Good Afternoon,

 

On Sunday, Tom preached on the church and explored the reasons for our attachment to it, as well as our quarrels with it.  In our current culture the church more often seems mundane and disconnected rather than holy catholic. 

 

It is difficult to capture the meaning embodied in the term holy.  When teaching I would sometimes use my wedding ring to illustrate the concept to my students.  I would remove my ring and toss it on the desk explaining that the gold in my ring is the same essential compound as other gold jewelry and not even very expensive.  Yet when placed on my finger it transforms into something much more, something sacred and irreplaceable—but only because we as individuals and as a community deem it so, and we hold sacred the relationships connected with the symbol.

 

The wedding ring's significance, much like that of the church, is not intrinsic—it acquires significance only to that point that we as individuals and a community impose meaning upon it, and to the degree that we understand that it reflects something greater than its composite parts.  As with the ring, the church symbolizes both the power of love and unity, even with the poignant reality of failure and disunity.   

 

What is sacred or holy about the church are the relationships and mission.  Perhaps, one could say, the real meaning of the church is as much in the other 167 hours of the week, than in the single hour of worship on Sunday. The church is about a living, evolving community. It is sacred to each individual to the extent that we recognize it to be so and invest in it. The church on its own is a mess of people and diverging theologies and cultures. Indeed the God I embrace is certainly different from the God my Pentecostal grandparents or church reformers embraced, but many of the principles She embodies are holy catholic—they are the belief in the redemptive love, pursuit of spiritual wholeness through relationship and through the transformational ideas embodied in the ministry of Jesus.

 

Letty M. Russell, professor Emerita of Theology at Yale University Divinity School and an ordained PCUSA minister writes: "The gift of holiness in the church should lead to a spirituality of connection to our whole selves, to a community of faith and justice, and to those on the margin of society. …to believe the church is to risk believing that the particular communities of faith and struggle, where we are members, partake in some way in the one church of Jesus Christ."   

 

Tiffany Zents

 

Today and throughout the week, please remember these concerns and joys:

-           Lenore Steppe's husband, Bob, in hospice care

-           Ryan Tillery, upon the death of her aunt in Texas (Carol Portwood on 6/20)

-           Virginia Wilhelm's husband Curt, at Twin Lakes for rehab

-           Barbara Vorjohan, West Chester Nursing and Rehab.

-            Ed Irvin , in Seattle for treatment; stem cell transplant July 2.  An updated address for Ed is:  UW Medical Center, 1959 NE Pacific Ave , Seattle WA 98195

-           Lola Gutierrez, granddaughter of Jeanine and Hank Hodge; in remission!

-           Joy!... William Robert Hamilton was born on 6/28 to Bryon and Carna Hamilton

-           Family and friends of Mary Pack, who died 6/27; service is Thurs. 7/2, 10:30        am at Knox.