November 17, 2019 at 8:48 am · naltadonna · Comments Off on Through the Valley: Week 3

Through the Valley: Week 3

This Sunday we concluded our series Through the Valley, a three-week series about how to weather the seasons of loss and grief and rely on God’s comfort and strength in the midst of the valley.

John 11 is a story about people who were in the valley. Mary and Martha had just lost their brother Lazarus, and they were suffering, in pain, and disappointed that Jesus didn’t come sooner to heal Lazarus. When Jesus arrived and saw their suffering, he was deeply disturbed and troubled. He asked where they had laid Lazarus. The townsfolk responded, “Come and see.” They invited Jesus into the place of deepest sorrow, the tomb of Lazarus. It is here that Jesus began to cry. His weeping showed the depth of his love for his friend and compassion for those who were grieving. Jesus also was weeping for himself. He knew the suffering he would soon endure on the cross. When we invite Jesus into our deepest hurts, Jesus weeps with us. Our God is close to the brokenhearted and shares with our sorrows. Jesus does not weep as one who is unfamiliar to suffering, Jesus knows what it is to suffer. He has been through the darkest valley and came out the other side. Jesus’ sacrifice makes our eternal life possible. Jesus faced great suffering, enduring it all, and came out glorified.

The invitation “Come and see” in John 11 is not the first time it appears. “Come and see” is the same invitation Jesus gave his first disciples in John 1. “Come and see” is an invitation into discipleship, into radical obedience to follow God. It is an invitation to new and abundant life. After Jesus cried with Mary and Martha, he then essentially invited them to “Come and see.” He had someone remove the stone from the tomb and called “Lazarus, come out,” and Lazarus walked out of the tomb. Mary and Martha journeyed through the valley of the shadow of death to see a new day dawning, thanks to the resurrecting power of Jesus. While we will likely not see a physical resurrection of a lost loved one like Mary and Martha did, new life and resurrection can spring forth in Christ as we journey through the valley. The valley is not permanent, and death does not have the final word in Christ. In time, Jesus leads us through the valley to a new day dawning. Jesus’ invitation to “Come and see” is an invitation to healing, to hope, and to new life. It is an invitation to believe that Jesus is indeed the resurrection and the life.

Scripture Readings:

• Monday- John 11:1-16
• Tuesday- John 11:17-27
• Wednesday- John 11:28-37
• Thursday- John 11:38-46
• Friday- John 1:35-42

Questions to Consider and Discuss:

• What is the significance of Jesus weeping to you?
• Think back to the valleys of your own life. How did God bring you healing, hope, and/or a new beginning through that valley?

November 10, 2019 at 8:52 am · naltadonna · Comments Off on Through the Valley: Week 2

Through the Valley: Week 2

Being a Christian does not mean life is all sunshine and mountaintops. Sometimes in life we have to walk through the valley of darkness and suffering. We are in the middle of the series “Through the Valley,” which is inspired by Psalm 23:4, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” When we walk through the valley of depression, fear, sickness, aging, or grief, God is present, walking alongside us.

Isaiah 46:1-13 was written to a people who had been in the valley for a long time. The Judeans had been conquered by Babylon and exiled to a foreign land to live. They grieved the loss of loved ones, they mourned uprooting from their home and moving to a new land, and they struggled with sickness and aging. Isaiah 46 is believed to have been written to the Judeans while in exile or immediately after the exile. In Isaiah 46, God calls out the idols the Judeans worshipped, saying that they were powerless when compared with God. While these idols had to be carried, God carries us.

In this scripture, God offers a word of hope that God carries us from before we were born in our mother’s womb all the way until we turn gray and die. God invited the Judeans to remember how God had carried and supported them- from the Exodus in Egypt to the Promised Land to God’s continual faithfulness to the covenant to ensuring that the Jewish people survived as a distinct group. Not only does God walk with us through the valley, but God also carries us. The word “carry” reminds us of the parable of the lost sheep and the shepherd who carried the lost sheep back into the fold. God holds us, supports us, and bears our burdens too. There is no place we can go that God is not willing to go. We can find hope in the truth that God carries us from womb to tomb.

Questions to Consider and Discuss:

• Read Isaiah 46:3-4. What is one invitation from God that you receive as you read this passage?
• How have you experienced God carrying you through the valley?

Scripture Readings:

• Monday- Isaiah 46:1-13
• Tuesday- Isaiah 53:1-12
• Wednesday- Luke 15:3-7
• Thursday- Matthew 11:25-30
• Friday- Psalm 23:1-6

November 4, 2019 at 10:19 pm · naltadonna · Comments Off on Through the Valley: Week 1

Through the Valley: Week 1

Sometimes we paint a picture that the Christian faith is all about the mountaintops, and we expect Christians to be good and happy all the time. But we all know that the Christian faith is not all sunshine and mountaintops. The Christian faith does not mean that we get to avoid suffering or pain. In Psalm 23:4 we find a promise, “Even though I walk through the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The operative word is “through”- God walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. This Sunday we began a three-week series called Through the Valley, about faith in the midst of the struggle, pain, and darkness. This Sunday was All Saints Sunday, which meant that we remembered the saints who have gone before us. In light of All Saints Sunday, we began our series talking about grieving loss of loved ones.

We often deal with grief by numbing or avoiding it, but those two ways of dealing with grief cause more harm in the long run. Ruth 1 can teach us some important truths about grief. In Ruth 1, we encounter a woman named Naomi who endures much grief- she loses her homeland and extended family in a move to Moab because of a famine. Then, her husband and both of her sons die. In the midst of all the grief, she decides to return home to Bethlehem. When she is greeted by her community, she doesn’t hide her grief, she gives voice to her deepest feelings. She is honest with God and with her community about her grief. She expresses emotions of anger, bitterness, and emptiness. While we tend to numb or stuff down our grief, Naomi teaches us how to lean into our grief. When we lean into our grief, God begins to lead us through the darkest valley. After Naomi’s outburst, the scripture says that Ruth and her arrived during the season of the barley harvest. New life was bursting forth at the harvest. God is at work redeeming Naomi’s tears. In time, as she journeys with God through the darkest valley, she becomes instrumental in match-making for Ruth and Boaz, and she has grandchildren, who are a part of the lineage of Jesus. Grief and loss do not have the final word, God does.

There is something powerful in how the community responds to Naomi’s grief. They don’t criticize or question her or share unhelpful platitudes. They allow her to feel what she feels. They engage in a ministry of presence with her. Ministry of presence is simply being present to someone who is grieving. It is not necessarily saying anything, for there isn’t anything we can say that will fix the pain. Ministry of presence is listening to them and telling and showing them that you are there for them in the midst of the struggle. Ministry of presence lets people know that they are not alone and that God and their community cares for them in the midst of the valley.

Henri Nouwen shared a thought-provoking quote about loss: “And still I also believe that absence might lead to the awareness of a new presence. Lately, I have found much comfort in the words of Jesus: ‘It is for your good that I leave, because unless I leave my Spirit cannot come.’ Jesus’ leaving meant that he would become more intimately present to us, that he would unite himself in a new way with us. Because of his death we can say: ‘Not I live but Christ lives in me.’ I have a feeling that this is not just true of Jesus, but in and through Jesus of all people who leave us. In their absence we can develop a new intimacy with them and grow. We even can become more like them and fulfill their mission in life until the day comes that we too have to leave so that our spirit can stay with those we love. In this way mourning can slowly turn into joy, and grief into rebirth.”

Scripture Readings:

• Monday- Ruth 1
• Tuesday- Ruth 2
• Wednesday- Ruth 3
• Thursday- Ruth 4
• Friday- Psalm 43

Questions to Consider and Discuss:

1. In your own experience, how have you dealt with grief? What does it look like to “lean into grief”?
2. How is God inviting you to engage in a  ministry of presence with someone who is hurting?

October 28, 2019 at 4:14 pm · naltadonna · Comments Off on Be the Change: Week 2

Be the Change: Week 2

This week we finished up our two-week series called Be the Change, inspired by the quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” We looked at the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes in John 6. In John’s version of this story, a young boy offers his bread and fish to Jesus to help feed people. When the disciple Andrew sees the meager offering, he inquires, “What good is that for a crowd like this?” That is a question that perhaps many of us ask in our lives. What good is my talent in the midst of people so much more talented than me? What good is my voice in a room full of people with much more wisdom? What good is my $20 with a need of $20,000? We live in a culture of scarcity, a mindset of never enough.

Yet Jesus has a profound response to this culture of scarcity. In this story, Jesus took the five loaves of bread and two fish, gave thanks to God, and gave it to the crowds gathered. Somehow the baskets of bread never emptied, and everyone had enough to eat. In this story, Jesus shows himself as the great provider, who can bring enough and even abundance out of the things we view as scarce. The young boy didn’t listen to the voice of scarcity, he chose to offer what he had to Jesus. The young boy chose to be the change and offer his gifts to Christ. He trusted God to provide and believed God was the source of blessing. What if we resisted the mindset of scarcity and trust that God provides? What if we offered our own forms of five loaves of bread and two fish to God?

From the UMCOR Sager Brown mission trip to Project Read to youth mission trips to small groups and Sunday Schools- all these ministries and missions exist because someone stepped up and said, “Yes, I’ll be the change.” These ministries transform lives because someone offered to God their own forms of five loaves of bread and two fish to God and trusted God to use them to be a force for good in the world. The next time you ask yourself the question “What good is that for a crowd like this?” remember the young boy with the five loaves of bread and two fish. Remember that our offerings have the capacity to be the change and do good in our world. Trust that God has the power to bring enough and even abundance out of the things we sometimes see as scarce.

“The world lies in the power of the evil one. The world does not recognize the light that shines in the darkness. It never did; it never will. But there are people, who in the midst of the world, live with the knowledge that he is alive and dwells within us, that he has overcome the power of death and opens the way of glory. Are there people who come together, who come around the table and do what he did, in memory of him? Are there people who keep telling each other the stories of hope and, together, go out to care for their fellow human beings, not pretending to solve all problems, but to bring a smile to a dying man and a little hope to a lonely child? It is so little, so spectacular, yes, so hidden, this Eucharistic life, but it is like yeast, like a mustard see, like a smile on a baby’s face. It is what keeps faith, hope, and love alive in a world that is constantly on the brink of self-destruction.” – Henri Nouwen

Scripture Readings: 
Monday- John 6:1-14
Tuesday- Matthew 14:13-21
Wednesday- Mark 6:30-43
Thursday- Luke 9:10-17
Friday- Psalm 147:1-20
* As you read the different versions of the feeding of the five thousand this week, consider these questions: How are the stories alike? How are they different from each other?

Questions to Consider and Discuss:

1. Where in your life do you have a scarcity mindset?
2. What are your own forms of “bread and fish” that you can offer to God?