him advice. He tells him that when he makes mistakes and starts to lose his focus, he always sings Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia.” And that lifts him up.

Santi, when later interviewed about how he keeps going when things go sideways, he tells them that HE sings, “Cecilia,” though he doesn’t really know the song. This will come back later when Santi is struggling on the course. He’s stuck. One by one, starting with the girl who has fallen in love with him, his fans begin to sing in increasing volume,

“Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart.

You’re shaking my confidence daily.

Oh Cecilia, I’m down on my knees,

begging you please to come home.

To come home.”

It’s the Great Cloud of Witnesses cheering him on!

Santi moves beyond the mistakes of the past and goes on to be his best, albeit imperfect self.

Susan and Bob, we thank God that you are willing to run alongside us and all the Great Cloud of Witnesses—the faithful in every time and place. We are excited about your spiritual gifts and hearts to serve. We look forward to getting to know you better, hearing your ideas, and learning from you. We promise to love and support you through our prayers and kindness.

Dear flock, may we never be discouraged through all our ups and downs. This is how it is on this lap of the race. Difficult! May our Savior comfort and strengthen us in times of trial, and in times of grief and loss, and lead us to forgive ourselves and others quickly, never allowing past mistakes to slow us down or make us stumble and fall.

May the Lord lift us up from the ashes if we crash and burn. Our God of second chances. No, third!

May God grant us the kind of hope and faith that endures—till the end.

Let us pray.

Loving God, thank you for all the faithful examples in Hebrews of those who are now in the Great Cloud of Witnesses, cheering us on as we run, each day, the race of faith. Thank you for your mercy and grace—for forgiving us for our past mistakes and helping us to overcome every hurdle. Lift us up, dear Lord, if we stumble and fall. Keep us focused on the promises in your Word and the One who died, but then was risen by you and glorified, so that our faith may be perfected in him. Help us who are imperfect to show love, mercy, and grace to one another so others may come to know our hope for eternity in your Son, through whom we pray. Amen.

     [1] Paul Hooker, Connections: A Lectionary and Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year C Vol. 3 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2019), 242-243.

Faith: Conviction of Things Not Seen

Meditation on Luke 12: 32-34 and Hebrews 11:1–3, 8–16

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

Aug. 10, 2025

Stushie art, with permission

My healing journey continued this week.

I am feeling better than I did a week ago and certainly better than two weeks ago, when I first hurt my back cleaning up my yard. Several of my gardening friends since then admitted that they, too, would have simply moved the heavy branch without thinking anything about it. It’s what we do!

Other people have encouraged me with their own stories of hurt backs and the ups and downs of their healing journeys.

What has been getting me down lately is just how much work and time it takes, not to mention expense, to recover from such an injury. This past week, I had doctor appointments and medical tests and treatments every single day.

On Friday morning, as I prepared to go to yet another visit to the chiropractor, I said to myself, I am done after this week. I am taking a break from all this medical stuff. Next week, I am taking my life back!

So here I am, on Friday, sitting with deep heat and electrical nerve stimulation on my lower back, waiting to see Dr. Amanda. I watch as she cares for two other patients ahead of me. One is a man with CP who arrives in a motorized scooter, plops down in a chair beside me, and relies heavily on his crutches to get to the treatment table. The other is a woman who struggles, after her session, with one hand to put her long brown hair in a ponytail. She is unable to lift the other hand past her shoulder. Dr. Amanda offers to help. The woman smiles and says thank you.

Afterward, the woman walks over to me and sits down in the chair vacated by the man with CP. “Hi, I’m Ruth,” she says. “You know, like the story of Ruth and Naomi in the Bible.”

I nod and say, “I’m Karen.”

She tells me about her illness as tears well up in her eyes. She was paralyzed four years. She spent many days in Stony Brook Hospital. She has MS. The disease also affects her eyes.  She thanks God that she is able to walk again. “He is the One who healed me,” she said. “He is the One.”

Then, one day not too long ago, a friend was driving her to an appointment. A driver crashed into their stopped car from behind. Ruth sustained injuries to her spine. It was a disappointment, a setback. But she had faith that God would help her. She has hope, even now, that God helps her every day.

I thanked her for sharing her story with me and before I could say anything more, Dr. Amanda called me to the table. Later on, I thought more about Ruth’s testimony and I felt convicted of having so little faith for my own healing. And I thought about how the Bible is full of people with faith and even more with doubts and fears.

Take the disciples, for example, those who woke him up in Luke chapter 8, when he was curled up in the back of their boat, having a good sleep through a violent storm. They asked him if he cared that they were perishing? After he calmed the storm with a word, he asked them, “Where is your faith?” The terrified and amazed disciples looked at one another and asked, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?”

“Where is your faith?” I could hear Jesus asking me on Friday. And I couldn’t think of what to say.

The unknown author of the letter to the Hebrews has a lot to say about faith, though not quite as much as Paul, who uses the Greek word for faith or trust—pistis—35 times in the letter to the Romans alone. Pistis has an interesting history, my friends. It predates the New Testament and has a kind of “checkered past,” one scholar says, “in the culture of the early church. In Greek mythology, Pistis is one of the spirits who escaped Pandora’s box and fled back to heaven, abandoning humanity. In Luke’s gospel… when Jesus wonders, ‘Will the Son of Man find faith on earth?’ (Luke 18:8), he was speaking to a Hellenistic culture that believed the spirit of Pistis had already left.”[1]

For the disciples to understand and embrace this new idea about faith and trust and cling to it with all their might, they are forced to throw away what they thought and believed about pistis from their own myths and life experiences.  And they and we are encouraged to open our hearts and minds to learn from Hebrews the multifaceted reality of faith, with all its strangeness. Let us dig a little deeper.

To the author of Hebrews, faith is not a doctrine or statement of belief. It is not easy to describe, but it is something that is lived out by God’s people every day. Without it, as we find out in a verse that is omitted from the lectionary reading (11:6), it is impossible to be pleasing to God. At the beginning of chapter 11, the author ties faith with HOPE. Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for.” We cannot have faith without HOPE. This means that we are hoping for things that we don’t yet have or haven’t yet come into being.

We hope for, say, peace on earth and the end of all wars and violence. Do we live in a world where there is peace and no wars or violence? We don’t live in such a world, not yet, but we hope for these things. More than that, we live into these things that we recognize are characteristic of the Kingdom of God that Christ ushered in. We can be peacemakers and lovers in our families, churches, and communities and do our part to work for peace. We do this because we have hope and faith that someday the risen Christ will return in glory to judge the earth and banish evil from his realm. All will be welcome at His banquet table—followers from east, west, north and south will gather there. There will be no suffering or pain. The lamb of God that takes the sin from the world will wipe away all tears. He will say to his followers, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done.”

Faith at the time of the early church is something that gets them in trouble with their neighbors. Faith provokes hostility and ridicule. Where is this Christ who was crucified and yet has saved you from your sins? The church perseveres and holds onto “the conviction of things not seen.” If you have faith for something, that means you haven’t seen it with your own eyes. There is only the testimony of others—the letters and stories people tell about Christ’s ministry on earth, his miracles and promises, the empty tomb and resurrection appearances, and so forth.

By the time the letter to the Hebrews, written around 64 to 69 A.D. when Christians were being persecuted under the Emperor Nero, which began after the Great Fire of Rome, very few of Christ’s followers had actually met Jesus face to face. They are the ones whom Jesus calls blessed in John 20:29, saying to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Those who believe without seeing are blessed.”

After the writer of Hebrews gives definitions for faith, he does as all good teachers do; he provides examples, going back to Creation. “By faith we understand that the world were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible…” In the chunk missing from our reading today, you will find other earlier examples, but we move to Genesis 12, to the call of Abram, who didn’t know where he was going or the timeline for the journey. He heard God’s voice and believed. His new name, Abraham, meant that he was going to be the Father of many nations. Through his family, all the world would be blessed. His descendants would number the stars and grains of sand by the sea. But, in the end, Sarai gave him only one child—Isaac—in their old age. And that was enough for God’s plan, though Abraham and Sarah saw only a glimpse.

The assurance of things hoped for. The conviction of things not seen.

God’s story would continue from generation to generation, and it continues today with us and the Body of Christ in Smithtown, on Long Island, and around the world. The woman that I met at the chiropractor had a strong Spanish accent. If I were to venture a guess, though it makes no difference, I would say she might be Roman Catholic or Pentecostal. She is still my sister, our sister, in Christ. If I hadn’t gone to that particular chiropractor on Friday, I might never have met her. I met never have had the opportunity to hear her testimony and be lifted at a time when I was beginning to lose hope. It was a God thing.

If I hadn’t gone on Friday, I might never have been moved to consider how God’s healing power is still very much alive and well in this place, in Smithtown, in this day and age—and how maybe, just maybe, this is God’s plan for you and me—that we, too, will be healed, on our journeys of faith.

It occurred to me then how it is more difficult to have faith for my own healing than to have faith for someone else’s. This may actually be a problem with many Christians. Why is it so hard for some of us to accept God’s grace, mercy, and blessing, when it’s so much easier to have faith that it’s God’s desire to offer grace, mercy, and blessing to someone else?

This is what I think: deep down, we blame ourselves for our illness or injury, every trial or challenge. We think we must have done something wrong and maybe because it’s all our fault, we deserve it. But that isn’t how God’s love works. We don’t get what we deserve! We are loved unconditionally. No matter what! Each of us has a future, filled with hope.

God who knows us better than we know ourselves knows that we struggle to have faith for our own healing and blessing. That’s just one of the reasons why it is so important for Christians to belong to a church and to actively participate and be in relationship with other Christians. We need other believers, we need our church family, to inspire us with their stories of healing and struggle. We need other people to be the hands and feet of Jesus and to remind us of the One who wasn’t really asleep in the back of the boat, the One who commands the winds and the water, and they obey him.

We need our siblings in Christ to hold us up with their prayers and loving words—when we find ourselves weak and overwhelmed by trials, losses, suffering or grief, when we might hear the Lord inquire of us, like he did the frightened disciples on the Sea of Galilee, “Where is your faith?”

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for your steadfast love and faithfulness to us, to every generation. Thank you for the healing stories in the Bible and of our siblings in Christ that give us hope, and the stories of the faithful. Lord, we can’t see your big plan. We only know the little piece that is today, right here, in our own lives. Help us to wait in hope and persevere in pistis, faith. Help us to not just talk about what we believe but to live it out. Help us to be pleasing to you. Forgive us when we are cranky and full of doubts and complaints, rather than trusting in your wisdom, guidance, and provision. Let us recognize your merciful hand in our lives and show mercy. Thank you for Ruth and the rest of the Body of Christ that surrounds us, within and beyond these church walls, ready to support us with their testimonies, prayer and loving words. In the name of our Savior we pray. Amen.

       [1] David E Gray, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3, ed. by Bartlett and Taylor (KY: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 330.

Too Much Stuff?

Meditation onLuke 12:13-21

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

Aug. 3, 2025

Art by Stushie

We had the pleasure of hosting Daniel Davidsen’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor here in our sanctuary yesterday. Quite a few of our church members attended and helped with the reception that followed.

The ceremony included numerous speakers sharing about his wonderful character, his faith and good works, his polite and respectful nature, his heart to serve, his intelligence, and his hard work and sheer grit that led him to accomplish the Eagle Scout rank, an honor that only about 5% of all Scouts will ever earn.

I spoke of his long involvement with his church, since childhood, when he sang in the children’s choir, sang with Christmas carolers to home- and nursing-home-bound. How he wrapped presents for our Adopt an Angel mission to needy children and helped the Flower Guild decorate the sanctuary with poinsettias on Advent and lilies on Easter.

He takes seriously the commitment he made when he confirmed his faith in 2020, making church a priority in his busy life, even now while he is home on summer break from Dartmouth. He serves frequently as our pulpit assistant, using a strong, clear voice and pleasant expression. As you well know, he doesn’t need a microphone! He is mature, friendly, cheerful, sensitive, and caring. He wiped away tears while sharing about the death of a friend, a fellow Scout. I talked about the beautiful, ambitious prayer garden project which will be a blessing to the church and community for many years to come.

What struck me throughout the moving ceremony was Daniel’s response to all that was being said and the numerous certificates that he received, proclaiming his worthiness of the honor. Daniel was overflowing with gratitude and joy. He smiled and said thank you to each person who congratulated him—and there were many people congratulating. He told the crowd that he appreciated each and every one of them for coming and hoped they would stay for the reception.  He credited his scout leaders for being his mentors, saying that without their support, he would never have stayed in scouting for so many years and would never have finished the requirements for the Eagle Scout rank. He thanked his parents, recognizing how their love and support helped him to become the man he is today.

Daniel made a point to thank me several times by email before the event—for my opening prayer, benediction, and the words that I would say about him and the prayer garden project. He thanked me in person yesterday, just before the service started. And he thanked me again afterward.

Later, it occurred to me that gratitude and the joy that often accompanies the spiritual gift of gratitude are what the two men in today’s passage in Luke lacked. It wasn’t just the man who wanted to build bigger barns to store his abundant crops and never have to work again. It was also the man at the beginning who shouted out the request of the Lord—-to tell his brother to share the family inheritance with him. Neither were grateful or joyful in their situations—not the man who felt cheated out of an inheritance or the man who had more wealth and things than he would ever need. And when he died, what would become of them?

The law specifies in Deuteronomy 21:17 and Numbers 27:1-11 and 36:7-9 that the elder brother receive a double portion of the inheritance. In this case, it seems that the younger brother received no inheritance at all. Jesus surprises the crowd with this parable of the rich man, instead of urging a fair division of the wealth, according to the law. The man wasn’t being unreasonable in his request!

The whole point of the parable is to warn the man who simply wants the inheritance that he is due not to become so focused on the wealth that he becomes like the rich man in the parable, who comes to a bad end. But the rich man’s problem isn’t merely greed. His wealth has led him to live as if there is no God. This is the treasure that he lacks—he is not “rich toward God.”

This is what Jesus is warning the man in the crowd and all of us hearing this Scripture: that our lives should not be focused on the wealth and material stuff of this world. Our lives should not be about accumulating more and more. Because where does that lead? We end up wanting more and more, because wealth and things don’t satisfy. The treasure that we all have is our faith, hope, and joy in the God who guides, fills, and equips us throughout the surprising journey that is our lives. And our treasure is our love for God and one another.

Daniel’s Court of Honor yesterday was a special celebration for not just Daniel and his family, but our entire church family. You could feel the love in this room. Friends, it truly takes a village to raise up our children in the Lord.

I received an envelope in the mail this week from Linda Cherney. Inside were belated birthday wishes, which I was happy to receive, especially because I was having a hard day. Actually, I was having a rough week. You see, I hurt my back just before we were going to go on vacation. I tried to pick up a fallen branch in our yard that was too heavy for me. So instead of enjoying the Finger Lakes, I was going to doctors, having scans, and taking medications that I don’t normally need. And I was in pain and frustrated.

Inside the envelope with Linda’s card was another envelope with two handmade cards from her grandsons, Roman and Bronx, revealing their budding faith and comfort and connection with their church and pastor. Roman wrote in pencil, “Dear Pastor Keran” and then “Happy Birthday” on a glowing cross, rays of light emanating from the beams. He signed his card at the bottom, “Love, Roman.” Bronx’s card made me laugh out loud. He drew a church pew with brown magic marker. Sitting side by side on the pew were Roman and Bronx, with their grandmother with yellow pants and a pink shirt in between. Their arms were extended straight out as if they were holding hands, without touching. They each had wide smiles on their faces. Above the pew with Roman, Bronx, and Nana, was a small, smiling figure without legs floating in the air. He had drawn his pastor—me—up in the pulpit!

I was filled with such gratitude and joy that I forgot my pain and frustration for a bit. I could just imagine them sitting at home taking the time to think about me and the church that they love and miss, because Linda has had a long recovery from a fall last May and the family has been unable to attend.

Their cards confirmed to me that we are, dear friends, building treasure in heaven here at First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown and in our homes and families. With the Spirit of Christ empowering and leading us, and God’s word guiding us, we are touching hearts and lives.

Don’t let yourself be discouraged by the difficulties in this world. You and me—with our hope and faith—we are making a difference!

Will you pray with me? Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for the blessing of children and youth and our calling to nurture their faith and reveal your love. We pray that your Spirit will be with Roman and Bronx and all the children of our church who are home or traveling this summer. Help their families as they seek to be faithful to your call on their lives. Lord, give us your gratitude and joy. Keep us from wanting more and more and accumulating more and more, often with the fear that we might not, someday, have enough. Thank you for the reminder of the treasure that we have in you, a treasure that is everlasting and imperishable, a treasure not of this world, a treasure that must be shared with others. In Christ we pray. Amen.

For Daniel Davidsen’s Eagle Scout Honor Court

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Rev. Dr. Karen Crawford

Aug. 2, 2025

It is rare for a pastor to meet in her congregation a young man who possesses the gifts and talents of Daniel Davidsen. It is rarer still to meet a young man whose heart is for serving God and neighbor.

Daniel grew up in our congregation. He sang in our children’s choir and with our Christmas carolers to bring joy to homebound members. He helped wrap presents for needy children in our annual Adopt-an-Angel mission and decorated the church for Advent during our mission-focused Sunday that we call Preparing the Presence.  He has assisted the Flower Guild with arranging poinsettias and lilies in the sanctuary, a job where his height comes in handy.

My first encounter with Daniel was when he came to my first worship and congregational meeting in March 2022. He was smartly dressed in a suit, listening intently to the message, ready to welcome his new pastor, and listening for a word from the Lord for his life. He takes seriously the commitments he made when he confirmed his faith in 2020, making church a priority in his busy life, even now while he is home on summer break from Dartmouth. He serves frequently as our pulpit assistant, using a strong, clear voice and pleasant expression. He doesn’t need a microphone! He is mature, friendly, polite, cheerful, sensitive, and caring. He wiped away tears while sharing about the death of a friend, a fellow Scout.

What I noticed right away about Daniel is that he is always willing to help. When asked, he says yes and does his best, never doing anything halfway. He has cheerfully attended many church and manse Saturday workdays, without complaint. His most recent service for the church and his Eagle project is a prayer garden, built and maintained with the help of family, friends, some Scouts, and the church.

When he approached the Trustees and me about the garden, I couldn’t believe he had come up with this idea without talking with me first, because at the same time I was beginning my doctoral project, which coincidentally, if you believe in coincidences, was about the spirituality of Presbyterians who garden. The plot of ground that was fertile for his garden was an overgrown, weedy kitchen garden that had been neglected for a while.  

But there was extensive sitework that had to be done before the garden could be dug and planted—new fencing, new pavers and poured cement walkway. The rusty iron rail needed a fresh coat of black paint.

What you will see when you visit the space is that it isn’t an ordinary place for a prayer garden. If you sit on the circular iron bench, you will see and hear traffic lined up and passing through the busiest intersection in Smithtown at most times of the day and probably into the night. In this way, the beautiful garden, filled with perennial flowers, shrubs, and ornamental grasses, as well as a birdbath to attract pollinators, is a witness to our community of our love for our Creator God and our spiritual and physical connection to the soil. It is a place of rest and welcome for all visitors and weary passersby, and not just members of our flock. Though it is rarely quiet there, it is a comfortable, inviting place where people can come and talk with God, find peace, and discover the will of the Spirit for their lives.

The congregation, along with some Scouts, dedicated the prayer garden on Aug. 25 with an outdoor worship service. This provided us with yet another opportunity for this somewhat shy group of Presbyterians to shine our light and reach out to the folks driving through the intersection or stuck in traffic with the love, joy, and peace of Christ.

Thank you, Daniel, for your gift to your church and wider community, for the sake of the Lord and God’s children. This is a gift that will keep on giving because gardens, like all living creatures, never stay the same. They will always need our tending, visiting, and appreciating. They grow and change every day and are vulnerable and exposed, like we are, to whatever is happening in the world. May we, also, grow and change every day as we cast our cares on the Spirit that lives in the garden. This same Spirit lives in our hearts and will transform us as God’s people, more and more, for many years to come. Amen.

Who Is My Neighbor?

Meditation on Luke 10:25-37

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

July 13, 2025

Something caught my eye in the grass after filling my birdfeeders the other day. Something moved—gave a little jump but didn’t go far.

I assumed it would be one of the bold chipmunks or squirrels, anxious to be the first creature to reach the sunflower and safflower seeds or, the favorite in all seasons—the block of suet hanging from a shepherd’s crook.

And then I saw a swarm of green flies around the creature, and I thought, “Uh oh. Something’s wrong.”

I cautiously drew closer to a lump of black feathers belonging to a baby bird. I saw the red on its belly and realized that it was a robin, too young to leave its nest. I bent down to examine it without touching it and the creature let out a frightened, “Peep! Peep!”

This stirred the memory of a baby robin that dropped to my lawn last year after it was stolen from a nest by a grackle, who was mobbed by other birds. I tried and failed to protect that robin in the grass. It was eventually retaken by the grackle who returned for its prey.

The thought of a baby bird dying on my watch on Thursday, in my yard, just didn’t sit right with me. Human beings are not natural friends of wild birds, even those of us who try to be kind to them. They are wise to be frightened and shy around us. Many more die from injuries by vehicles, pet cats on the loose, and through the loss of habitat due to human activity, including pesticides and fertilizers poisoning their water and food sources, rather than being gobbled up by hungry birds.

I pulled on rubber gloves and, when I gently picked up the bird to lay it in a box, it immediately opened wide its beak in hunger, hoping that I was its parent. I drove with the box next to me on the front seat and the creature peep peeping all the way to Sweetbriar Nature Center.

The rehabber met me at the front desk, quickly examined the robin and said that it looked like it had been pecked. It was missing an eye and had fly eggs under its wings. “I will take it,” she said, and I murmured my thanks as she walked behind a door where I couldn’t follow.

I told the receptionist, then, how our church is a big supporter of the center through our programs, donations, and volunteers. I did a little name dropping. “Peg Holthusen is one of our members,” I said. “She volunteered at Sweetbriar for years.” Marie Smith, the executive director, always remembers her in the letters that we receive thanking us for our donations.

I reached in my wallet and left some money with my business card. It wasn’t a lot. It was all the cash I had with me. I thought about all the supplies that Sweetbriar uses for every injured wild animal’s care. That donation wasn’t going to go far.

But the receptionist smiled widely and told me that I could call to check on the baby bird in a few days. I left the center praying that the bird would live.  

An expert in the law approaches Jesus in our gospel lesson in Luke today, seeking affirmation for the life that he is already leading. I heard once that a lawyer never asks a question in court that he doesn’t already know the answer to and has prepared her or his response. Do we have experts in the law here? Is that correct?

 When the expert asks Jesus the kind of life that he should live as a faithful Jew, so that he may earn his reward and “inherit eternal life,” he already knows the answer is to follow the 10 Commandments, the sum of which is his answer to Jesus’s question, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” This answer comes right out of the Torah: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18.

 But when the law expert asks, “And who is my neighbor?” he is ready for Jesus to say that the neighbor he is commanded to love lives in his community—they share the same faith, history, culture, food, and language, common ancestry, way of life, and geography.

The story Jesus tells refutes this assumption and challenges us to see beyond the circle of people we know and love and feel comfortable with. It challenges us to become more aware of the moments when we fail to love a neighbor, near or far, and ask the Holy Spirit for help.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish New Testament scholar, provides wisdom for us who seek to live faithfully today. “The Good Samaritan has been appropriated by politicians and economists, hospitals and cafes,”[1] she says. “Its meaning has been reduced and romanticized to ‘if somebody is having a problem on the side of the road, stop and help.’ But parables are never simple,” and should be taken in their historical context.

“The New Testament’s treatment of lawyers usually is not complimentary… and this instance is no different. The lawyer addresses Jesus as ‘teacher,’ which does not fully encompass who Jesus’ followers believed he was. Not only does the lawyer already know the answer to his question, Levine said, but his question is a bad one. In addition, the lawyer is out to tempt Jesus — the verbs for ‘test’ and ‘tempt’ are the same. In essence, Levine said, the lawyer is in the same role as Satan was when he tempted Jesus in the desert.”[2]

Jesus says the lawyer’s reply to his question is correct. “Do this and you will live,” he says.

“But the lawyer wanted a single action to ensure him eternal life, and Jesus has given him a lifetime of work to do… When the lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?” what he is really asking is, “Who might I hate?”

In Jesus’s time, people walking the roads were vulnerable to being set upon not by Robin Hood like figures, but by “violent gang members.” The real question, Levine says, is “what do we do with a person who’s dying on the side of the road?”[3] The priest and Levite fail to love their neighbor and break the command of the Jewish Mishnah, which says that “even those in the cleanest, most ritually pure states are obligated to stop and attend to the corpse,” if, in fact, the victim was already dead.

“To go from priest to Levite to the fellow who stops, who was a Samaritan, is like going from Larry to Mo to Osama bin Laden,” Levine says. In Jesus’ historical context, Samaritans are the enemy. “It’s unthinkable,” she says, that there would be a so-called good or compassionate Samaritan.

The love of God and neighbor is a sort of compassion or “love that doesn’t require thought. It bypasses the intellect, and it gets us in the gut…You don’t even have to think about it. Your body, your visceral system, forces you to act.”

At the end of the parable, Jesus asks the man who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers. The lawyer can’t bring himself to say the word “Samaritan,” so he says, “The one who showed him mercy.” This same Jesus tells his followers in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that we are called to love our enemies and pray for them.

     Every day, we have opportunities to show grace and mercy—to friends and family and our church family, to people we meet or pass by in our communities, schools, or places of work. The Lord gives us opportunities to witness to God’s love through our acts of compassion.

    I have seen many occasions when our flock is moved to grace and mercy for neighbors near and far. I know that some of you have provided transportation for people to come church or go to the grocery store, or doctor’s appointments. I have watched you share food that you have provided or prepared; eat with someone who is lonely or grieving; bring food for the food pantry; give cookies to a homebound member; or called, visited or written to someone who is sick or injured. I know that you, in your own lives and ministries, are doing even more quietly to help your neighbors in need.

    As Amy-Jill says, we have a lifetime of work to do!

    And every day, we are blessed by the grace and mercy of others. We are blessed so much that we might take these blessings for granted. My prayer is that our eyes are opened to these unexpected acts of mercy and compassion that we receive so that we may be moved to gratitude to God and neighbor.

     And may our hearts and minds be open to opportunities when we may show grace and mercy to others in need, and reveal the mercy of the Lord who says in His Word,

“Do this and you will live.”

Let us pray.

Creator God, open our eyes to your love, mercy, and compassion in this world so that we may be moved to gratitude daily and give you thanks. O Lord, the world is full of creatures sometimes difficult to love, including our own selves, at times. Help us, dear Lord, by the Holy Spirit, to show mercy and compassion to neighbors near and far so that we may truly live and bear witness to the love of your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.

     [1] Emily Perper, “Levine: Good Samaritan parable teaches compassion for the enemy,”

 The Chautauquan Daily, https://chqdaily.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/levine-good-samaritan-parable-teaches-compassion-for-the-enemy/

     [2] Perper, “Levine,” https://chqdaily.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/levine-good-samaritan-parable-teaches-compassion-for-the-enemy/.

     [3] Perper, “Levine..”

“Then I Will Follow You”

Meditation on 1 Kings 19:15–16, 19–21

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

July 6, 2025

Art by Stushie, used with permission

I met a woman named Vickie yesterday, who shared her faith story. I interviewed her as part of my work on the Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry.  She has applied to serve as pulpit supply, offering her gifts and talents to the 60 or so Presbyterian congregations on Long Island.

 She has served as an elder in her Presbyterian church since 2002. She has served on various committees, such as Children and Adult Education, the Cemetery Committee, Building and Grounds, and Community Outreach. She has had the “privilege of working on and leading Bible Study programs,” she says, Vacation Bible School, Youth Group, Mission Trips, and her church’s first Women’s Retreat. She has served as liturgist and most recently, completed the Presbytery’s preaching class for elders.

There’s more.

She didn’t grow up Presbyterian. She grew up in a family “where you were either a devout Catholic or Jehovah’s Witness.” She remained in both these worlds until adulthood, not usually celebrating Christmas or birthdays, being taught, as a young person, to take her faith out into the world, going door to door, two by two, with her Bible, knocking, waiting, and hoping for someone to welcome them inside.

When she grew to be an adult and struggled in a marriage that wasn’t healthy for her or her children, she came to a fork in the road. She decided to leave her husband. Because of that decision, she was excommunicated from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. She would be separated for years from her mother and sisters, who were not permitted to speak with her.

Vickie was on her own, working full time, caring for her children, and longing for spiritual answers to life’s important questions. She came to a moment, she says, of reaching out to God, as she had never done before. She started to pray. And though her life was still a “mess,” she says, the Lord showed her the way. “I finally followed Christ,” she says, “to my home, here in the Presbyterian faith.”

All of us have a testimony to share. Our stories may not be as dramatic as Vickie’s, but they are no less miraculous. One day, we were struggling with doubts. And one day, we began to seek God and believe. We started on a journey of discovery and relationship with the Lord and God’s people.

In our reading in First Kings 19, we hear another dramatic conversion story. Elijah has been a warrior for the Lord. He has fought the pagans in the royal court, including Israel’s Queen Jezebel who persuades the king and much of the nation to worship the Canaanite god Baal, a deity of storms, fertility, and warfare. Elijah has come through a difficult period in the wilderness, fleeing and becoming so weary that he lies down under a broom tree. He asks the Lord to take his life. God instead sends an angel to give him food, water, and encouragement so that he can continue in his work for God.

But the Lord knows that Elijah cannot go on forever as God’s prophet. The Lord sees that Elijah needs a helper, a personal assistant, someone to mentor in the work of a prophet and eventually take his place. The Lord sends Elijah to a rural area, where he sees Elisha plowing a field with a yoke of 12 oxen in front of him. I often wondered why this detail would be shared—about Elisha controlling and guiding 12 oxen in a wooden yoke, all by himself. I think the answer is that this was hard to do! It was hard, hot physical labor, but challenging mentally, as well. If he had 12 oxen, then he was probably plowing a large plot of land, too. This was unusual. Most farmers didn’t have 12 oxen, which were the John Deere tractors of the time. They were lucky to have one or 2.

Imagine you are Elisha, probably a young adult as there is no mention of wife and kids. He’s a good, strong farmer, providing for his parents and extended family.  It is subsistence farming back then. If the crop fails, the people go hungry. Elisha may have been an only child or at least an only son, because when Elijah lays the prophet’s mantle on him, Elisha responds, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” He didn’t have any siblings to bid goodbye or to pass on the work of farming. Elijah immediately regrets his invitation, witnessing Elisha’s emotional response to the call. Elijah says, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?”

Elisha has already said yes to the call in his heart because he returns to his family, then, and makes difficult decisions that will forever affect their future and his own. There will be no going back home after he singlehandedly slaughters the 12 oxen, not leaving even ONE so that someone else can plow the earth and farm! Then he cooks the flesh of the oxen, using the wood from the yoke for the fire. Both equipment and livestock are now gone. Then he feeds his people—not just his parents, but his community. He eats with them before turning away from home, family, farm, and neighbors to follow Elijah and become his servant.

Talking to Vickie yesterday, I felt lifted and encouraged in my call and remembered how the Lord has been so faithful to me, all my life. But I have to be honest; I don’t enjoy my service to the presbytery as much as I enjoy being shepherd of this flock. My labor for the presbytery is often out of my comfort zone and challenges me to think about my own theology, my own beliefs about God and the church. It forces me to puzzle over 21st century problems that the Early Church never envisioned and worry about the future of the Presbyterian church on Long Island and in our increasingly secular nation.

But then I was so inspired by Vickie and her willingness to learn and grow and be used by God in new ways. The nearly 73-year-old woman never went to college, and now she has taken her first preaching course. She is willing, she says, to become a Jill of all trades.

All of us have a testimony to share and a journey to walk. Your story may not seem as dramatic as Vickie’s, but it’s no less miraculous. Let us share our stories and walk together.

The one thing that really stood out to me in her story is the welcome she received from not just one, but two Presbyterian congregations on Long Island. You, too, have been welcomed and embraced by Presbyterians! (So maybe we aren’t the frozen chosen, after all!) She was never made to feel like a stranger or outsider. She managed to fit right in; she rolled up her sleeves and got busy serving. Now she is seeking to be a leader of the Church that welcomed her and helped her grow in faith, hope, love, and witness. She is willing to pursue the education and training, which is about 5 seminary classes, to be eligible to serve as a Commissioned Ruling Elder, either in her own congregation, assisting her own pastor and serving her own church family, or in a small struggling church in our Presbytery that can no longer afford a full-time minister of word and sacrament.

Vickie shared that about two years ago she had a breakthrough in her journey of faith. She apologized to the Lord for not giving all of herself sooner. She was like Elisha, asking to care for her family first and THEN she would follow the Lord. This is what we all do. We have many good things that we can be doing in this world, and the Lord wants us to care for our families. But sometimes we use good things as an excuse not to do the harder things that the Lord wants us to do. That’s why we need to keep on seeking God in prayer.

When she was 71, though she had served the Lord since she was a young person, she finally surrendered her heart to God. She said, “I am giving you everything that I am.”

May her story inspire you to surrender not in part but the whole of yourself to God. May you be stirred to trust the Lord enough to say, as Vickie says, “Whatever time I have left, I am His. Fully. Completely. Wherever he wants me to go, I will go.”

Will you pray with me? Let us pray.

Holy One, we hear your voice calling us to follow your Son, our Savior, the Christ. But we hold back, afraid that offering our lives to your service may be too difficult, too uncomfortable, too much work. We are afraid of rejection by those with whom we would share our faith stories. We are afraid that we are not up to the tasks you are calling us to do and that maybe we lack the strength to follow faithfully, serving your people and our community with our gifts and talents. Thank you for inspiring examples of faith such as Vickie, here in our own presbytery. Bless her, Lord, as she listens for your voice and discerns her particular call. Bless and encourage all of us as we surrender our lives in gratitude, saying, “Wherever you want me to go, I will go.” In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

There Is Love

Meditation on 1 Corinthians 13

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

On the Occasion of the Reaffirmation of Wedding Vows for Nine Couples

June 29, 2025

From the beginning, it was a math problem.

First, it was the timing.

A busy journalist, divorced mother of three little boys, moving into our first home after the divorce, I didn’t have time for meeting men or interest in going on dates. When I met Jim, he was kind of a colleague, a new Presbyterian pastor in York, PA. He followed my newspaper stories and columns, sent me emails, asked me out to dinner, lunch, or coffee. And the answer was always no.

I didn’t have time.

One day, he sent me an email and said that he would wait till I had time for a friend in my life. He wanted to be that friend. He would wait as long as it takes.

When we finally had time to get a cup of coffee, or in my case, a cup of tea—we pulled up to the cat-themed café that Jim had been telling me about—and it was closed. Permanently. We had waited too long.

The second math problem was more difficult to solve. The numbers were not in our favor. Mom sat me down one day and did the math for me. When Jim is this old, I will only be this old.

Jim remembers the day in 1963 that JFK was shot and the day in 1965 when Malcom X was killed. I wasn’t born, yet. I wasn’t old enough for kindergarten when MLK was assassinated or when Jim was protesting the War during his seminary years.

I remember going to see Jim after this conversation with my mom—about the numbers. I remember feeling sad that if we married, it would probably mean that I would eventually be alone, again. That with our differences in age, I would probably outlive him.

 I made him promise me that if we married, he would at least be my husband for 20 years.

He did the math and agreed.

I just realized the other day that in July, after we celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and my birthday, I will be the age he was when we first met.

And there were other important differences, other than the math. He was Presbyterian and Irish. I was neither of those. More importantly, he was a big dog person and I was scared of big dogs. I was a cat person and he hated cats.

But we had some things in common. We both loved the Lord and our faith led us to live intentionally, seeking God’s will for our lives and being ready to obey when we heard God’s voice, no matter how scary God’s will is. Sometimes, God’s will is scary.

Even with the math problems and other obstacles to overcome, including some of our children not being pleased when we got married, there was love.

Chapter 13 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in our Bibles is often read at weddings. We interpret his instructions as rules for happy marriages, especially verses 4 through 8. “Love is patient; love is kind.” It isn’t “envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” I have to smile at “Love doesn’t insist on its own way,” because Jim and I both have leadership gifts, and we can be stubborn. Maybe we aren’t alone in this tendency. Is anyone stubborn in your households? Maybe it’s you? It is good to be reminded that love “is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs.” In other words, love not only forgives, it practices forgetting, just as when we sin and ask for God’s forgiveness, as Hebrews 8:12 tells us, along with the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Micah, the Psalms, Second Corinthians and Romans, the Lord “remembers our sin no more.”

These instructions that Paul—formerly a persecutor of the earliest Christians—wrote thousands of years ago to a young church struggling with divisions and egos in the city of Corinth are meant for all of Christ’s followers—and not just married couples. When he says that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” and “Love never ends,” he is lifting up the perfect example of love—the unconditional, everlasting, and sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. Friends, human beings will always fall short of perfect love. We will always fall short. But Christ is still our example for the church and all our relationships with God and neighbor. And the presence of Christ in our hearts and homes is a powerful ingredient for happy, faithful, enduring marriages in every day and age.

The nine couples renewing their vows today were married in different decades and places. Russ and Sue and Tom and Marci were married in the 1960s. Ed and Janet and Ron and Carolyn were both married in 1972. Dave and Joanna, Rob and Linda, and John and Dawn were married in the 1980s. Jon and Elizabeth were married right here in June 2008. And I had the honor of presiding over the wedding of Frances and Terrell last November—in 2024.  Each of these couples have learned that love can endure math problems, family problems, financial problems, health problems—you name it; they have learned how to love. Today, some of them will make vows that they wrote for one another. Others will use the standard Presbyterian vows.

As they say their vows, may we be strengthened in our households and in our church family as we remember that 1 Corinthians 13 applies to the Church, all our brothers and sisters in the Lord. May we make their promise to love and honor one another, giving thanks for what has been and looking forward to all that will be, our prayer for our church family, especially as we celebrate our 350th anniversary this year.

 And when they promise to continue to share the journey of life with one another in faith and in hope, with God’s help, may you claim that promise for yourself, your family, and church family.

As you leave this space and enjoy food and friendship at the wedding reception, may you feel the embrace of God’s love for you.

May we all be encouraged to take our joy, hope, and faith out into a hurting world and practice the forgetting of sins—our own sins and the sins of others, especially those who are close to us.

May we all be stirred to point to Christ and say, “There is love.”

Let us pray.

Loving God, thank you for your Son’s perfect example of love—unconditional, everlasting, and sacrificial, not keeping track of wrongs. Help us to love in this way– forgive and forget—and refrain from our human tendencies to be stubborn and irritable. Forgive us when we fail to imitate your perfect love. Lead us to be patient and endure, as your Spirit, dwelling within us and in our midst, helps us every day. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

Journeys

Meditation on 1 Kings 19:1-15a

Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

June 22, 2025

We gathered at Lori Yastrub’s for our Sunday School picnic yesterday. Lori, our elder for children and youth Faith Formation, and her husband, Steve, have a swimming pool. With yesterday’s warm temperatures, the children so enjoyed the refreshment of the cool water for hours. And we had plenty of good food and fellowship to share.

This annual gathering is important to our ministry. Sunday School, as you know, usually happens inside the classroom. The picnic is an opportunity to laugh, eat, talk, relax, play, and take our faith outside in the world. This barbecue is a celebration of all the learning and growth and all that was accomplished in the previous Sunday School year. It’s meant to be fun! It also helps the children and young families form strong bonds with one another and with their teachers and me. Finally, the picnic reinforces the message that God is with us wherever we go—and we have other Christian friends traveling their journeys of faith beside us. We are not alone.

The broom tree figures prominently in our passage in 1 Kings today. The prophet Elijah is exhausted from doing God’s work. The mighty warrior prophet served the Lord in Northern Israel during the 9th century BCE. He has been fighting spiritual and physical battles for YHWH, armed with a sword. This is a time of relative peace and prosperity for the people of God. But it is also a time of rampant corruption and idolatry at the highest levels of Israel’s government.

Jezebel is perhaps Elijah’s greatest enemy. She was a beautiful Phoenician princess who married Ahab, the king of Israel, and became a powerful queen known for her promotion of the worship of Baal, a Canaanite god, in Israel. Jezebel persuades Ahab to worship this god associated with fertility, rain, and storms. His worship is seen as a direct challenge to YHWH, the God of Israel.[1]

At the beginning of our passage, Jezebel vows to avenge the deaths of the priests of Baal, and Elijah, the soldier who is responsible for them, escapes on foot, alone, to the desert, traveling miles and miles. At his lowest moment, when he feels like he has failed the Lord and is no better than his ancestors who failed to rid his nation of idolatry, he sits down under a broom tree. God is with him in the desert, under the broom tree, just as God will be with him in the quiet stillness or “sound of sheer silence” when eventually he reaches his destination.

The broom tree grows primarily in desert, hilly, and rocky areas in Israel and neighboring lands, where “it is often the only source of shade.”[2] The broom tree is really a bush, growing 2 to 12 feet high. “The twigs bear small leaves and white pea-like fragrant flowers in spring. The roots are long and reach deep for water. The roots were used for charcoal.”[3]

I was surprised to learn that broom trees also grow wild in the United States—in Arizona and Nevada. In these places, “many people consider them a weed and pull them up as quickly as they find them.”[4] Although, when you are in the desert heat, you appreciate any little bit of shade you can find, even a weedy bush that, more often than not, isn’t tall enough to stand under; you have to hunker down beneath it.

The bush is the first sign of God’s compassionate provision for the weary prophet in the desert and God’s desire to strengthen him to continue in his unique calling. After Elijah prays that the end would be near, he lies down under the broom tree and falls asleep. Then there are more signs of God’s care for Elijah. The angel of the Lord shows up, touches him to awaken him and tells him to eat. “At his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.’ ”

You see, the Lord always had Elijah’s journey in mind—and knew just what he needed to accomplish God’s work, with every step. The prophet ate and drank, and that little bit of food from the angel gave him the strength for a journey of 40 days and 40 nights. His destination? Horeb, the mountain of God. That’s where the Lord will be revealed to Elijah and the prophet will know, without a doubt, what God desires for him to do. He knows, because God places that desire within him, just as God places desires within us and provides all that we need for the journeys that we will take, journeys that may not take us far from here and journeys that take us a long way from what is comfortable and familiar.

Yesterday at the Sunday School picnic, I thought about the journeys that brought the young families to our church. Some of the children are children and grandchildren of longtime members, some who grew up in our church. Some are children of a new generation of Presbyterians who have come as young adults from other places. Some have attended a few years with their children. Some have just come to visit our church in the last few months. Looking around at the kids jumping off the diving board, floating around on blow up rafts or chatting in small groups at the shallow end by the side of the pool, it struck me how the children have grown in the three years since I came to minister here. Later, I marveled at how much better I know these families—and I know each child by name.

Today, we honor three teens whom I met in my first Confirmation class here and have had the privilege of coming to know them and their parents. They may be graduating from different high schools, but they have a common faith in Jesus Christ and membership in this church. They are part of our family. Today, they receive scholarships from their congregation, which they will use for different colleges and universities and different majors, preparing for different careers. God has a special path chosen for each one.

On their journeys, they will be energized by new experiences. They will enjoy living on their own for the first time, without someone telling them to do their homework or what time to go to bed or worrying about what they are wearing. They will make new friends, visit new places, eat different foods (some they will like, some they won’t) and try new leisure activities. They will also grow weary and discouraged at times, passing through deserts. College is more challenging than high school and requires good organization and time management. Teachers will expect them to be responsible and meet their deadlines for reading and written work, without reminders or warnings. They will pull all-nighters to finish papers they procrastinated about and cram for final exams, only to realize that what they studied wasn’t on the test. They will drink too much caffeine. They will miss their high school friends. They will miss their families. They will be far from home. But whenever they encounter deserts, a broom tree will spring up like a weed, if they are looking for it. They may find rest and peace for body, mind, and soul.

Although we cannot be with them when they go away to college, they take their church family and their Lord in their hearts. They bring with them all their memories from their childhood church experiences, too. May these memories and all that was learned here serve them well as they prepare for the future God has planned. We will continue to remember them in our prayers. We look forward to welcoming them back home on school breaks and when this leg of their journey is over.

May the God of Israel who was faithful to strengthen Elijah on his sacred journey send angels to feed and strengthen Joanna Huang, Andrew Carbonara, and Julianna Landi in their deserts and oases. May they place their trust in the Lord and seek to walk their paths as God directs them. May these three youth and all of us grow in faith, hope, love, and witness so that we may become like the hardy broom trees, springing up like weeds in all the dry places to bring cool refreshment and rest to others.  May we all come to know the desires of God’s heart and may these desires become our own.

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for your presence and plan for us and your Spirit that guides us on our sacred journeys. Thank you for the angels who nourish us with faith, hope, and love along the way. Show us your will for us, dear Lord. May we have your heart’s desires. Strengthen us so that we may live in peace and confidence, trusting in your love. But if we get discouraged and weary like Elijah, we pray that you will send a broom tree and food from heaven when we need it. May we become like hardy broom trees, springing up like weeds in all the dry places to be a blessing to others. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

     [1] Encyclopedia Brittanica at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jezebel-queen-of-Israel

      [2] “Flora” in Anchor Bible Dictionary edited by David Noel Freedman (NY: Doubleday, 1992),805.

      [3]  “Flora,” 805.

      [4] Nancy Cushman, “Lessons from the Broom Tree,” July 1, 2019 at https://dscumc.org/blog/2019/07/01/lessons-from-the-broom-tree/

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