The Story of New Community: Part 5 of "God's Five Act Play"  

By Barrett Fisher 

 

When I left home for college, I remember being especially excited about the potential for reinventing myself in a new community. By moving more than 250 miles to a place where nobody knew anything about me, I assumed that my identity was a blank slate on which I could inscribe the ideal image I secretly cherished. A new community meant a new "me." In other words, I longed to be born again!

 

Are you surprised to learn that it didn't work out that way? As Jackson Browne says in a song that I listened to then, "No matter how fast I run/I can never seem to get away from me." Not only was I the same person in Maine as I had been in Connecticut, but the "newness" of that community was simply a result of a random geographical relocation rather than a radical spiritual revolution. By contrast, the church that Jesus inaugurates after his resurrection, and that we see taking shape through the events of Acts and in the various epistles of the New Testament, is a genuinely new community for at least two reasons.

 

First, it is a topsy-turvy community, in which the first are last, the foolish are wise, and the weak are strong. One author calls this "the promise of paradox;" it is an upside-down kingdom whose ruler leads by serving, who shows us that the only way to save your life is to lose it, who exalts the humble. It is a community moving in the freedom of grace rather than the rules of law, where forgiveness is always available, and it is never too late for a fresh start.

 

Second, this community is established on a new covenant or agreement between God and humanity. This is the covenant that we celebrate every Sunday through the Eucharist, which reminds us that Jesus willingly gave his life to free us from the sin that curves us inward, away from our Creator, in whose image we are made, and away from our neighbors, whom we are intended to love as ourselves. But we cannot love when we are captivated by desires that focus on our own needs and insecurities. Jesus' death on the cross and his resurrection afterwards give us both the hope and the power that we need to become new people, oriented toward God and seeking the good of each other.

Perhaps this is what Jesus means by "new wine in new wineskins" (Mark 2:22). Don't "run ... to get away" from yourself--let God renew you. Paul describes a "new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24) living harmoniously with others as "members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (Ephesians 4:6). I quickly learned that this was not the new community that greeted the old me when I walked onto a college campus for the first time. But it is the community that Jesus established more than 2,000 years ago and that we have the privilege--and opportunity--to be part of at St. Matthew's.

Read More about God's Five Act Play 
Easter Morning at St. Matthew's!
  Blair Pogue, David & Patricia Fenrick                
Luke Zscheile, Mingli Halker, Kunashe Nyenya
Chris Sibilia, Lars Christensen, Gail Noble
 Dwight Zscheile, Marilyn Grantham               
Laura Bathke, Liz O'Toole
Martha Mason Miller, Joan Mason
- Oliver Craig, Devene Matthews, Jonas Carlson                                               
Thank You for Lent, Holy Week and Easter 

Dear Friends of St. Matthew's:

I want to thank all of you who helped out at St. Matthew's during Lent, Holy Week, and Easter: all of our Five Act Play essay writers and bloggers, vergers, Parish Choir members, musicians, acolytes, readers, prayer leaders, chalice bearers, altar guild members, ushers, counters, and all those who helped out on Maundy Thursday including the children who stripped the altar/church with their parents and adult friends.

 

I want to give a special shout out to Liz Morrison and Karen Pfeifle who spent numerous hours helping with the stripping of the altar and then getting the church and Parish Hall ready for Easter, to Rosa Uy who oversaw the Maundy Thursday agape meal and Easter brunch, to Lis Christenson and Terese Lewis who have quietly set up for the Maundy Thursday Taize service year after year, to Marilyn Grantham and Valerie Matthew our fearless acolyte coaches, to Kathryn who always makes sure the latest liturgy is on the altar and prepares the Prayers of the People each week, to Laura Bathke who lined up readers each week, to Michael Compton and our Parish Choir who helped us observe Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday with theologically-grounded, meditative, and joyful music, to Lisa Wiens Heinsohn, Jeff Kidder, and the evening service leaders and musicians who helped us explore the themes of Lent and Palm Sunday so deeply and beautifully, to our ushers and especially the Easter ushering team of Linda and Paul Brady and Barrett and Amy Fisher who worked so seamlessly, to Counters Dan Glienke, Jack Rarick, and Larry O'Toole who stayed late on Easter day, and finally to Sue Ladehoff who worked on five different programs between Palm Sunday and Easter and did so, as usual, while continuing to make St. Matt's a hospitable and grace-filled Place. And thanks to all of you whose names are not included here, but who helped out significantly at church this Lent, Holy Week and Easter. I am so grateful for all of you!

 

This coming Sunday, April 12, I would like to invite anyone who attended the Lenten and Holy Week, and/or the Easter service to come give feedback on all of these seasons and services at noon in the church Library. What was life-giving? What needs to be changed? Are there any new and meaningful ways of observing Lent, Holy Week, and Easter that we should pray about and consider? Please come and share your honest thoughts so we can continue to learn together.

With gratitude,

Blair

Excerpts from Holy Week and Easter Sermons 

  

Easter Sermon by The Rev. Blair Pogue  

In Mark's Gospel (16:1-8) we, like the women who found the stone rolled away, are confronted with an empty tomb and a promise. While most of us want to see and touch the resurrected Christ, and desire that everything be resolved and wrapped up neatly, Mark has us sit with many unknowns. He has us sit with mixed emotions: terror, amazement, fear - trying to make sense of it all. The man in white told the women that the risen Jesus had gone ahead of them to Galilee. Jesus is already doing a new thing, leading the way. What? What does Jesus' resurrection and the fact that he is already ahead of them, continuing to lead the way, mean for these women, and for us? Clearly, if we choose to follow Jesus, the life and movement of the resurrected Jesus will determine our future. Can we step forward into that future in trust?  Read More Here  

 

Good Friday Sermon by The Rev. Blair Pogue 

What separates the death of Jesus from so many other innocent deaths that have occurred throughout human history? Why are we gathered here today at the foot of the cross? For most often, innocent suffering is only tragic, not redemptive. But in this case, upon this cross, we see a man reaching through the injustice of his persecution, through the pain of rejection by his own people, to embrace the very torturers who have put him there. We see a man opening wide his arms in vulnerability to break the cycle of violence that led to his crucifixion. And we see a new relationship between God and humanity opening up through Jesus' fidelity to God--a fidelity that persevered even through abandonment, betrayal, torture and execution. Read More Here  

 

Maundy Thursday Sermon by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn

On Maundy Thursday in Holy Week, Christians come together to honor Jesus instituting the practice of the Lord's Supper. The first three gospels, Matthew Mark and Luke, all describe Jesus doing this on the night he was betrayed and arrested, and so, on the eve of Good Friday, we remember and reflect on this event. We remember it because the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, is central to Christian faith and life, just as Jesus' death and resurrection are central to Christian faith and life. Read More Here 

Women's Retreat: May 15-16 

   

Every once in awhile everyone needs to get away from it all for 24 hours. The Women's Retreat affords this pleasure along with many opportunities for laughter, learning, conversation, and relaxation. This year our retreat will be in a new location - Riverwood Retreat Center in Otsego, Minnesota (located between Albertville and Elk River in the northern metro).

 

It is a 45 minute drive - just far enough away to let the cares of work and home mellow a bit.  The gathering will begin on Friday in the late afternoon and end Saturday afternoon.

If you are interested, please fill out a registration form and return it to the church office.  We need to have a count soon to reserve our place.  The retreat is being organized by Laura Bathke - if you have questions, email her at lsbathke@gmail.com 

What is Celtic Christianity?   

By John Lawyer

Celtic Christianity is a distinctive form of gospel belief and practice that arose in the outer fringes of the Roman Empire and beyond, today's Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall, and Brittany. It flourished from the fifth through the ninth centuries, when this part of the world was cut off from the Roman church by the barbarian invasions, and so developed according to its own cultural norms.

 

This form of the faith was distinctive in two important ways. First, it related to Celtic paganism much as early Christianity related to Judaism. There were no martyrs in Ireland; the Gospel was regarded as the completion and fulfillment of the spirituality that had already been in place for centuries. Most individuals who would have been Druids under the old dispensation became Christian priests under the new. The issues which arose were questions of harmonization, not of uncompromising opposition as with Roman paganism. Celtic culture was rural, tribal, familial, and deeply attuned to the natural world, and Celtic Christianity reflected these values. It contrasted sharply with the Roman world and Roman Christianity, which was urban, territorial, administrative, and institutional.

 

Secondly, the main problem the gentile world faced in the Roman Empire during the first four Christian centuries was not sin, but death, the irreducible fact of human mortality. You cannot have a great awareness of sin unless you have a holy god, and the gods of Mediterranean paganism were anything but holy. You could anger a pagan deity or pollute a temple, but you could not sin against them as the Jews understood sin. At the same time the classical world was only too aware that even the most beautiful, the most famous, the most accomplished, the most beloved person would die, and this knowledge cast a pall over their entire mindset. "All good things must pass away" was the Stoic motto; better accept the fact. Christianity by contrast promised that only the bad things pass away; the good things are caught up into the Kingdom of God, where with the saints they live forever. Irenaeus of Antioch in the second century neatly captured this mindset when he spoke of the eucharist as "the medicine of immortality."   This was the form of early Christianity that was carried into the Celtic world, characterized by a preoccupation with life rather than an obsession with sin.

 

We will start our four-week reading in authentic Celtic sources by looking at the hymn known as St. Patrick's Breastplate in the Adult Education hour on April 19. The 7th century text, which inspired our modern hymn #370 in The Hymnal 1982, offers a good sense of the Celtic worldview. On the internal evidence it probably dates to the 5th century in oral form. Please join us at 9:15 a.m. in the Church Library.
Looking Ahead: Calendar Highlights
  • April 18: Novel Faith: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, 6:30pm
  • April 19: Celtic Sources series begins, 9:15am in the library with John Lawyer
  • April 19: Poetry Reading by Carol Bjorlie, 4:00pm
  • April 19: Celebration of Community Art Show Reception, 6:30pm
  • April 24-25: Bil Gangl Memorial Relay Run, Mahtomedi High School
  • May 3: Children's Art Show opening reception
  • May 15-16: Women's Retreat
Please share your news and photos with us: tidings@stmatthewsmn.org

Visit our website for the prayer list, calendar and sermons