
Three MPH
9/28/2023
He stood in front of a crowd worried about poverty, incarcerations, all the social worries of the day, and talked about evangelism. “The gospel moves at 3 mph. Like this,” and he turned and walked around the room greeting people.
The gospel spreads the way we walk our talk. It’s a slow-moving, transforming encounter with another in which people see each other, speak to each other, hear stories of their lives, worries of their days, and dreams of their futures. The gospel is good news because those who receive it know their existence is worth noting.
Just when I think I’ve come to terms with my inadequacy of making a difference, the sacrament of communion arrives and Jesus says, “come for dinner, I’ve got a surprise for you.”
At the table I see people from a variety of places in life. We are differently abled, all ages, histories that converge and diverge, sorrows and celebrations that are common if not the same. When I remember that on World Communion Sunday, I am acknowledging that the people I see visibly represent the whole church, in all times and in all places, I am remembering that the church is not a building. I remember that I have connections to people near and far. Some I know. Others I may never meet. And wherever they are, they want the same thing I do: world peace and healthy friendships, and hope.
For every devilish declaration that destruction and chaos are winning, there are millions of people who are walking examples of good news. You are one of them.
Moving at 3 mph – with every hand you shake, smile you give, listening ear you open, dream you support, tear you catch, skill you teach, you are the church making peace in the name of Jesus Christ.
We will once again collect the peacemaking offering. This is the gospel at a dollar at a time. Your contributions have built an early warning (cyclone/flooding) system in the south Pacific nation of Tuvalu, created programs for women and girls to avoid and escape human trafficking in Madagascar, and offered training for dismantling racism in our own presbytery. This, too, is the slow-moving spread of the gospel.
Do you wonder if you are alone in your own dreams for a world at peace, or a relationship healed? Maybe there is an answer for you. The table is ready and Christ calls, “Come for dinner….”
Keep shining saints!
Peace,
RevBev
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More than a feeling
Is the sky falling?
Surprise! It is C. in 1964, 19% of the population lived in poverty. In 2014, it was 14.8% and in 2022, it was 11.5%.
There are still too many people living in poverty. Yet, if we ignore the positive movement, we might lose hope and fail to continue the necessary efforts to give more people more avenues to a life of enough, and more than enough. We must rely on more than a feeling about how the world is changing and examine the facts. Things are improving–slowly but surely.
Forgive us our debts…
Imagine if the number was so big, it would never end. Maybe you do not have to imagine. I do not have to imagine. When I was given the gift of paying off a debt, the freedom released so much within my soul that it was life-changing.
Whether the debt we forgive is a relational IOU or a financial one, grace moves life toward the good. Perhaps you forgive debts through services like Rise Against Hunger, or Food on the Fourth. You have another super-power.

Small Change, Compound Results
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“Honest Patriotism”
Appeals and Investments

Deciding Considerations
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God,
and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. (Rom. 13:1)
My Ever-emerging Decision Process
Character: how closely do they mirror the life of my inspiration, Jesus.
- a broadening welcome of people no matter where they come from or who they are,
- invitational in that options open up for overcoming histories of personal and societal failures
- interdependent, able to articulate personal positions without diminishing those who differ (unless they’re pharisaical ways lead to murder plots!).
- truth seeker and truth teller
Community: what kind of society did Jesus build with his disciples, what is the nature of the promised land of Israel’s hope.
- become more clear in what I think “on earth as in heaven,” means and discern the ways a platform seeks that outcome,
- Diminishing poverty, ending hunger and lack of clean water, and provision of shelter at the least,
- shared wealth that builds prosperity for all,
- promotion of non-violent settlement of conflicts,
- exhaustive pursuit of forgiveness and cooperation.
- how far we need to go toward building a heavenly peace,
- to restrain our tendencies toward apathy for the well-being of others, and
- to cast the vision of God’s intention for a whole and holy creation.
The 10 Commandments lay it out pretty well. The 2 Great Commandments make it even more clear: love the Divine Creator of all that is and love the creatures, including ourselves, that Creator makes.
How will you decide?
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I love my job.
Sept 7, 2023
I love my job.
I was asked if it is true that if you loved your job you would never work a day in your life. My answer—not true. You will work twice as hard because you do love it. When the job gets awful but you love it anyway, the saying means you rarely wake up and wish you never had to work there again. I love my job.
A pastor recently shared his despair and declared he is leaving ministry because it is awful. I have experienced some of the same difficulties. You have likely left or felt trapped in a job as well. I have bad days. Sometimes I’ve had bad months (years). I’ve had ministry jobs that were way more work than joy, and which I did in fact actively seek to leave. Nevertheless,
What else would I do?
I can imagine all kinds of things it would be fun to try. There is nothing else I can imagine sticking with when things got hard. I love the challenge of thinking about and being the idealist. I am the sky is falling realist who proclaims, “But thus sayeth the Lord—I’m about to do a new thing! Wait for it!”
Then, I get to share the invitation to be part of the transformation. I hope you discover the joy in the journey toward wholeness in spite of the frailties of human life, the joyless drudgery of work you are not interested in, the pains of loss, the agony of slow-motion success.
There’s More to Love
My joy is being a witness to what others do without me which make this world a better place because they are in it. Often, they don’t even realize the difference that one conversation, or sacrifice, makes. I love my job because I am called to witness who you are, what you do, what and who you love. Sometimes I see it because you are kind, loving, serving, offering. Sometimes I see it because you are angry or hurt or failing or even mean. I am called to see, not judge, called to love not fix, called to hope.
You Can, Too
You can have this joy, too. And that’s where my work begins. Can I model the witness and testimony side without judgement in a way that invites you to be free of that burden? The new thing God is doing, has done, and will always do is to free us of that original divisiveness (sin) that is the burden of what we Christians call our fallen humanity—judging between good and evil.
When we follow the way of Christ, what we are learning to do is see people with love. Including ourselves. I’m still learning. I fail and I succeed.
I hope you’ll find a small group, a Bible study, and a community of friends with whom you can be authentically yourself and know that you are loved. In that embrace, may you know the love of God and discover your true vocation.
You, too, are called to the ministry that I love. My paid work comes forth from the church. Yours will be wherever you work–and play. May your life’s work be love.

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Come and See
Turn Around
This mentality fades over into the invitation we offer to others when we do evangelism. “Come and see,” what Jesus is all about too often becomes the Church trying to scare people into heaven. “Repent! Save yourselves—confess and God will forgive!” I think that’s why Presbyterians have so much trouble inviting friends to participate in church activities—we aren’t fearful. We are full of grace. And that is not easy to “sell.”
Come and See 
This month we begin a new series of Christian Formation, of discipleship study, called, “Follow Me.” There is one unit that reflects on confession as a spiritual practice (coming in November). All the other units are about the breadth of practices in church life and life beyond our worship gatherings that help us see Jesus everywhere.
The word repent means, “turn around.” If our lives too often take us in directions that are unfulfilling, or leave us wanting something more meaningful, perhaps we can turn around, and learn together more about what Jesus invites us to “come and see.”
I’m pretty sure it will include friendship rather than fear, food rather than faultfinding, and a fresh wind of the holy. I wonder, how did you complete that thought? What do you need the Spirit to refresh in you, around you, with a breath of life?
Maybe you will come and see what Jesus has in mind. See you Sunday?
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Compassion
Tired of rudeness, crudeness, hateful monologues? Tired of hearing of threats, fights, gunfights? At a loss as to how to respond or make a difference? I hear the question from people across the spectrum of political perspectives: why are people so mean?
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.
For the judgment you give will be the judgment you get,
and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” Mt 7: 2
We struggle to challenge the ugliness in society, much less among friends or colleagues. We think it is not our place to judge. Worse, we have been bullied and are afraid we will get hurt, truly hurt, or even killed.
First, it is not wrong to reflect back to a person your experience of their statements. You are sharing about yourself. As hard as it may be to “see something, hear something, say something,” responding in the moment is an act of kindness. By expressing your own perception of something as hurtful, and as a way of speaking that you will not engage with, you are engaging with a person in a new way. This kind of dialogue infers that you care more about how the two of you relate to one another than whether one of you is right.
Examples: “That comment was hurtful, mean, because I believe/I felt/I heard..,” “I respond better to kindness than to tone of voice/these words/doing this violence,” “I will not participate in this kind of talk or action because it is cruel and dangerous.”
Also, if you lower your vocal register toward a tenor/bass sound, and speak very quietly, it shifts the listener’s posture toward you.
All these options are simply tools for decreasing aggressive conversation, and de-escalating stress, which I have used with people angry about their own illnesses, or caregiving responsibilities, or dying, at moments when anger overflowed and threats were being tossed around like candy.
The “Problem” with Us
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’
while the log is in your own eye? Mt 7: 3-4
If we think we are not part of the problem, we are too isolated from those we look down upon and too self-absorbed to notice the pain we ourselves inflict- sometimes by what we do not say and do not do.
Silence and ignorance are complicit in creating a world where some say, “what’s wrong with those people?”
Yet, when we are self-reflective, instead of asking about “those,” we ask about ourselves with love and become better behaved advocates, we have a greater capacity for compassion. Thus, we can love our neighbors. As others have said, everyone has their own demons and is fighting battles largely by themselves. Compassion invites us to regard mean behavior as the outcome of sin’s power over us, the very thing Jesu has come to defeat. Healing was his “weapon” of choice. He regarded everyone from the point of view that Sin, with a capital S, had worked evil upon them and they needed to be freed from captivity, released from prison. The key to those cell doors was unconditional love.
Cruelty can’t beat Compassion
The practice of compassion which allows us to, “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Mt 7: 2-5), is the path of courageous healing and reconciliation which transforms us as followers of Jesus Christ.
Go in peace, and let your light shine! RevBev
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2022 Blog Posts are archived HERE.