Monday's thoughts
"After The Ecstasy, the Laundry"
Yes, that is an odd title for a sermon, but it was a book before it was a sermon. It is a book written by Jack Kornfield.
Kornfield writes, "The true task of spiritual life is not found in faraway places or unusual states of consciousness: It is here in the present. It asks of us a welcoming spirit to greet all that life presents to us with a wise, respectful, and kindly heart. We bow to both beauty and suffering, to our entanglements and confusion, to our fears and to the injustices of the world. Honoring the truth in this way is the path to freedom. To bow to what is rather than to some ideal is not necessarily easy, but however difficult, it is one of the most useful and honorable practices."
November 4th, Sunday, is commitment Sunday. It is that day in the church year that will determine the future of the church for the coming year. It is an anxious day, and an important day. Either we have a church program in which we believe or we have a congregation that is only vaguely aware. Either we have established our church as moving in the right direction, or we have determined that we will not move forward and might even begin to move back.
The day is all about dreams and hopes. It's about funding a Wesley Foundation campus ministry, and expanding our program for children and youth with a ministry to 5th and 6th graders. It's about giving our music program a boost with financial support to do wonderful things. But it is also about building repair and roof damage. It's about parking lot cracks and electric bills. It's about dressing up the church but also about doing the laundry.
Next Sunday we will have an opportunity to support our favorite, exciting programs, and we will have the privilege of providing the foundational support to see that it can happen.
The sermon will strive to have us pay our respect to whatever it takes to make this church what God needs it to be.
It is my honor to call us to the ecstasy of our ministry and to make sure we do the laundry.
Why do we support the church? I would like to hear from you about that. If you have a chance write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. I look forward to hearing from you.
Charles
