Pastor’s Perspective

From the November Church Newsletter 2022

I think of November as "family month" because it's the month when people usually come together for Thanksgiving. As a temporary teenage resident of Canterbury, England, I nearly forgot about Thanksgiving until one day, I heard the loud voices of American tourists. Then I couldn't get out of my mind an image of family gathered around a dining table without me.

Of all those gathered people, I particularly remember my grandmother. She seemed like a saint, never raising her voice or saying a negative word about or to anyone. She was grace under pressure. The only time I heard her say anything snarky was when my grandfather teased that he was going to pack all her clothes in a quilt and send her back over the mountain to her hometown. She quietly replied that if anyone was leaving it was going to be him.

We Protestants don't sanctify people. There's no St. Paul or Peter or Mark. But we do look to people whose lives of faith and servant hearts inspire faith in others. Their way of living embodies the gospel message, and they are more than willing to take risks in their faith journeys. They are active in the works of faith. They are the ones who get up off the pew. They volunteer and forego personal comforts for the sake of Christ and His church.

So many people in our society spout doctrinal formulas and moralistic talking points from a safe place, but saints don't live that way. So many in our churches come in order to receive something. They hope to go home like a child, taken to the doctor for an annual vaccine, who goes home with sticker and a lollipop. Still others only want a therapeutic Jesus who solves their problems and asks nothing of their lives.

On the first Sunday of November, we'll remember all the other people who gather in church. We'll remember those saints of the church who have gone before us and whose going before has shown us the way to go.

Allen