June 28, 2024
Dear Peace Members,
I know that a number of you are traveling this coming July 4th week (more about this celebration near the end of this e-note). God’s blessings on your travel, your reunions, your gatherings, and all your celebrations!
This Sunday in worship (9:30am), we continue in our sermon series, “Following Jesus in Mark’s Gospel.” In Sunday’s Gospel scene, Jesus meets a desperate woman who has suffered from hemorrhaging for 12 years. She has not only suffered from this illness but, Mark says, she has suffered at the hands of many physicians. Some of you know what that’s like. You go from doctor to doctor. They don’t know what’s going on. They can’t give you any help. Some of you can identify with this woman! And she pushes her way through the crowd and she says, “I don’t want Jesus to say anything to me. I don’t need him to do anything. If I; if I can just touch the hem of his robe, I shall be healed. And she does it and she is healed.
Jesus healed people. But he didn’t feel everybody he met. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus is about more important work even—even—than healing. And maybe Jesus is better—even than an incredibly effective doctor. We’ll hear more about this fascinating and helpful story from Pastor Joe in the Sunday sermon, “Being Made Well.” We’ll share in Holy Communion, hear a children’s message, and pray for the needs of others and our own—all in worship of our Lord Jesus Christ.
A further note about this coming July 4th holiday. On Thursday our country will celebrate the same date in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was ratified by the Second Continental Congress, declaring our country’s freedom from Great Britain. I love those lofty words Thomas Jefferson penned in the second sentence of the Declaration: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
What a lofty vision! The premise that all people were created equal and that we are endowed with certain unalienable rights has as its foundation that there is a Creator and assumes that we have value and worth because we were created by God and in God’s image. These grand ideas were just that, ideals—a vision—that the nation would be built upon, but which would have to be hammered out and fought for and are still being fought for. It would be 89 years before slaves would be emancipated. It would be 144 years before the 19th Amendment passed and women were granted the right to vote. We’re still working on this vision and ideal.
As we prepare to celebrate our nation’s freedom and independence, it is a good time to remember the words of Paul in this declaration of independence found in Galatians 5:13-14: “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only don’t let this freedom be an opportunity for self-indulgence, but serve each other through love. All the law has been fulfilled in a single statement: Love your neighbor as yourself.”
I pray that you enjoy Independence Day, and that together we can continue to help our nation live into this vision, as we seek to love our neighbor, and pursue justice and kindness as we walk humbly with God. Happy Independence Day to you all!
Mark