Greetings to you from the Burrrgh! Like you, we've had some really cold nights here and we're so thankful that we've been able to offer warmth and com
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Overlook UMC members pray a blessing over the coats and other cold weather clothing on Sunday morning.
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fort to all of our friends who have few opportunities the come in from the cold. Each day we are reminded that Our House meets a critical need for our homeless sisters and brothers. And, each day, we are reminded that we've been able to keep the place open and to do what we do because so many of you have given of yourselves. It's about living into the kingdom of heaven, a realm in which we move from scarcity to abundance, a realm in which there's plenty to go around, a realm in which caring for one another is the order of the day. This week, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Monroe, Overlook United Methodist Church, Woodstock, and United Presbyterian Church, Amenia, joined us in supporting the work. Steve visited a Sunday School class at St. Paul where he talked about homelessness and our call to embrace others. He left the church with $988.86 that the children had collected during the past few months
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Bag man - Steve gets ready to squeeze another bag of cold weather gear into his car at Overlook UMC
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in support of Our House. A couple of hours later, members of Woodstock's Overlook UMC gathered around a long table, blessed the cold weather clothing they'd collected, and packed it - and we mean packed it - into Steve's car. If that's not enough . . . our friend Heidi Johnson rolled into town later in the day with bags of "good stuff" from our friends at United Presbyterian Church in Amenia which is all the way over in the northeast corner of Dutchess County. We think it's safe to say that we can scratch winter coats from our wish list. Our Sunday adventures remind us that we're always happy to visit churches and other organizations to talk about homelessness and the work to which we've been called here in Newburgh. All you need to do is give us a call at 845-391-8890 or drop us a line at Sower@ecclesia-newburgh.org. |
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Nothing to sneeze at . . .
Just outside of Capernaum, on a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee, is a shrine commemorating the Sermon on the Mount. Whether it's really THE spot or not doesn't really m  atter. What matters is that the shrine is a place place where pilgrims can gather, to remember, to worship, to give thanks and, to feel blessed. It is a place whose holiness has been exposed by the prayers and tears and songs of joy offered over through the centuries by pilgrims from the four corners of the earth. I mention the spot by way of telling you next Sunday and for a couple of Sundays to come, the lectionary takes us to Matthew's telling of the Sermon on the Mount, the core of Jesus' teachings. On Sunday, we begin at the beginning - Matthew 5:1-12. We begin with the Beatitudes. (Click here to listen as Sweet Honey in the Rock sing them to you.)
It begins with Jesus climbing up onto a hillside and sitting down. His disciples join him and Jesus proceeds to talk about being blessed. I was going to write about being blessed and about being blessing but, the folks at Overlook helped change my mind. When they gathered around that long table covered with warm clothing and blessed it all, I was reminded that what this world needs is our blessing.
To bless something is to see it for what it already is - blessed, holy. In the Jewish tradition, for example, there must be more than 100 prayers that begin, "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe . . .." Those prayers recognize the holiness of God and our connection with God through the good and not-so-good of life. And, so, they remind us that we need to look for the holiness in all things.
That's not always so easy to do. It's not so easy to see holiness in a person who is using or abusing us or the holiness of some illness or the holiness of the sewage treatment plant down the road. Yet, we need to bless them so that we know that God is in the mix, that it is not for us to decide who or what deserves a blessing.
Jesus made that last point clear when he declared the down and out of his day to be blessed. What he said ran contrary to popular beliefs.
The contrast between the obviously holy and the not-so-obviously holy came wrapped up in a 1966 Simon and Garfunkel tune, Blessed. Editing out the in between stuff, the lyrics go like this:
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit Blessed is the lamb whose blood flows Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on Blessed is the land and the kingdom Blessed is the man whose soul belongs to Blessed are the meth drinkers, pot sellers, illusion dwellers Blessed are the stained glass, windowpane glass Blessed is the church service, makes, me nervous Blessed are the penny rookers, cheap hookers, groovy lookers To bless anything and everything is about our call to see others through God's eyes, eyes that look upon all creation with compassion. And, that we are able to bless all is evidence that we too have been blessed. |
