Paula Stoltzfus: Water of Life

Remembering the past, living in the now, looking to the future
Jesus our Guide
Psalm 24:1-7; Revelation 21:1-6


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Aaron Kauffman: King Jesus Hears Us

Remembering the past, living in the now, looking to the future
Jesus our Guide
Psalm 34:1-8; Mark 10:46-52


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Joe Hackman: A Bold Request

Remembering the past, living in the now, looking to the future
Jesus our Guide
Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45


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John Stoltzfus: Reflection on World Communion Sunday

Remembering the past, living in the now, looking to the future
Jesus our Guide
Isaiah 25:6-10a; Luke 14:15-25


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Loren Swartzendruber: Markers of Wisdom

Remembering the past, living in the now, looking to the future
Jesus our Guide
Mark 9:30-37; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8


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John Stoltzfus: Living the Question

Remembering the past, living in the now, looking to the future
Jesus our Guide
Psalm 19:1-14; Mark 8:27-38


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Paula Stoltzfus: Rooting, Rest, Rise

Remembering the past, living in the now, looking to the future
Jesus our Guide
Psalm 45:6-7; Mark 7:1-2, 5, 8, 14-15, 21-23; James 1:17-27


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Phil Kniss: Showing up with love and hope

Rooted & Grounded in Love
Pastor Phil's Retirement Sunday
Ephesians 3:14-4:6


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I love the church.

I love this church in particular—

its people, its history, its culture, its way of being.

But more broadly, I love the church.

I consider it a blessing beyond measure 

that I got to spend 41 years of my adult life

doing work I love, 

contributing to a cause I love, 

and walking alongside people I love.

How did I come to love the church?

Well, it was in my family DNA.

There were more ministers and missionaries in my family line 

than you could shake a stick at.

And sometimes you probably wanted to do exactly that.

Both sides of my family somehow instilled in me the idea

that the church was something worth pouring your life into.

I also saw first-hand

the personal toll that church work took on some of my family.

There are wounds some church workers carry through life.

So I don’t see the church through rose-colored glasses.

The three churches I was privileged to serve as pastor,

have all been profoundly beautiful and flawed human communities.

All three are still thriving today, by God’s grace,

but all have gone through some deep waters.

So today is bittersweet.

I realize for the first time since spring of 1983,

I will NOT be investing 

a big chunk of my time and energy every day,

thinking about the daily ups and downs

of a particular congregation and its people.

It’s not that I will care any less 

about the local church and its flourishing.

It’s not that I have no more gifts to give the church.

It’s just that the positions and power I’ve held 

were never mine to hold onto.

My job was to faithfully steward this power,

so I could hand it over to the next steward.

Church leadership is not a sprint, or a marathon.

It’s a long-distance relay.

The church always needs to be led by those

who can help take it to the next place God is leading,

not keep doing what has already been done.

So I am entirely at peace handing off the baton to the next runner,

believing I’ve made a contribution to my leg of the race.

Or to use a vehicle analogy,

I’m ready to take my hands off the steering wheel.

Because you know, the vehicle we need 

to carry the church into the next generation,

may not even be invented yet.

So I wouldn’t have a license to drive it anyway.

I trust the church to find its way down the road, God helping it.

_____________________

So today, for my parting words to you, my beloved church family,

I will not leave you with a summary of my best sermons.

Those are all in the past.

They are archived and searchable.

Instead, I want to offer some words of encouragement and blessing,

for the road ahead,

with maybe a hint of challenge.

What I want you to know, church,

is that you already have everything you need, right here,

to become everything God wants you to be 

in this next phase of your life together and life in the world.

You are a blessed and beloved community,

with all the God-given gifts and resources and vision,

to be who God created you to be.

All that’s needed is willingness, receptivity, courage, and faith.

What PVMC needs

is for everyone to stay engaged, 

be willing to take the next step,

and to keep showing up, with love, and with hope.

Recently, at an Elders’ meeting,

I was asked to provide the opening devotional 

by sharing whatever was on my mind for the church, 

as I prepare to step aside.

So, without a lot of long deliberation,

I came up with a list that I’ll share with you now.

_____________________

First, keep showing up.

This is maybe the best thing we can ever do for each other.

To show up. To be present and attentive.

To each other, and to what’s going on around us.

Our culture encourages us to be ambitious,

but not so much just to be present.

Yet, sometimes presence is enough.

It tells others they are not alone.

It reminds us that we belong to others in community.

Some churches are too focused 

on numbers and dollars and other things we can use

to measure and count and compare.

Some congregations are focused on public performance,

by what goes on up front during a service.

These are temptations for us as well.

Live-streaming, even with all its benefits, 

has the downside of making it seem like 

it’s enough to be an observer, an audience member.

In the life of a church, that is never enough.

So, y’all, keep finding a way, 

even in our fragmented, polarized, 

politicized, and competitive world—

to show up for each other, 

to invest in the life of our community,

and to contribute to the lives of members of our community.

With any church, it’s tempting to decide our level of engagement,

by asking ourselves, what is it doing for us?

Actually, a more authentic question is,

what does the community need from us,

that we are withholding by not showing up?

And please, I’m not just talking about Sunday attendance.

That’s part of it. But only a part.

There are many ways we can choose 

to show up for each other.

And . . . there are many ways we can choose 

to hide ourselves in our own world.

Always lean into the first option.

And, secondly, and closely related,

move toward each other 

when things get hard, or complicated, or awkward, or conflicted.

When you realize the easiest and most tempting choice 

is to withdraw,

that might just be a sign it’s time to move closer.

To listen more deeply.

To wait in patient, prayerful, consideration.

We may not have any words of wisdom or clarity 

to bridge the gap.

But if there is any wisdom to be found anywhere, 

to heal what separates us from each other,

it will only be found in the space that we share together.

Withdrawal only makes our differences permanent.

And I’m going to combine 3, 4, 5, and 6:

express joy…pursue justice…proclaim hope…love the world

We don’t need reminders of how broken our world is,

and of the human ugliness that shows its face everywhere,

from our own neighborhoods,

to intractable war zones.

It is so tempting to simply echo the despair that swirls around us,

to amplify the fear and anxiety and hopelessness

that news media and social media love to amplify, 

because it sells, it gets more clicks.

The church has an alternate world view, 

that needs to be given voice.

God is all about joy.

God is all about justice.

God is all about hope.

And of course, God is love.

Now, over the long history of the church,

we have often made a mess of things in doing mission,

when we tried to give the world

what we thought the world needed, on our terms.

We repent of those collective sins.

And we remain humble.

But now is not the time 

to relinquish our calling toward the world.

Now is not the time to silence the good news 

with which we have been entrusted.

I repeat, God is about joy, about justice, about hope.

And God is love.

And God, for some reason 

always entrusts the word and work of good news

to flawed communities of people like us.

Let’s embrace that.

The world out there has a lot more respect and receptivity

for people of faith, acting on their faith,

when they do so with humility, with joy, 

with hope, and with love.

There is no room for colonialism 

or protectionism or defensiveness in God’s kingdom.

Let’s turn away from any so-called Christian movement

built on antagonism or enmity toward the world.

Because that movement does not resemble Jesus.

Which brings me to my last word.

Keep Jesus at the center.

There are some movements in the church

that seem to quietly downplay Jesus.

And I get why some are hesitant to put Jesus front and center,

when Jesus has been so colonized, and coopted

by American Christians,

so misunderstood and abused,

and frankly, made to be grotesque.

Jesus has been twisted for generations to support slavery, 

and war,

and white supremacy,

and rank materialism,

and now far-right Christian Nationalism.

But let’s not allow that to deter us

from proclaiming the Good News of a Gospel

where Jesus remains at the center of our lives and witness,

and is more than an exemplary human being,

but one who, in union with God,

sits enthroned, with love and power,

in a kingdom of peace and hope and joy and justice,

a kingdom that is both here and not yet fulfilled.

_____________________

In these upcoming several years of transition at Park View,

you won’t be seeing much of me.

But please know, without a doubt,

that I am with you in love and in spirit,

that I am praying for you all,

that I am cheering on your team of pastors and other leaders,

and I truly believe that the best years in the life of Park View

are still to come.

The challenges are great. But God is greater.

The uncertainties are real. But God’s future is sure.

Keep showing up, with love and with hope,

and in the words of apostle Paul,

“walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, 

bearing with one another in love, 

making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit 

in the bond of peace . . . 

To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus

to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

I love you all.

—Phil Kniss, August 25, 2024

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Loren Swartzendruber: Well Done Thou Good and Faithful Servant

Testimony of the Spirit
Walking in Love and Light: Reflections on the First Epistle of John
Matthew 22:37-40; 1 Peter 5:1-3; Romans 12:3-8


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Phil Kniss: The work of love

God is Love
Walking in Love and Light: Reflections on the First Epistle of John
1 John 4:7-21


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Love is work.

I don’t know of any love that isn’t work.

It’s meaningful work.

It’s life-giving work.

It’s worthwhile work.

But it’s work.

Which by definition

takes energy,

takes intentionality,

takes persistence,

and can be deeply challenging.

_____________________

And there’s a lot of talk about love in 1 John.

1 John is a general epistle,

a letter that reads more like a sermon than a letter.

We believe it was written at a time of extended

pressure against the church,

which was still a primarily Jewish movement,

scattered around the Roman Empire.

And it was also a time of turmoil from within.

External pressure came from both the local Jewish synagogue,

which in some Roman cities

had already expelled followers of Jesus from the synagogue,

and it came from the Roman Emperor cult,

which was actively and violently coming for those

who refused to bow to Caesar

and participate in Emperor worship.

And this extended pressure campaign was taking its toll.

The church suffered within its own ranks,

as some members left,

recanting Jesus to rejoin neighbors at the synagogue,

or compromising their faith in Christ as One Lord,

by also participating in emperor worship,

thus avoiding the wrath of the Empire and staying alive.

So . . . the pressure was real and great.

The church was divided as to how to respond to the Jewish community,

how to respond to the Empire,

and how to live with each other . . .

how to navigate their vast theological and cultural differences,

as Jews and Gentiles in one small fellowship.

The early church was a setting in which

it would have been especially challenging to do the work of love.

Perhaps, it’s no less challenging for the church today,

in our context,

with external and internal pressures on a variety of fronts.

How to do the work of love . . . ?

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;

everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

—verses 7 and 8.

When it comes to love, the rock-solid starting point

for the early church, and the church today,

is our identity as a people bound in relational covenant

to the God of the universe, who IS love,

who embodied love in the person of Jesus Christ.

The love to which we are called is not an emotion.

It is a work to be done.

And it is work that can best be done,

within a sturdy commitment to each other,

within covenant.

In a little bit, we are going to be celebrating together,

the decision that Lewis Yoder has made

to enter into covenant relationship, through baptism.

I’m sure that ritual will be accompanied by some feelings,

some emotions, on the part of Lewis, and his family, and us.

Those feelings are wonderful,

but they are only tangential.

They aren’t the substance.

The substance is

the choice Lewis is making to do the work of love,

and the choice we make to partner with Lewis in that work.

_____________________

In recent years, I’ve come to appreciate the angle taken by

author Scot McKnight, in his book Fellowship of Differents.

Scot defines “covenant” as the “rugged commitment to love.”

There is nothing casual about covenant.

We enter into covenant with resolve and trepidation.

We assume it will be hard work.

We assume we will change in the process.

There will be disappointment, pain and struggle,

but the covenant will survive,

if we are willing to be transformed by it.

God’s covenant, or “rugged commitment” to love us—

is the main story of scripture, highlighted here in 1 John.

We human partners in the covenant fail—

miserably, and repeatedly.

But God keeps faith, keeps covenant,

keeps reaching to close the gap.

McKnight came up with a rubric that I like,

which I’ve shared here before,

and in my sermon at the Mennonite Church USA assembly

in Orlando some years ago.

McKnight says God’s covenant love

shows up in three movements in relation to us.

First, God promises to be WITH God’s people,

to move into our space, join us in our messy lives.

God came and walked WITH Adam and Eve in the garden.

During the exodus from slavery, God was WITH Israel

in a cloud and in fire.

God promised Israel, “I will never leave or forsake you,” Deut. 31.

God is first and foremost WITH God’s people—

in the tabernacle, in the ark of the covenant,

in the prophets, and ultimately, profoundly WITH us,

in Jesus of Nazareth,

who was even named Emmanuel, “God with us.”

God WITH us is the heart of the Gospel.

Second, God is FOR us.

God’s presence is not neutral.

God forms an alliance with God’s people,

in order to bless the world,

to bring about God’s saving purposes for all creation.

In Christ, God shows ultimate solidarity FOR us,

as he bears our sin and suffering on the cross.

God says “I am FOR you.”

I will be your God, and you will be my people.

I will send my Spirit to be an advocate,

to be FOR us, and FOR God’s mission in the world.

Third, God’s love is directed TOWARD transformation.

God’s love is a transforming love,

intended to move us TOWARD a particular end.

Love has an aim, a telos.

It points us in the direction TOWARD Christlikeness.

So there is love in three movements, God WITH us, FOR us,

and inviting us TOWARD a transformed life.

_____________________

Now, 1 John says our love for each other,

should mirror and reflect the love of God,

that love which abides in us.

So I think we can assume our love for each other

is most authentic when it has these same movements:

WITH, FOR, and TOWARD.

Or we could also say,

presence, advocacy, and direction.

But . . . kind of like I said in a sermon a few weeks ago at the park,

the sequence matters.

Love is like a well-composed concerto.

There is a first, second, and third movement.

Only after I am willing to be WITH someone, for the long haul,

will I have any credibility when I act FOR them,

and claim to be their advocate.

If we don’t make the effort to be truly WITH,

then our advocacy will be experienced

more like being patronized.

Only after the powerful combination

of being radically WITH and FOR someone,

can they experience my love as authentic.

Then, when I do offer DIRECTION, as the spirit leads,

they can receive it as an act of genuine love,

even if I might challenge them in a direction,

in which they haven’t yet shown a willingness to go.

But sadly, the temptation is always there

to jump straight to giving direction, and call it love . . .

before we ever establish our being WITH and FOR.

A parent cannot shape the moral direction of their child,

without having first established a relationship of love and trust,

by being WITH and FOR their child.

Giving direction,

without prior, long-term presence and advocacy,

will not be experienced as love, but as coercion, as violence.

I think, to a large degree, we have all been guilty of that.

I’m not talking here about extreme emergency,

like grabbing a stranger and moving them out of the way

of an oncoming train.

On occasion, quick and forceful action is compassion.

No, I’m talking about how, in our ordinary lives,

we practice this work we call love.

Do we love with integrity?

By respecting the worth and dignity of everyone,

and being with them and for them,

without condition, giving them agency.

That is our continuing challenge.

This is hard work!

It takes rugged commitment . . . in other words, covenant.

It’s hard to be truly WITH someone,

especially when they inhabit a world

that is strange or foreign or distant to us.

Sometimes, we need to travel a great distance,

emotionally, culturally, or otherwise,

to be with someone.

But that is our calling, to be WITH one another in love.

It’s even harder to be FOR someone,

to truly be an advocate for the wellbeing of someone

with whom we have significant differences, or tension,

or even outright enmity.

In this fraught political season,

I’ll be looking for examples of where a politician or candidate

demonstrates genuine empathy toward a struggling opponent,

instead of exploiting every vulnerability

as an opportunity to attack.

I’ll look, but I won’t find.

We witnessed it in the Olympics, multiple times.

But it won’t be repeated on the political playing field.

And the most difficult is calling others TOWARD transformation.

And no, it’s not difficult to tell someone to change.

We do that at the drop of a hat.

I mean, calling for real transformation,

without sacrificing the integrity of the relationship,

without causing the other to doubt our love.

The work of love requires extreme humility.

Our call is not to fix the other.

Our call is to love each other into Christlikeness.

And we can only do that in the context of a sturdy covenant,

and mutual commitment to one another.

God give us the courage and strength we need.

_____________________

And right now,

may God give us what we need to enter into, and participate in,

a new baptismal covenant

between Lewis Yoder and his God, and his people—

most specifically, this congregation.

Baptism is a joyous ritual of the church,

and it is a solemn and weighty one.

Lewis will soon declare his loyalty and identity,

as a child of God in community with us.

And we, in turn, will declare our loyalty to and identity with Lewis.

It’s been a joy to meet several times with Lewis

in preparation for this morning.

I got to see first hand, and clearly, and explicitly,

what I’ve been observing for a number of years,

and which you have observed as well.

We have seen Lewis mature in body, mind, spirit, and faith.

Lewis trusts in Jesus.

He trusts in the goodness of God.

And he trusts in this community

that seeks to be faithful to God’s call.

So, he is ready to go all in with God, and all in with us.

Baptism is not a sign of our achievement

or even a test of all that we know and believe.

It is rather a declaration of loyalty to the way of Jesus,

as lived out in community.

Lewis is ready to say yes to us and God.

I trust we are all ready to yes to him.

—Phil Kniss, August 11, 2024

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Phil Kniss: Getting personal

We know love by this
Walking in Love and Light: Reflections on the First Epistle of John
1 John 3:1-7, 16-24


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A lot has happened in the two weeks since I last preached.

There’s been some disequilibrium.

On the political front,

someone attempted to assassinate the former president.

And a week later, our current president dropped out of the race.

And the vice president took his place on the ticket.

On the church front,

a week ago Virginia Mennonite Conference

had a consequential delegate session,

in which, sadly, 10 congregations withdrew from the conference,

and two congregations closed their doors.

But we also welcomed a new congregation in formation.

And a vote was taken, anticipated for over a year,

to reaffirm our connection with Mennonite Church USA.

It just needed a majority,

but passed with 75%, reassuring most of us,

but no doubt causing disequilibrium for others.

Meanwhile, Park View is undergoing

a complicated and multiphased leadership transition.

It’s going well so far, but it can be a bit unsettling.

On the personal front,

our daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren

are moving back to Harrisonburg this week.

And 3 days ago, I officially became a senior citizen.

Oh, and there’s a retirement happening in there somewhere,

end of August . . . or was that April . . . ?

(inside joke for those who were here last Sunday).

What we tend to do in times of

uncertainty, anxiety, or disequilibrium,

is to gravitate toward whatever’s reliable and predictable,

and hang on for dear life.

I see it in our politics.

I see it in our culture wars.

I see it in our conference and denominational struggles.

I see it in the lives of families in transition.

I see it in myself.

And it’s not all bad.

Grasping for something steady can be healthy or unhealthy.

Our mental and emotional health can actually benefit

from having something familiar to hold close to us,

while we navigate the shifting ground under our feet.

Toddlers might need a stuffed animal.

Adults might need a brisk walk around the same block

at the same time every evening.

 But we can also easily veer into unhealthy ways

of trying to steady the shifting ground underneath us.

Sometimes we oversimplify and categorize and label—

both things and people.

That’s usually easier than dealing with

nuance in ideas, or complexity in people.

It takes a lot less energy to dismiss someone

as a MAGA hothead, or as a left-wing nutcase,

and walk away from them,

than it does to deal with their full humanity,

and to welcome their story.

_____________________

All this is to say I found the words of 1 John 3

to be some much needed words.

Fresh air blowing into a stuffy room

where it’s sometimes hard to breathe.

This epistle is a good reminder for any of us

who have gotten caught up in the anxieties of our day,

of our nation, of our culture, of our church, of our families,

and are starting to suffocate in it.

It is a call to find our spiritual and relational grounding

in the deep, deep love of God.

The love of God for us,

and the love of God for all whom God has made.

The writer says,

We know love by this, that Christ laid down his life for us—

and we ought to lay down our lives for others.

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods

and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

Little children, let us love not in word or speech

but in deed and truth.

We will know love by our capacity to embody that love

in the most challenging of relationships

with real, breathing, human beings—

those who are like us, and those who are unlike us.

All who God made in love, in God’s own image and likeness.

_____________________

The other night, or I should say, the other morning,

sometime around 3am,

I woke up, and had some trouble getting back to sleep.

No one reason. Something I ate? Something on my mind?

Now, this might not work for everybody, but . . .

what helps me get back to sleep is reading a philosophical essay.

I subscribe to an online philosophy journal,

which is quite interesting in the daytime,

but at night, with my device on dark mode and the color off,

so it doesn’t trick my melatonin,

I’ll read some deep esoteric thoughts for 15 or 20 minutes,

and soon my eyelids get heavy, and I can go back to sleep.

It slows down my brain.

But the other morning, the essay I read was a little too interesting,

and too connected to 1 John 3,

so I used up most of an hour reading it.

Didn’t help my sleep, but helped my sermon prep.

The author was philosophy professor Bennett Gilbert,

writing about the philosophy of personalism.

He said that philosophy inspired Martin Luther King Jr.’s

dream of a better world,

and said it could inspire us as well,

in these fraught times in which we live.

The essay was published just 5 days ago.

So I’m guessing Gilbert had in mind,

even the events of the last two weeks.

Simply put, the philosophy of personalism says that

reality begins with the individual “person”

and with personal consciousness,

to which we attach the most profound worth.

Some philosophers use metaphysics and other non-religious models

to develop their personalism,

But some, the author noted, develop it through

the theologies of Abrahamic religions

like Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

And Martin Luther King Jr studied under

professors at Boston University who were renowned

for their work on the philosophy of personalism.

Gilbert started out the article with a quote from King’s book

Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

King was in an airport terminal

after the march from Selma to Montgomery,

and looking out over the sea of people there

who came to Montgomery to support them.

Later, he wrote about that moment,

“As I stood with them and saw white and Negro, nuns and priests, ministers and rabbis, labor organizers, lawyers, doctors, housemaids and shopworkers brimming with vitality and enjoying a rare comradeship, I knew I was seeing a microcosm of the mankind of the future in this moment of luminous and genuine brotherhood.”

Gilbert surmises that King’s study of the philosophy of personalism

inspired that observation.

Then he quoted some lines from King’s PhD dissertation,

in which he wrote,

Only a personal being can be good…

Goodness in the true sense of the word is an attribute of personality.

The same is true of love.

Outside of personality, love loses its meaning…

What we love deeply is persons – we love in the concrete…

A process may generate love,

but the love is directed primarily not toward the process,

but toward the persons who generate that process.

Gilbert summarized King’s thinking this way:

“King subordinates everything to the flourishing of human persons because goodness in this world has no home other than that of persons. Their wellbeing is what makes the events of our lives and of our collective history worthy of effort and care.”

I hear echoes of 1 John 3 in that.

“Let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”

It is important and worthwhile to love ideas,

and pursue our ideals.

I have long called us, as a church,

to think clearly and carefully, to think critically.

But if we are to be faithful conduits of the love of God,

our love of ideas has to bow to our love of persons.

Let me repeat.

I think this is crucial for the polarized times in which we live.

“Our love of ideas has to bow to our love of persons.”

This does not diminish, in any way,

the importance of critical thinking.

It just clarifies the starting point.

1 John 3, and apparently, the philosophy of personalism,

say that the starting point in our moral obligation

is the real and concrete person,

not an abstract idea or ideology.

God created all human beings in love,

and placed in all human beings the divine image—

even in people who we regularly

label with derogatory nicknames.

It’s going to get worse, folks.

The call for unity after the attempted assassination 2 weeks ago,

lasted for about two minutes.

People are right back to name-calling and dehumanizing.

As the struggle for political victory gets more intense

leading up to November,

we can walk a different path.

We can choose to see past the baseball cap

or T-shirt or bumper sticker,

and see a human being God loves,

a human being of inherent worth and value,

a human being with a life story.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a time for public protest,

or vocal messaging of matters of moral urgency.

The call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza is such a time.

I fully support those connected to Mennonite Action

marching peacefully to Washington this weekend,

and letting their voice be heard.

I also fully trust they will share their message

without dehumanizing or dismissing real persons.

I expect their long walk will also lead to some long talks

with people who don’t share their beliefs and convictions.

Those talks can be a win for everyone.

My challenge to us all this morning,

and the challenge of 1 John 3,

is to “get personal.”

Ideas are important.

And we should keep thinking clearly and speaking clearly.

But let’s keep the focus where it belongs—

on the well-being of the person who is loved by God,

without condition, without limit.

Our response depend on the circumstances,

but the person in front of us will still be in focus.

Whether they are in poverty, and need our tangible help,

as the example in 1 John 3:17.

Or whether they are struggling with life in some other way,

and need to be listened to.

Or whether they are acting out of fear and anxiety,

and need a calm person to look into their eyes and see them.

Or whether, even, they are actively attacking us or our values.

However the situation presents itself,

they are fundamentally a human being God loves.

On some rare occasions, we might need, for our own safety,

to protect ourselves, or run for cover,

or simply disengage from an unhealthy conversation.

But even then,

we can choose to see the other as a human being of worth.

We may not be the ones

able to look them in the eyes and communicate that.

But we can still choose not to dehumanize them,

and deepen the wounds that we all suffer from.

This will take lots of discipline,

lots of practice,

lots of patience,

as Election Day nears,

and after Election Day is over, regardless of outcome.

It will also require us, who seek to live this way,

to lean on each other for support,

and not depend on mass media or memes or viral videos,

to figure out how to live well.

We need to get personal . . . together.

So let’s stay together . . . and keep working at it.

—Phil Kniss, July 28, 2024

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Paula Stoltzfus: The Power of AND

God is light and life
Walking in Love and Light: Reflections on the First Epistle of John
1 John 1:1-2:2


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Phil Kniss: Loved and chosen

Belonging at the table
BRINGING CHURCH BACK to the TABLE
WORSHIP & PICNIC IN THE PARK
John 15:1-5, 12-13; Romans 12:3-5, 9-11; Hebrews 10:23-25


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God is love.

There is nothing more fundamentally true about God, than that.

The God we discover in scripture—

both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—

shows a God who is moved, again and again and again,

by a deep and abiding and unconditional love.

God created this world we live in . . . out of love.

And God’s love was expressed most fully,

when God created, and sought to commune with, human beings.

That’s the starting point for our theology.

God loves.

God loves us, and wants our love in return.

God longs for us to flourish,

to fulfill our created purpose—

and we were created to be

in harmony with God and creation,

living fruitful lives that extend God’s love

to those  around us.

So . . . church at the table

is where we embody this love

in daily life and ordinary relationships.

It’s where we belong . . . in the deepest sense of the word.

_____________________

That all sounds so good, and so right,

and . . . so hard to pull off successfully, in real life.

It’s human nature to protect ourselves.

And my desire for protection and security is in tension

with my desire for community and belonging.

Because, to protect myself,

I need to hold tight to whatever is shielding me

from pain or discomfort or loss.

But to belong to others in community,

I need to relax my grip on that shield,

and depend on the free will of others

to treat me kindly and justly.

I need to risk being disappointed sometimes.

So it’s a constant dance,

this thing of belonging, and community.

We all want it. We need it. We search for it.

But we can’t make it happen.

We can only open ourselves to it.

It’s a gift we can only put ourselves in position to receive.

_____________________

In scripture, we have many metaphors for belonging.

Jesus talked about a vine and branches,

in one of our readings today from John’s Gospel.

We are all connected to each other,

due to our common connection to the main vine.

In this case, Jesus said he was the vine.

And each branch has its own role to play.

We are each responsible to “abide.”

That’s not a passive thing on our part.

Abiding requires continual openness,

a constant inflow and outflow of life.

If we choose to isolate for protection,

we cut off the flow,

and we lose our connection to the vine.

Same with the body analogy Paul uses so often,

including today’s text from Romans 12.

The body of Christ is manifold and diverse.

There are many, many parts to it.

And every part has a singular, and essential, function.

Our functions are all different, and all needed.

So Paul’s words of advice are

“let God’s love flow” . . . unimpeded

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good;

love one another with mutual affection;

outdo one another in showing honor.

And later, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, which we heard,

gave us an even more pointed directive,

if we want to flourish and belong in community . . . writing,

“let us consider how to provoke one another

to love and good deeds,

not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some,

but encouraging one another,

and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

_____________________

So what does it really mean . . . in practical ways,

to truly belong in a group that

“provokes each other to love and good deeds,” (Hebrews 10)

or that

“outdoes each other in showing honor,” (Romans 12)

or that

“lays down one’s life for each other.” (John 15)

That is the heart of the question we’ve been pondering as a church,

for the last year or so,

as we have reflected on the meaning of belonging,

and the meaning of membership.

How do we bring together these equally important values—

on the one hand,

affirmation, love, affection, respect,

honoring others, even at personal cost,

and on the other hand,

advocating for what is good and right,

going deep with each other,

being secure enough with each other to provoke each other

toward the life God intends for us.

In other words,

full acceptance of who we are, as we are,

and active loving engagement with one another,

helping each other become

the best version of ourselves.

_____________________

There are many nuances to that question,

and different ways to approach it.

I’ll just suggest one, as food for thought this morning.

And that is, the sequence matters.

One needs to come before the other.

The full acceptance and love for each other,

for who we are, as we are,

needs to come first.

We must know, beyond doubt, that we are loved and valued

and chosen to be included in this community, full stop.

Without a deep and secure knowing that we belong, and are loved,

we are in no position to be provoked by others

to become something more than we are now.

It takes relational depth, and trust built over time,

if we’re going to have any integrity

when we try to call out the best in someone else

who has not yet discovered their best.

Depth. Time. Love. Patience.

It takes all that.

And a willingness to keep loving and keep including,

even when we don’t see any movement

in the direction we’d like to see.

And to make it even more challenging,

let’s admit that we ourselves

may also need someone to call out our best in us,

that we are neglecting to see.

In fact, that “someone” just might turn out to be

the very one we were wishing would change.

All our knowledge is incomplete.

We are wise if we live like that’s the case.

And put our heart and soul into the main job,

of making sure our fellow travelers know they are loved,

and are chosen, and that they belong at our table.

I’ll end with an anecdote and an invitation.

The anecdote comes from the author Anne LaMott,

who wrote, in her book Grace Eventually,

about a Sunday School game she would play

when she taught the pre-kindergarten class at her church.

She called the game “loved and chosen.”

Here is what she writes about the scene in her classroom,

with the children on the floor, and she, sitting on a couch.

Here are Anne’s words . . .

I sat on the couch, and glanced around slowly

in a goofy, menacing way,

and then said, “Is anyone here wearing

a blue sweatshirt with Pokemon on it?”

A four-year-old looked down at his chest,

astonished to discover that he matched this description,

like . . . what are the odds?

He raised his hand.

“Come over here to the couch, I said.

You are so loved and so chosen.”

He clutched at himself like a beauty pageant finalist.

Then I asked if anyone that day was wearing

green socks with brown shoes?

a Giants cap? an argyle vest?

Each of them turned out to be loved and chosen,

which does not happen so often . . .”

And they all ended up on the couch.

Because everyone is loved and chosen.

I believe Anne is right. A foundational truth about God,

is that God loves us, and God chooses us.

Now the invitation . . .

You’re probably ready to get up and stretch a little.

So go ahead, stand and stretch.

Now, in a second, I’m going to invite you

to turn to the person on your left or your right,

and say, “You are loved. You are chosen. You belong.”

Or maybe even walk around a bit,

and find someone else to say that to,

either just because you want to,

or because you think they might need to hear it,

or someone you may not even know.

I assure you, that everyone here deserves those words today,

“You are loved. You are chosen. You belong.”

So I invite you to be the one to deliver those words to them.

And of course, others will be saying them back to you.

“You are loved. You are chosen. You belong.”  Go.

_____________________

Now I invite us to return to our seats,

and prepare for a song of response.

And it occurs to me this might be a good time to add something,

in light of the attempted assassination

of former president Trump last evening.

It’s shocking and disturbing for everyone of us

who want to live in peace with all our neighbors.

And it comes during one of our most difficult seasons

in our public and political life,

when chaos and demonization of the other is par for the course.

My invitation this morning to speak love and belonging to others,

should not only apply to other members of the church,

or to our own faith community.

Our missional task in this moment,

is to reassure every human being of their worth,

of their inherent goodness,

and make that our dominant message.

We don’t have much control over how

the political machinery,

and social media,

and public press,

are going to spin this thing,

and react, and point fingers.

We do have control over ourselves,

at the small scale,

at the table,

with each other,

with our neighbors,

across the backyard fence,

to let love have both the first and last word.

The song of response Karen chose, days ago,

fits both my sermon, and current events.

The words are,

Between darkness and light I will always walk;

and wherever I will go,

I will open a window of light,

and will plant the seeds of love.

May it be so.

—Phil Kniss, July 14, 2024

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