Sharing God's Love and Grace

Meditation on Jeremiah 31:31–34  and John 8:31-36

Reformation Sunday

Pastor Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Oct. 30, 2022

Here is a link to the worship service, with my message:

https://fb.watch/gvTuwGiCKs/

I was all set to begin writing my message for Reformation Sunday, when I found a letter that one of our members—Ron DeHart—gave to me after last Sunday’s service. I read the letter and tears came to my eyes. I pray the Spirit will touch your heart as it touched mine as I share some of it with you.

It was written by a young man named Joe Zimbler, a student of Gettysburg College. He writes of his plan to attend an event hosted by the campus chapter of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). He is going to listen to the speaker, though he does not agree with the group’s views. Joe describes himself as someone “who hung a rainbow flag in (the) locker room.”

Joe is Ron’s grandson. His letter was published in school newspaper, The Gettysburgian, on Oct. 18. The headline is “Opinion: I Have Two Moms, Yet Will Be Attending YAF’s speaker.”

He sees polarization as the “biggest issue facing the world today.” “People on both sides of the political spectrum generally refuse to interact with those with different beliefs,” he says. “When your friends share similar beliefs, you are not exposed to other ways of thinking of ideas. It is so easy to look at the other side of an issue and say things such as, ‘How can people possibly support this?’ and ‘What is wrong with these people?’ and ‘Why don’t they see it the same way as me?’ People become so entrenched in their views and surround themselves with others with the same opinion that, over time, they cannot imagine how anyone can view it differently.”

He writes in response to the “hostile environment,” he says, that has “taken over the school.” “Everyone is frustrated, believing that their side is being silenced by the other. Listening to the other side of this issue would allow people to see that those on the other side of the aisle are not monsters, they are just people.”

He emphasizes the importance of taking time to try to understand why the “other side” feels the way they do. When his friends learned that Joe wanted to attend the event and hear the speaker, they were “appalled,” he says, “claiming this to be hate speech and feeling as though interacting with this speaker empowers him to spread a message of hatred towards members of LGBTQ+. And I understand this fear,” he goes on, “as giving someone a voice to challenge your identity or the identity of those close to you can be terrifying. However, if we want to change and coexist, we must listen to the other side and understand why they do not support the LGBTQ+ community. It is easy to say that it is because these are bad or hateful people, but how can you ever know until you engage them?”

Joe adds, “Change comes with active listening, listening, not to respond, but to understand. With that, we can work to foster a more inclusive world and understanding, a world where no one must feel threatened by sharing their beliefs. And a world where, regardless of your race, sex, gender, orientation, etc., you can walk around with little fear of being hated by others for those factors. So I will be attending the event.”

***

Here on Oct. 30, we commemorate the day Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, and, along with other reformers, helped bring the necessary changes in belief and practice that have made us who we are today. This is also the day we have chosen to welcome our seven confirmands into membership.

If there’s a word to describe this confirmation class, I would say it’s “gentleness.” I was warned, before we began meeting, that these students are “quiet,” and that I shouldn’t take it personally if they don’t talk. But in this short time we have had together, and through their faith statements shared through word and music, we have come to know each other better. And I have come to appreciate their kind and gentle ways!

They still need our help and encouragement to become the people God wants them to be.

Are we prepared to invest the time and energy into getting to know them and encouraging them to grow in faith, hope, love and service, not just by our words, but by our own acts of kindness, compassion, and generosity? Will we help them find how they may use their gifts and talents to serve the church and participate more fully in ministry at First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown?

Some of our confirmands would like to help with children’s programs or continue with their strong involvement in music ministries. Some will serve as liturgists and others may be working behind the scenes, such as helping with our church-wide cleanups, such as the one coming up in November. Others may labor on our Stream Team, helping us to share our hope in Christ beyond our church walls, something we never thought we would be doing until 2020 and the pandemic forced us to adapt to a strange new, virtual way to “do church.”

As we celebrate Reformation Sunday, this is a good time “to reclaim the great motto of the Reformation for our congregation, “Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda”:  the church reformed and always reforming.”

Dr. Fred Heuser at the Presbyterian Historical Society says, “While Reformation Sunday may prompt us to look back to the great truths and insights articulated by Reformers … 500 years ago,” “it is even more important to look forward, especially at this time in the history of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). … Shaped by our theology, (a) common heritage unites us, despite what differences may divide us as a people of faith. As with other periods of transition in our church, our history has helped to both inform and inspire us. But it also continues to challenge us to listen and discover what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do in a new time.”

Friends, this is a time to seek God’s face and listen for God’s voice and remember that the Holy Spirit speaks through the young, as well as the old, as it did on Pentecost, when Peter preached with the words of the prophet Joel:

“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
    and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
    and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
    in those days I will pour out my Spirit,
        and they shall prophesy.”

I pray that we, together, will recognize the promise of Jeremiah and the New Covenant come to fruition in the Triune God—Father, Son, and Spirit. For “the days are surely coming,” the prophet proclaimed, “that I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest…”

I have said this during our confirmation class—and I say it again to this quiet, gentle group. I pray you will be brave and find your voice and share it with the world through words and actions. Speak up for the oppressed. Work for peace and justice. As Christ told those who wished to follow him, we must live out what the Lord is teaching us, at the risk of our own lives. “If you continue in my word,” he says in John, “you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

And I pray that more people will listen to young people like Joe, who speaks the truth in love, with a heart of peace, when his college has become a hostile environment, where people are not free to be themselves. A place where people are afraid and feel unsafe.

May God bring about the changes for which Joe and many others long—so that people with different beliefs are able to talk to one another and “listen actively, not to respond, but to understand” and “foster a world where no one must feel threatened by sharing their beliefs.”

“I will not yell at the speaker or be angry with those who disagree with me,” he says. And “maybe I will have the chance to ask one good question… Or maybe I won’t. Either way, I will walk out with a newfound understanding of the opinion of the other side, an opinion that, just like all others, deserves to be heard.”

“And after,” Joe says, “I will call my moms and tell them how much I love them.”

Let us pray.

Gracious and merciful God, thank you for creating us all in your image, but giving us the gift of diversity—being delightfully different from one another, in many ways. Thank you for the Holy Spirit that unites us, when the visible Church around the world is still scandalously divided. Help us all to be One, as your Son prayed for us, and to be peacemakers, sowing seeds of kindness and modeling active listening when we encounter hostile environments. Lead us to follow you more faithfully and live justly, by the power of the Spirit, as people grateful to be saved by your grace and know the truth that has set us free to love, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Meditation on Luke 18:9-14

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

Oct. 23, 2022

We gathered to celebrate the life of Pat Sartain yesterday and bear witness to our faith in a Risen Savior and the promise of resurrection to eternal life.

It was quite a crowd of people! And a beautiful service, filled with music, tears, and laughter, and the sharing of personal stories. We had some members and longtime friends who traveled a long distance to honor Pat and offer words of comfort to her family.

A little girl sitting in the front pew between her parents caught my attention. She is Pat’s granddaughter. She wore a wonderful yellow dress made from Grandma Pat’s plaid sash. And she was well behaved and patient, for a little girl of maybe 3 years old, who couldn’t possibly understand what most of the service was all about. And it was a long service—more than 90 minutes!

She was a little fidgety—so I gave her some chocolate, and it probably made her fidget more. One of the chocolates I gave her had a nut filling inside. She made a face and took it out of her mouth, announced that she didn’t like it, and gave it to her daddy. I couldn’t help but smile to myself.

I kept thinking of what Jesus would do. I know he would smile, too.

I remembered the time that he grew angry with the disciples for sternly ordering away the people bringing their babies to him, that he might touch them.

This story of Jesus blessing the children immediately follows today’s reading In Luke, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Jesus actually calls for them to come back, saying, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

In our modern translations, a subheading separates the “Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector” with “Jesus Blesses Little Children,” but I am sure that Luke didn’t mean for there to be a separation. None of this was in the original Greek manuscripts. Nor was there punctuation or chapters and verses. Those divisions are all modern editorial decisions. And it’s only because of the way the lectionary divides these passages that we read them on different Sundays, as if they are not related or connected to each other.

If we read the two passages together, we would go from the lesson of the parable: “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted” to “People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them…”

The model example of holiness for Jesus is “even infants,” who have no idea what the faith and the practice of the faith is all about; they don’t know anything about the rules or expectations. And yet, God loves them, and the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

Jesus takes it one step further—and he’s trying to teach his faithful disciples—that unless they “receive the kingdom of God as a little child (they) will not enter it.”

What he’s talking about, if you connect the two passages, is their own arrogance, maybe not so unlike the Pharisee in the parable—keeping the children away from Jesus, as if they are not good enough or worthy enough for his time, touch, and blessing. Connecting the two passages, Christ may be saying that the children would never trust in their own efforts at righteousness. They can’t help but come just as they are to Jesus, without worry about their good works and worthiness. They would trust in God’s love and mercy for them.

Dear friends, this is the challenge of today’s reading. Our justification—our salvation—is not obtained by doing things!  And this is hard for us to accept because we are constantly focused on the things we are doing and planning our lists of things we are going to do. Some of us may be making mental lists right now of things you need to do today—and you can’t help it! This is what you and I have been taught. We are a society that values doers; people who do things and get stuff done!

Let me say it another way. Our justification—our salvation—is not achieved at all—at least not by us. Justification comes through God’s reaching out in mercy to helpless sinners like us, redeeming us through God’s own work, the sacrifice of the Son. It is a free and gracious gift to be received with joy and gratitude because we know we have done nothing to deserve it.  Just as the tax collector cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 

But the opposite can happen if we lose the proper focus for the work of ministry. We can lose our gratitude and start feeling resentful if we are pouring ourselves into the work of the church. I have seen this happen to good people, and it makes me sad. It’s hard not to look around and compare ourselves to others who might not seem to be working as much or giving of themselves at the same level we are giving. In that way, we may be tempted to be judgmental like the Pharisee in the parable.

If we begin to feel this way, there are questions we can ask ourselves to keep us on the right step in our faith journeys, such as, “Who are we doing the work for?” And, “Why are we doing it?” And, “Is it the work God is calling us to do at this time?” Because there are many good things we can be doing for God, but we cannot do every good thing. And God doesn’t want us to do every good thing we can think of doing.

We can, in our own enthusiasm to serve the Lord and the Church we love, take on too much and become overwhelmed and unhappy. The work God is calling us to do usually leads to peace, even if it makes us tired and takes us out of our comfort zone, every now and then. Does the work of ministry we are doing lead us to act in more loving and generous ways to others? Does the work we do for God lead us to feel nearer to the heart of God? Are we growing in our prayer life? Are we growing in faith?

And the comparisons can go wrong the other way, too. We might be in a season of our lives where we can’t get around as easily as we used to. We aren’t able to do the volunteering we used to do. We might not be able to get to worship every Sunday because of our health struggles—or because we are no longer driving and have to rely on others for transportation.  We might feel bad about ourselves, comparing ourselves to others – or to the level of giving and participation we used to be able to do.

This isn’t God’s will for us. For our God doesn’t condemn us for what we do or fail to do.

The Lord wants to be in loving relationship with us—and for us to love one another, too.

So, come to the Lord with a humble heart, like the tax collector. Seek God’s mercy, without looking around or comparing yourself or your life to another.

Come as you are, today, trusting not in your own righteousness, not in anything you have  done or what you plan to do, but in the righteousness that is a free gift to the humble and merciful from a gracious and loving Lord.

For you and for me and for everyone who believes.

Come like a child, knowing that Christ welcomes you into his embrace and will never shoo you away. For it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs!

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for all you have done for us and especially for the free gift of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We forget sometimes that the good works we do are done with and for you and for the sake of growing your kingdom. Forgive us when we become so focused on what we are doing that we begin to rely on our own righteousness and lose our sense of gratitude for all you have done and for your love. Keep us from feelings of resentment or comparisons to others, unless we are seeking to be more like Jesus. Help us to remember your grace and mercy for sinners—and your desire to be in loving relationship with us, most of all. Teach us to humbly pray, to come to you with the trust of children, for to such as these your kingdom belongs. In Christ we pray. Amen.

Meditation on John 11, selected verses

In Memory of Patricia Sartain

Pastor Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Oct. 22, 2022

The yellow sweetheart roses were in a vase on the dining room table when I visited Tom on Tuesday. It was the 18^th of the month—the special day he always celebrated with his wife, Pat, with the gift of a yellow rose and words of love scrawled on a florist card.

She kept all the cards he had ever given her with the roses—one every month, faithfully.

The yellow rose never lost its meaning—love. A love that never ends.

She was the pretty girl in the pink dress. Tom noticed her at his cousin Margit’s sister’s wedding. Do I have that right? He liked the way she held her head up high when she walked. Tall. Poised. He was so relieved to discover she wasn’t married—as he first thought. She was cousin Margit’s best friend.

Somehow, soon after that, Tom ended up riding with Pat to a music camp in New Hampshire for a 3-day weekend. She drove. A five-year-old nephew, Steven, served as the chaperone that weekend, going along with them on what could have been a romantic boat ride, if Steven hadn’t come.

Still, love was in the air. Pat lost the garnet setting from her ring that weekend. She told Tom later that she saw it as a sign the ring would soon be replaced. Tom was in law school, had no money, and was $10,000 in debt when $10,000 was a lot of money. He went back to his life after that wonderful weekend with Pat and little Steven in New Hampshire. Pat was with Tom when he graduated from law school. He passed the bar exam, but he hadn’t made up his mind, yet, about his plans for the future.

What day it was when he realized that his plans needed to include Patricia, he doesn’t recall. He proposed near the fireplace at Peter’s Back Street Pub on Jan. 9, 1978. She had already decided that if he didn’t propose by Feb. 18, she was going to dump him. They had been dating for 2 years, and she was a year older than Tom. She had a good job and was ready to settle down.

“Yes!” she said. “Yes. Yes.” And maybe she added, “What took you so long?”

They were married in the church in which she was raised, where her grandparents were founding members – Community Church of Little Neck. It was August 18, 1979. She was 31. He was 30. Pat, a gifted seamstress, sewed all the bridesmaids’ dresses for their wedding.

She had other gifts, too, nurtured from childhood. She had sung in choirs since she was 7.  She shared her alto voice in Christmas Cantatas and played bells, learning in a “Genesis” handbell choir for beginners. She loved the camaraderie of choral groups.

She also had beautiful penmanship and was a good cook and hostess, knowing how to plan and organize meals for large crowds. She set the most beautiful table settings for special days, planning every detail down to the tablecloths and serving dishes. You would not find a ketchup bottle on her table.

She was a perfectionist. She was creative, stubborn, headstrong. She was “spirited,” Tom says.

She was a good public speaker. She wrote out and gave speeches for Eastern Star chapters and Grand Sessions in Buffalo, Syracuse, Lake Placid. She served in various leadership positions for the organization, including District Deputy. One year, she traveled to Scotland with her father to represent New York State Eastern Star.

Pat and Tom came to First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown in 1984, when the Rev. Bill Edwards was pastor. Their 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, born on Feb. 18, 1981, had been attending the Co-op preschool at the church. Pat served on the Co-op preschool board. They met other members through the school—and eventually made the church their worship home. They attended 9 o’clock services and brought their two children—Elizabeth and Thomas, born in 1983, to Sunday school.

 Because of Pat’s family history with the church in Little Neck that her grandparents founded, she kept her membership in the church of her childhood. That didn’t stop her from strong involvement with her new church family. She sang with the choirs, rang bells, taught Sunday School and music and art for VBS.  She was a counter with Adele and Harold Carson and Ruth Bosch. She loved to arrange flowers and was in the Flower Guild with Michelle DiGiacomo, Betty Deerfield, and Virginia Newcomb. She was active in supporting the Adopt an Angel program. She was a member of the Highlanders. The group would put on a social event once a month, including the Burns Supper in January. The family attended 3 worship services on Christmas Eve because of her participation in the ministry of music. They hosted a wassailing party between the 9 and 11 o’clock services.

She was a hard worker, generous with her time.

If I had to choose which biblical figure in the Mary and Martha stories who was closest to Pat Sartain, I would have to say she was probably more like the take-charge Martha. She was the one who organized the dinner for Jesus and his disciples, in contrast with her quiet, contemplative sister Mary, content to be still and sit at the Master’s feet.

Martha isn’t shy about sharing her disappointment with Jesus in our passage today, when he arrives several days after she has sent a note requesting that he return to Bethany, where she, Mary and their younger brother Lazarus lived. Lazarus, “the one whom Jesus loved,” as Martha wrote in her note, was gravely ill. She speaks plainly with Jesus. She doesn’t mince her words. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

Jesus answers, “Your brother will rise again.” 

He had taught them about the resurrection of the dead “on the last day.”  Martha assumes he is only offering her hope for what is to come, in the fullness of time, when all who had died were made alive, again, for eternity. She isn’t prepared for him to say, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.

“Do you believe this?”  he asks.

She responds, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

This passage on the raising of Lazarus reveals a God who shares in our sorrows. We hear how Jesus wept when he sees the family grieving for Lazarus, and how he is “troubled,” though he knows what will happen when he prays to God and calls out the deceased man’s name. This is the God who comforts us and can handle our anger and disappointment. The God who will embrace and strengthen us with divine love and forgiveness and the promise of life everlasting as we open our hearts to receive it.

There’s a surprising part to this passage, for me, at the end. Jesus invites the community of faith to participate in the raising of Lazarus. Christ doesn’t need any help in freeing Lazarus from his graveclothes to begin his new life after being in the tomb for an astounding four days. Christ could have done it all by himself. But he chooses not to. Instead, he makes the task of unbinding the work of the faith community.

As Lazarus comes out of the tomb, Jesus says, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

This is our calling right now, as a family of believers, offering love to help the grieving family bear this burden of sorrow, reminding them that they do not walk this way alone. We, too, will help carry the load, just as Christ shed tears for Lazarus with the grieving community, even when he knew that death wouldn’t have the last word.

We have the power to grab hold of and take off the graveclothes of sin and negativity that can so easily surround us and weigh us down. We have the power to live as Resurrection people, set free to change the world by witnessing to our faith in a risen Savior and live UNBOUND.

On Tuesday, Tom’s hand trembled as he held the cards he had given Pat every month—always on the 18^th—the day they met, the day she was going to dump him if he didn’t propose, the day they were married, the day their daughter Elizabeth was born. He held the tiny cards in his hands on the 18^th of October and was comforted by her act of keeping them, and his faithfulness in giving them. The yellow rose never lost its meaning, nor did the words scrawled on florist cards. The meaning was love.

Dear friends, the cross and empty tomb will never lose their meaning for us. The meaning is love. We are loved with a love that never ends.

Let us pray.  Holy One, we thank you for the hope of our resurrection with Christ and the power of your Spirit to overcome the sin of this world through forgiveness and kindness. Stir us to loosen the graveclothes that so easily surround us and take hold of our new life in Jesus Christ—UNBOUND. Thank you for your love that never ends. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

Connecting the Faithful

Pastor Karen Crawford

Tracy Henchey, Newsletter Editor

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Meditation on Luke 17:11–19 

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

Oct. 9, 2022

Link to the livestream of the worship, with my message: https://fb.watch/g3TPraiT-v/

Our confirmation students are, once again, gathering with me at the manse tonight, preparing to work on faith statements. This is the most challenging part of the entire confirmation program!

It just dawned on me yesterday: growing up in a Lutheran church, I never had to write an original faith statement. I had a lot of memorizing to do—the Lord’s Prayer with trespasses, the Ten Commandments, the books of the Bible, and the Apostles’ Creed. Did any of you have a lot of memorizing to do for your confirmation? I had to know all the right answers to the catechism—so that was more memorizing and making sure I used the correct language to express the church’s faith.

No one asked me what was in my heart.

I recently was asked to write a personal statement of faith for a doctor of ministry seminar. We were urged to be creative and use metaphor rather than the carefully crafted, traditional church language we have been taught.  I spent hours and hours rewriting my statement of faith. And I’m still not completely satisfied with it. So, I feel great compassion for our students, writing and sharing faith statements for the first time, at such a young age.

I pray that they will trust themselves, their church, and me with this assignment and share what’s in their hearts. Because more important than our carefully crafted words is what’s in our hearts. The God who is always near to us is always listening for our hearts. Scripture assures us that our loving and compassionate God knows what’s in our hearts—like no one else does. In 1 Samuel 7, the Lord says to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem in our reading in the gospel of Luke. He appears to be alone in this leg of the journey —a kind of a no-man’s land. He’s somewhere between Samaria, where the dreaded Samaritans live—who don’t worship and sacrifice to God at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, but up on a mountain—and Galilee, where people of his own culture and Jewish faith dwell in their own communities.

Jews and Samaritans don’t usually live closely together. But they do in this village that Jesus enters—a place where healthy people don’t dare go; people with a skin disease live there. The Bible calls them “lepers,” but they don’t all necessarily have leprosy (Hansen’s disease). And it doesn’t matter if they do or not. They are ALL unclean because of the imperfections of their skin—it could be eczema or psoriasis or some other serious rash—but it’s ALL the same to the priests and considered contagious, no matter what it is. People with skin diseases cannot come to worship or live in the same home or community with their families. Their affliction is seen as a punishment for their sin or the sins of their parents.

How can they earn a living? You ask. They can’t. They have to remain at a distance from everyone who doesn’t have a skin disease. They are forced to beg and scrounge for food, relying on the charity of others. Many will die not from their skin disease, but from poverty, hopelessness, hunger, and loneliness.

Jesus enters this village where other people don’t dare go—because he came to seek and save the lost. He came to show God’s love and compassion to the stranger, the outsider and the outcast. He came to proclaim the Reign of God drawing near by calling all to repentance, casting out demons, and healing people of disease. Immediately, 10 lepers approach him, and they know who he is! Christ makes himself known to them. They still keep their distance, so as not to make the One who can heal and save them unclean.

They cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 

The healing doesn’t happen right away. Jesus invites the lepers to participate in their own healing by a simple show of faith—go and present yourselves to the priests. They are the ones who will declare them clean and allow them to return to their former lives, once again.

And verse 14, “As they went, they were healed!!!”

One turns back—and doesn’t follow through on doing what Jesus tells him to do, at least not yet. But the one who turns back after he is healed reveals the true state of his heart–his love and gratefulness to God. He praises his Healer with a loud voice, throwing himself at Jesus’s feet, thanking him profusely.  And this is when Luke tells us that he is a Samaritan. He is an outsider to the Jewish community. After this joyful, healing encounter with Jesus, the lover of all people, he is a believer, with no place to go. Though he could live with Jewish lepers, he wouldn’t have been welcome to live in the healthy Jewish community.

My favorite line in this whole passage is when Jesus asks the man, and I believe that he speaks gently, almost playfully, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine?” This is Christ’s way of telling him that he did the right thing! He is lifting up the Samaritan as an example because of his faith and the gratitude he expresses, with all his heart.

The door of salvation through Jesus Christ opens wide to ALL who come in faith and humility, recognizing that salvation is God’s loving gift—not a work, not something that can be earned. Or lost.

Jesus is speaking to generations of believers who might be tempted to judge other people as outsiders or unworthy of God’s grace, mercy, and healing, when he asks, “Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

He sends the Samaritan man off with a blessing, saying to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.” The Greek word translated “Get up” is the same word used for “resurrection.” And the Greek translated “made you well” may also be translated “healed” or “saved” you.

I find myself wondering what the Samaritan will do now, after his healing, life-changing encounter with Jesus. He may be, perhaps, like the Samaritan woman at the well—who becomes a believer in Jesus when he tells her her life story and offers her living water, so she will never thirst again. The Samaritan woman in John leaves her water jar at the well and becomes Christ’s apostle, sharing her testimony in the city and bringing others to faith in Christ the Messiah.

And I can’t help but wonder what happened to the other 9, as Jesus asked, perhaps playfully. Will others recognize them and welcome them as friends and family, once again?

Will their healing encounter lead them to share their stories? Will it lead to a change of heart? In their gratefulness to God for the gift of a new and abundant life, will they seek to bring Christ’s hope and healing to their community?  What would you do?  What will you do now that you’ve heard their story? What does your heart tell you?

I wonder how you will make a difference.

Let us pray.

Holy One, Heavenly Potter, thank you for breathing life in us at Creation and your Spirit that continues to breathe life into our ministries and unite our church family. Thank you for the gift of our faith, which we feel deeply in our hearts, and the promise of our healing and wholeness through the work of your Son. Fill us with such gratitude, Lord, that we cannot help but live lives of thanksgiving, in love and faithfulness, seeking to bring hope and healing to the world. We look forward to your Son’s return, when on earth it shall be as it is in heaven and the Potter’s work of art will be made complete. We pray these things with joy and thanksgiving. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Connecting the Faithful

Pastor Karen Crawford

Tracy Henchey, editor

Meditation on 2 Timothy 1:1–14

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

World Communion Sunday

Oct. 2, 2022

I had the pleasure of celebrating Home Communion on Wednesday with Karl and Ethel Kraft. They are longtime members of our church—both in their 90s—who have become largely home bound because of their health and mobility struggles. Karl, who worked for IBM, now suffers from dementia; Ethel has had strokes and uses a walker.

 Joyce, one of our deacons, assisted me. She chatted with the family, brought them cookies, shared a scripture, and gave hugs. I always invite a church member to come with me to serve Home Communion as a visual reminder of a spiritual reality. Our homebound members, though unable to gather with us in person, are still connected to our church family! They are in our hearts and prayers, and they are made one with us in Christ’s Body by the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

 We were gathered around the dining room table—Joyce, Mr. and Mrs. Kraft, the home health aide, and me—where the family has shared meals for 60 years or more. I served the bread and cup of our dear Lord, and something wonderful happened. Karl had been confused and agitated when I first visited him and Ethel in July, but on Wednesday, his face registered recognition and his manner was calm and peaceful. When I invited him and the others to join me in the Lord’s Prayer—the man who struggles to connect with others through language—knew all the words that he had learned many years ago, as a child growing up nurtured in the faith of his parents and his church home in the small town of Archbald, PA.

I knew they were words learned long ago because he said, “forgive us our trespasses,” instead of our more contemporary “forgive us our debts.”

***

In our reading in Second Timothy today, Paul emphasizes the importance of the family’s nurture of Timothy’s faith when he writes to encourage his friend and fellow laborer for the Lord. Paul tells the younger man who worked with him building up churches that he gives thanks for Timothy’s faith, which didn’t originate with Paul; rather, his faith began in Timothy’s own home with his family growing up.

“I remember your genuine faith,” Paul says, “for you share the faith that first filled your grandmother Lois and your mother, Eunice. And I know that same faith continues strong in you.”

Paul speaks openly of his suffering in this letter, leading scholars to wonder if Paul was truly sick and dying in prison. He writes of how often he prays for Timothy, thanks God for him, and how he longs to see his face. He remembers the tears when they last parted, not knowing if they would ever see one another again.

Does it surprise you that Paul’s suffering doesn’t lead him to question his faith–whether God or God’s love is real? This happens to people nowadays; they suffer and experience hardship, and they question their faith and God’s existence. Paul’s faith, instead, helps him to persevere in times of suffering, and he urges Timothy to expect and even embrace suffering as part of the Christian life and witness– not something from which to seek escape.

He writes, “With the strength God gives you, be ready to suffer with me for the sake of the Good News.”

A surface faith doesn’t cut it. Just showing up for church on Sunday isn’t enough. We are called to a genuine faith, like Paul and Timothy’s, strengthened and sharpened by hardship.

I don’t mean that we can’t have doubts and still be people of faith, called by God to build up the Church and make a difference in this world. Doubts are just part of the journey to spiritual growth and maturity.

We recall the man in Mark 9, who asks Christ to heal his son from the unclean spirit that tormented him, if he can.

Christ replies, “IF you can? All things are possible to him who believes.”

The man cries out before Christ heals his son, “I do believe! Lord, help my unbelief!”

No, Timothy’s faith was genuine—though he was plagued by fear, anxiety, and sorrow from his separation from Paul, his mentor, perhaps dying in prison. Paul shares what Timothy and all of us need to hear to remain faithful and obedient to Christ’s call.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity,” Paul says in a letter that lived long past his and Timothy’s lifetimes, “but of power, love, and self-discipline.”

We, like Timothy, need to memorize this verse and post it everywhere!

We are people of hope, claimed and filled by the Spirit in our baptisms. People who understand that suffering is just part of living and may be used by God to strengthen our faith and witness to unbelievers.

Remember what they say, “don’t pray for patience, because God will give you trials?” Perhaps it is the same with asking for faith, as the disciples do in our gospel reading today. If we ask for more faith, the Lord may lead us to trust in God not by taking away the mountains but by helping us with the climb.

***

We come to the Lord’s Table on World Communion Sunday, remembering that not only do we belong to Christ—but we are connected to every follower of Christ who ever lived and ever will live. The Great Cloud of Witnesses, dear friend, is gathered at the table in the Kingdom of God with us.

This is the time to let go of all hurts and divisions. This is the time to forgive– yourselves, family members and church family members, and to pray for the breaking down of walls that divide Christians into more denominations than we can count. Because our faith tells us that Christ’s Body is ONE. There is no place where we can go to flee from God’s Spirit—or be spiritually separated from one another.

We come to the table, confessing our doubts and fears. As we eat from the bread of life and drink from the cup of salvation, we hear God answering our prayers with love and forgiveness, comfort and peace, and the joy of the Lord which is and will forever be our strength. “God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity,” we recall Paul saying, “but of power, love, and self-discipline.”

We come to hear Christ’s words, once again, assuring us that we don’t need any more faith than he has given us and continues to provide for us. Remember, faith the size of a mustard seed has the power to uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea!

We come, whispering a prayer, “Lord, we do believe. Help our unbelief.”

God has saved us and calls us to live a holy life—and pass it on to our children and our children’s children. God did this, not because we deserve it or never have doubts or fears, but because it was the Lord’s plan from before the beginning of time—to show us God’s grace in Christ Jesus.

So, come to the table to rekindle the fire, the precious truth the Spirit has placed within you. Fan into flames your faith!

Let us pray. Holy One, breathe on us your Holy Spirit. Rekindle the fire you have placed within us. Fan into flames a genuine faith so that we might say the word and uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea. Help us to forgive ourselves and one another and work for peace and unity in the Church and wider Body of Christ. Remove our fears and doubts, and lead us to live a holy life, by your Spirit, passing on the precious truth of the gospel to our children and children’s children. In the name of our Triune God we pray. Amen.

Connecting the Faithful

First Presbyterian Church, Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

Tracy Henchey, editor

Meditation on 1 Timothy 6:6-19

Pastor Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Sept. 25, 2022

These last few weeks have been hectic. Volunteers and staff have been working hard, preparing for the installation and reception this afternoon. I hope you all are coming! Thank you to those who joined in with this labor of love with body, mind and soul—our trustees, elders, deacons, and others! Thank you to Pablo and all our musicians, children and adults laboring through numerous rehearsals to add the joy and beauty of choral and instrumental music to our worship. God bless you for your kindness!

Our granddaughter, Madeline, turned 5 on Sunday. In this extraordinarily busy season of our lives, Jim and I were blessed to be with her and the family for her birthday celebration—for the first time ever—on Monday night in her Cambridge home. We sang Happy Birthday, and she blew out the candles on her ice cream cake. Her mother asked if she had made a wish. If not, it wasn’t too late, she said. The little girl paused, nodded.

My wish had already come true. We were able to share, finally, in some of the important moments of our granddaughters’ lives.

Before the party, we watched Maddie and Jessie in their gymnastics programs. We had never done that before, either. Jessie, at 8 and a half, works out at the gym 2 to 3 hours a night and five hours on Saturdays. She travels for competitions!

 A Ukrainian woman named Masha leads her class. Jessie is the smallest and youngest, but she keeps up, with encouragement from the group. Masha wears a microphone and a leotard and barks out commands over the music as she models the correct movements– up on their toes like ballerinas one moment, pulling their feet above their heads, doing gracious bends and sweeps with their arms, then leaping and doing scissor kicks, handstands, and spins.

Masha watches and calls each one individually to work on skills, while the others watch. That would be intimidating to some. But not Jessie and the other girls. Their long relationship with Masha has built trust. They know she is helping each person and thus the group to be the best they can be. They respect her teaching methods—though they seem a little scary to me—because she has helped them learn to do far more than they ever expected to do.

They watch and listen carefully because they want to be good gymnasts, like Masha!

***

     Timothy was young when Paul met him on his second missionary journey.

When Paul and Barnabas first visited Lystra on their first missionary journey, Paul healed a person born with a severe handicapping condition. The healing leads many of those living in Lystra to become Christians. When he returns a few years later with Silas, he meets Timothy, who has become a respected member of the Christian congregation. In 2 Timothy 1:5, Paul lifts up Timothy’s Jewish grandmother and mother (Lois and Eunice) as models of faith and godliness. He speaks of Timothy as being acquainted with all the Scriptures since childhood.

    Paul mentors him, whose own father is a Greek, a Gentile, and not religious. The young man becomes his companion, with Silas. They travel to plant, encourage, and correct churches embroiled in conflict and led astray by false doctrines and teachers. Timothy, because of their close relationship, trusts Paul enough to submit to circumcision to be accepted when he shares the gospel in Jewish communities.

   Timothy’s personality is a sharp contrast to Paul’s sometimes brash, blunt, outspoken manner.  He is reserved and shy and possibly prone to anxiety and insecurity, at least in the beginning of his ministry. Paul writes to the Corinthian church, with its conflict and divisions, “If Timothy comes, see that he has nothing to fear among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord just as I am.” (1 Cor. 16:10)

    He addresses Timothy’s youthfulness in I Tim. 4:12—how it might have already been a problem for him. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young,” Paul says, “but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”

     Here in this closing chapter, we find Paul’s final charge to his friend and fellow laborer to be who God has made him to be and the man Paul has taught and shown him to be. Don’t look around and join in with people in the church with sinful behaviors and wrong attitudes, he says. Live a simple life, Paul says. Be generous. Be like me. Be like Jesus.

     “Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he says, “and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.”

   This is where our reading begins today—with Paul shifting gears and saying in verse 6, ^“Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.” He quotes the familiar saying in verse 7, “For we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it.” And finally, the verse that is sometimes misquoted, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.”

     What does Paul mean by “fight the good fight?” The fight is not with other people! It is a fight within ourselves—fighting the temptation to be anything less than our best selves, pursuing righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.

    The reward of the good fight is that we remain focused and faithful to the One perfect model we have, the one through whom we have eternal life. The good fight leads us to seek to change the one person we can change—ourselves. We learn to trust in the One who provides everything we need and more—for our enjoyment.

    This is how we take hold of the life that really is life!

***

     I have invited our Confirmation class to my installation this afternoon. I told them how this is an historic moment for the church—and for them. At 15, they are too young to have attended an installation for a called pastor before. The last installation was with my predecessor, Reverend James Hulsey, who began ministry here in July 2002. He followed the long tenure of Reverend William Edwards, arriving in time to help the church prepare for its celebration of 300 years of ministry in 1975.

    Reverend Edwards writes in Surrounded By So Great A Cloud Of Witnesses, his Tercentennial message in July of that year, “We are celebrating during a troublesome time for our nation and our world. The old foundations shake and the future seems uncertain. The pressing question is this: Is there in our heritage a fountain of hope and energy for our troublesome time? From the beginning, the churches have offered a vision to carry us toward the future; what vision do we have now?”

   He speaks of religious movements in his time that impacted the church’s message and mission—of supporting minority groups, women, and the poor and working for the rights of individual conscience, saying that there has been some progress. But “to have something to say to the times in which we live,” he writes, “we must hold both together: social awareness and a deep personal faith.

   “So we celebrate our beginnings not as past accomplishments,” he goes on, “but as unfinished business. We are sustained by a faith our forebears shared, which we have made our own.”

   Friends, we have reached a milestone in our ministry with the service of worship and installation this afternoon. Today, on the 11^th anniversary of my ordination to the ministry of Word and Sacrament, we will mark and celebrate the beginning of the 34^th called and installed pastor’s tenure. According to our history books, we have had a number of Bills, Jameses, Johns, Richards, Nathaniels, and Henrys, even an Ebenezer and an Ithamar serve as pastors—but never a Karen, and never a grandmother!

    We don’t look back with pride at all our church has accomplished in its long history. Rather, we remember with joy and gratitude, and some sorrow and tears at the hard times that our congregation endured and overcame as recent as the last two years of pandemic. We marvel at all that God has done in, with and through this flock still in pursuit of righteousness and godliness, seeking to be faithful in worship, witness, and compassionate service.

    There is in our heritage a fountain of hope and energy. And we cling to our vision of our Savior’s promised return to gather his Church and to make all things new. May we be found faithful when he comes again.

    Our faith still sustains us when the very foundations shake and the future seems uncertain.  We will always have challenges and temptations. We are never alone, so we need not be afraid. God’s eye is always on the sparrow, as we sing in that beautiful hymn. With God’s help, the Spirit’s teaching, and Christ’s peace, and surrounded by the Great Cloud of Witnesses, we will do far more than we ever expected to do.

   We look ahead, determined to attend to the unfinished business of loving one another, being gentle and patient, learning contentment, showing mercy and sharing our faith, like our forebears did for us, praying the next generations will embrace it and make it their own.

    Together, we will take hold of the life that really is life!

Let us pray.

Gracious and generous God, thank for your encouragement today in your Word to live a simple life and not fret about all the details or worry about money. For you will supply all our needs and more for our enjoyment. Teach us, Lord, to be gentle, patient, gracious, and merciful, like you. Give us strength to endure and persevere in this joyful ministry of worship, witness, and compassionate service for at least another 200 years. Sustain us with your vision of our Savior’s promised return for the Church and all things made new.  Help us, Lord, to be found faithful when our Redeemer comes again. Until then, lead us to take hold of the life that really is life. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Meditation on Acts 16:9-15

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Pastor Karen Crawford

Sept. 18, 2022

Link to livestreamed service: https://fb.watch/fDhUJBtRPO/

The first child I baptized was an infant. His name was Sam. I came to church a day or two before the service to set up what I needed and practice the baptism, without anyone but my husband watching. I used a folded-up blanket as my prop for the baby.

I was serving my first congregation in rural Renville,  Minnesota, with corn, soybean, and sugar beet fields surrounding the church and manse. I don’t remember the details of that baptism at Ebenezer Presbyterian Church on June 14, 2012 —except that he didn’t cry. And I was so happy to carry him around the sanctuary and introduce him to the congregation, saying, “Let us welcome our newest member.” It was their tradition to give out handkerchiefs embroidered with the child’s name and dates of birth and baptism.

I will post a photo of Sam’s baptism at my blog:

I have lost count of how many people I have baptized since then. I have been blessed! I never forget them or the sweet expressions on their family’s faces as we baptize. I follow on Facebook some of the children I have baptized. It’s fun to watch them grow. Seeing them always reminds me of that important day in the life of the child and the Church.

 Sam celebrated his 10^th birthday on March 20.

Baptism is about beginnings: the beginning of our life in Christ, our welcome and initiation into the congregation and the Body of Christ. We need only one baptism for the washing away of our sins, forever. In baptism, we participate with our crucified and risen Lord in his death and resurrection. We become a new Creation, united with Christ, something even more beautiful, powered by his Spirit.

Baptism is a sign of God’s Covenant and the present and coming Kingdom of God and of the life of the world to come. It anticipates the day when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Baptism is a gift from God and our faithful response to God’s gift. It is always administered in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

No one has asked me, yet, why we baptize children before they are old enough to fully understand or express their faith. If they did, I would say because of the love and grace of God. The Second Helvetic Confession in our Book of Confessions says that we baptize infants of the faithful “for according to evangelical teaching, of such is the Kingdom of God, and they are in the covenant of God. Why, then, should the sign of God’s covenant not be given to them? Why should those who belong to God and are in His Church not be initiated by holy baptism?” (5.192)

***

Today, we move away from the scheduled lectionary scriptures to be encouraged by the conversion of Lydia, who is baptized immediately after she hears the gospel preached by Paul and embraces it as truth.

Why does she do this? Why does she believe? Because the Spirit opens her heart, and she listens eagerly. Her conversion is part of God’s plan for the Church.

Paul has embarked on his second missionary journey with Silas and Timothy, stirred by a dream he has had after his group is blocked from missionary work in Asia and Bithynia, in present day Turkey. Paul credits the Spirit for putting up roadblocks that prevent them from going to these places.

This is a lesson for us. When we encounter obstacles or challenges in our ministry, we are quick to be discouraged—when it may simply be the process of the Holy Spirit revealing God’s will to us. God’s way is revealed AS we travel the journey by faith. Sometimes the answer to our prayers is “No” or “Not yet” or “Wait, and I will show you a better way.”

Paul’s dream is of a man from Macedonia, standing and appealing to him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” This is a good reminder to us that Paul’s ministry isn’t merely about offering people intellectual answers to life’s questions or a new system of beliefs. His missionary work is stirred by compassion to share the life-giving gospel to help others! This serves to inspire us to do the same.

They sail to Macedonia, to Philippi, a Roman colony, to plant Paul’s first church in Europe. It is Paul’s practice, when he enters a new city, to attend the local Jewish synagogue and look for an opportunity to share his message. There doesn’t seem to be a synagogue in Philippi, possibly because there weren’t enough Jewish men; women could not be counted in the 10 people required to hold synagogue services.

But Paul and his companions find Lydia and this group of Gentile, God-fearing women gathered for Jewish prayer on the Sabbath on the riverbank.  “Lydia” might not really be her name. She is known as “the Lydian woman” from Thyatira in the ancient kingdom of Lydia in western Asia Minor, again in present day Turkey. The people of that area are known for their skill in the manufacture of purple dye extracted from the juice of the madder root. This will still be used for carpet dying at the end of the 19^th century.

Lydia came to Philippi as a trader of dye—and became Paul’s first convert in Europe.

She and her entire household are baptized—and her household is probably large, with children and servants. Although she is possibly a widow since no husband is mentioned, she is a woman of considerable wealth. For after she is baptized, she urges Paul, Timothy, and Silas to come and stay in her home, so there must be plenty of room and food for guests.

She prevails upon them. She doesn’t take no for an answer!

***

The story of the Lydian woman being baptized with her household reminds us of God’s promise to include our children in this New Covenant of grace in Jesus Christ. For “of such is the Kingdom of God.”

To have Debbie’s parents, Karl and Ethel Kraft, longtime members of our congregation, here in worship to witness the baptisms of two great grandsons makes this sacred occasion even more special and memorable.

 While the majority of those I have baptized have been babies like Diego Jr. and Grayson, I have had the blessing of baptizing teens and older adults, as well.

I baptized a lady in her 90s before I left Ohio. She wasn’t sure if she had been baptized, though she had been a faithful believer since she was a girl. She served the church by crocheting prayer shawls for people who were sick or grieving. She wanted to make she was baptized before she went home to be with the Lord. And she wanted me to do it.

Her name was Betty.

 I recall with joy the baptism of a 16-year-old boy in Florida. We came to know one another through a children’s performing arts program hosted at our church, led by his grandmother Mary Lou. He asked to be baptized as a sign of his new-found faith.

When I was baptizing him—he and I wiped away tears.

His name was Jason.

I wonder if this happened for Lydia on the day that she was baptized? Did she wipe away tears as she came up out of the water?

Did she weep with joy when her household was baptized in the river with her?

Would Paul always remember this woman of Macedonia, his first convert in Europe, who eagerly embraced the truth of the gospel that he shared?

Paul and his companions did accept the Lydian woman’s invitation to stay with her after they were released from jail for casting an evil spirit out of a slave girl.  By this time, Lydia had a small church gathered in her home. When Paul and his friends visit her at the end of chapter 16, we read how they “encouraged the brothers and sisters there.”

Baptism is about beginnings—and Lydia was just beginning her new life in Christ, seeking to live out the gospel, open her home and her heart, and share her faith and hospitality with the world.

For the woman who traded in purple dye had prevailed upon them to stay with her and her household after they were baptized.

She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Holy One, thank you for your Spirit that stirs us to baptize generation after generation in our congregation. Stir us to compassion for those who need the help of the gospel, a treasure that you have given us that we share through our lives. Encourage us when we struggle and have trouble seeing our own spiritual progress. Give us your vision, dear Lord, as you did for Paul, and strengthen us for this journey with your gentleness and patience. Open our hearts, like you did for Lydia, to hear your word eagerly, as if for the first time. May your word take root in us and bear fruit so that others may see and want to know our hope for all eternity. Lead us to walk more faithfully with you and accept your answers to prayer—yes, no, and wait and let me show you a better way. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.