Ongoing Response to COVID-19
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-24
Wednesday, March 24th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
Join us for our Wednesday Night Zoom at 7:00 tonight for a discussion led by our Spiritual Formation Team. We must recognize compassion and reach out a helping hand, regardless of what someone has done. So says ER doctor Amy Ho. It may be hard to do after so much recent violence, including mass shootings; let’s talk about it.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
* * *
Here’s the Lenten Devotional from Presbyterian Outlook.
Wednesday, MARCH 24, 2021
MATTHEW 25:31-46
The parable of the sheep and goats is not a scenario of individual judgment; “all the nations” are gathered before the Son of Man and held accountable. Have they tended to “the least of these,” feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and visiting those in prison? The parable invites reflection on the church’s engagement in civic matters and its public witness to God’s
concern for “the least” among us.
Practice: Prayerfully read this passage from Matthew, meditating on “the
least” in your community. How might the church embody God’s concern
for their well-being in its public witness?
Journal: Write in your journal of your experience reading and praying
this passage from Matthew.
* * *
News:
OOps! The palms we had planned to distribute today from noon to 1 pm have been held up in transit. Palm distribution will be moved to this Friday, March 26, from noon to 1 pm. Simply drive through the alley between those times and pick up your palm(s) from our masked marvels!
* * *
I’m so glad to see you coming back for in-person worship. When you’re ready, when you feel safe, please come. Remember to preregister by calling the church office from Monday 8:30 to noon on Friday. A preregistration will guarantee your spot; if you come without a reservation, we may not have room to seat you.
(Can you believe your pastor just wrote those words? We aren’t a restaurant, we’re a church, and we espouse a theology that there’s always room for one more. But not so when one is avoiding crowds to stave off infection during a pandemic. Such strange times. Forgive me for sounding like a maître d’. However you get there, via our on-line service or in person, I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.)
CYF will be hosting a Spirituality Center in the church chapel for the season of Lent. Open House hours will be Sundays 11am-2:30pm. Come for some quiet reflection time by walking the labyrinth, contemplating scripture, and creating at your own pace. One household will be admitted at a time. Check in and temperature recordings will be necessary as well as face masks while in the building and chapel. Sanitizing wipes will be at each station for further protection between visitors. We hope you will find it a blessing for this season of inward contemplation and examination.
Sunday School continues. Follow this link for a virtual version of the Lenten Spirituality Center Lenten Spirituality Center
* * *
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter):
An annual competition is held by The New York Times to see who can create the best original lexophile. This year’s submissions (more coming):
Police were summoned to a daycare center where a 3-year-old was resisting a rest.
Did you hear about the fellow whose entire left side was cut off? He’s all right now.
A bicycle can’t stand alone; it’s just two tired.
The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine last week is now fully recovered.
* * *
Good Word
Mark 11:1-11 (Palm Sunday is coming…)
[The Message] 1-3 When they were nearing Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany on Mount Olives, he sent off two of the disciples with instructions: “Go to the village across from you. As soon as you enter, you’ll find a colt tethered, one that has never yet been ridden. Untie it and bring it. If anyone asks, ‘What are you doing?’ say, ‘The Master needs him, and will return him right away.’”
4-7 They went and found a colt tied to a door at the street corner and untied it. Some of those standing there said, “What are you doing untying that colt?” The disciples replied exactly as Jesus had instructed them, and the people let them alone. They brought the colt to Jesus, spread their coats on it, and he mounted.
8-10 The people gave him a wonderful welcome, some throwing their coats on the street, others spreading out rushes they had cut in the fields. Running ahead and following after, they were calling out,
Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in God’s name!
Blessed the coming kingdom of our father David!
Hosanna in highest heaven!
11 He entered Jerusalem, then entered the Temple. He looked around, taking it all in. But by now it was late, so he went back to Bethany with the Twelve.
LET US PRAY
Holy God, your son dares to ride into our lives on a colt. Not on a steed. Not in a golden chariot. Not even in a domestic convertible. But on a lowly colt, and not with armed guard and a fanfare of trumpets, but surrounded by a pick-up-parade of people waving palm branches and shouting like, like—shouters. No arias in Latin. No processional song sung in harmony. No marching band, but unruly shouts, like at a Black Lives Matter march or at a basketball game. Lacking a red carpet, some in the crowd threw their coats on the ground padding the way for this unlikely, but memorable, entry of Your holy son into the holy city on the hill.
Forgive them, Lord, for they know not how to make a proper entrance.
You, O God, know Jesus deserved better, and had we been there, given a little time, we would have tried to arrange it. A rented chariot, perhaps. A rehearsed choir. We would at least have lined everyone up. It would have been more dignified.
But we weren’t on the committee that planned this Palm Sunday parade. As always, Jesus did it his way. The animal on which he rode was humble, yes, but pure, never having been ridden before. And what the crowd lacked in dignity they made up with joy and sheer volume. This was a celebrated entrance if not a dignified one.
Open our hearts, Merciful God, that we might receive Jesus no matter how he comes. How ever he comes, might we take our cue from that Jerusalem crowd. Might we make a little joyful, unruly noise. Might we make room for him. And might we join the throng,
blessing,
blessing,
blessing
the One
who comes
in the name of the LORD.
AMEN.
* * *
Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-23
Lenten Daily Devotion Tuesday, MARCH 23, 2021 MATTHEW 17:1-8 This story takes us to a mountaintop with Jesus and his disciples, where he is transfigured before them, his face shining like the sun and his clothes dazzling white as a cloud overshadows them. Most startling of all, however, is the very voice of God, which we rarely hear in the Gospel stories. That voice was heard at Jesus’ baptism, and commands our attention as it is now heard for the second time in Matthew’s narrative, declaring: “This is my Son, my beloved with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!” Practice: Prayerfully read this story and enter into the scene in your imagination, noting what it evokes in you. Listen as the divine voice identifies Jesus and urges you to “Listen to him!” When you think of listening to Jesus, what do you recall hearing and learning from him — from both his words and the life that he lived? Journal: Note briefly in your journal what you remember of the essential teachings of Jesus. Wednesday, |
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The Heart of Mission Looking to the future, volunteer extraordinaire Warren Charter has been working hard to help improve our use of space in the Phoenix Center, getting rid of clutter and preparing for the addition of a new computer center for our friends to use to look for work and complete online applications for jobs, housing, and other social services! Progress has also been made on water-damage restoration work in C-U at Austin’s Place, allowing the hopeful return of the women’s shelter here to our building in the near future! Wednesday, March 24, God’s love is shown in so many ways. Find three things you can do today or tomorrow to share God’s love. Let us keep all our mission partners in our prayers, those who are waiting to go back to their place of ministry and those who are able to work where they are. Listen for God’s call to you in their ministry. |
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-22
Monday, March 22nd, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
This past Saturday at Mark Warren’s memorial, we sat masked in the South Carolina funeral home chapel. We were socially distanced, gargoyles in the pews, our thoughts spinning and bodies aching with the low-grade fever of grief. I didn’t know Mark well. His brother, though, is my oldest friend in this world. Besides my boys, John is part of the shrinking circle that is my next of kin.
The gospel choir took off their masks to sing their anthems. Here, in the capitol city, they treat Covid like alligators. They know the beasts exist in the Congaree River that skirts Columbia, but the odds are in human favor so long as you keep your distance from that muddy shore. The choir sang and clapped. It’s hard not to get lost in the music. When I hummed along, my breath from behind my mask steamed my glasses.
I cry at funerals. There’s so much I’m glad about and sad about. All the losses I’ve experienced have a way of crowding onto me at once. I’m sitting with my mom and dad, and they’ve both been gone long enough that it shouldn’t feel like yesterday, but it does. My grandmother is squeezing my hand like a stress ball while wind batters the funeral tent. Staked canvas holds the gusts only slightly at bay. Nothing but our bones hold the winter cold. The tent does all the heaving. My Baba doesn’t shed a tear for her only son as he is lowered down into that Tidewater ground. But I did then, and I sure enough do now. I let the tears come. John Mark puts his arm around his old man and gives me a squeeze. Never mind that I also cry at Disney movies and diaper commercials on TV.
Pictures of Mark flash across the screen behind the choir. In his younger days he could have been a model for the jet set—handsome, thin, and strong with a mustache that made him look like a Hollywood natural. There’s a picture of his mother holding him as a baby. I remember Mrs. Warren. She was a hoot. I preached her funeral service years ago and remember glancing down from the pulpit to the front row to her two sons sitting there so young and alive. We were going to live forever.
At Mark’s service, I appreciated the preacher’s words and those of the fifteen other speakers, mostly family, who gave heartfelt tribute and meaningful condolence. But one can take only so many words at once, no matter how healing they are. Silence and reflection is what gives words meaning for me. I needed some of both to let the many graces of the service to sink in. When the preacher finally dismissed us after his “few words” that took the better part of the hour, we walked out gingerly, mindful of alligators.
Ushers dismissed us row by row, and we caught the end of the line that yanked us swiftly down the center of the wide aisle to the side doors out into momentary sunshine with the choir clapping us home and singing I’ll Fly Away as if actual flight were imminent. Gospel choirs don’t sing like wishful thinkers.
We spilled out at the front bumpers of a fleet of polished white limos idling to take the family home. A few of the men who spoke at the service stood together in a huddle. I walked up to these tall, large men who looked like rocks in charcoal suits and asked them what elementary school they went to. When they spoke during the service, they identified themselves as old friends of Mark’s from Hampton, our mutual home town. They had graduated with Mark from Hampton High the year before me and John.
They were taken aback by my question.
“You graduated Hampton High,” I said, “so where did you go to elementary school? I’m from Hampton, also.”
That broke the ice. We commenced having old home week on the spot. Some went to Wythe Elementary, where John and I went, where above the high arching doors these words were carved into stone, Enter to learn; leave to serve. Yep, they remembered those words from those long-ago years. One fella went to Robert E. Lee, and if we weren’t in a pandemic, and if a pig pickin’ followed that service, which it did not, I would have asked him, What was it like for a little black boy to attend a school named after a confederate general? I’m guessing it didn’t bother him then. We were just children, and a lot of things scared you then besides the name of the school. But it probably bothered him now. A lot. I might have asked him that had time and circumstance allowed. I would have entered that conversation thoughtfully, respectfully. It might have gone down like a prayer.
I could tell by the laugh lines around their eyes these big men were smiling. If they didn’t play football then, they could have. They could have turned over some of the cars in that parking lot with their bare hands had somebody forty-years-ago double-dared them to try. It was good to be standing in their huddle now, to introduce them to my youngest son, John Mark, my wingman in a blue Jos A Banks suit.
It was good to be standing out of doors in the fresh air with people who shared some of the same, wrought story. Because of Mark Warren, we had landed on the asphalt shores of a Soda City funeral home, sharing the sun, translating life’s deep mystery by way of small talk. God’s grace is sometime a falling star that flares quickly like a blink, like a tear. It’s just enough to make your heart jump. My heart was pounding.
I’ll never see those fellas again.
* * *
When one is in a funeral state of mind, one thinks of who you’re going to see again, and when.
The preacher said we’ll see Mark again on the other side of Jordan. Dry bones and singed ashes will have come together for a resurrection dance, and a glad reunion awaits us, where we won’t stand emaciated and barely alive, but hale and hearty and looking redeemed and glorified, which, I presume, means happy and satisfied and, at least, relieved.
But when would I see John again? We’re planning to meet in NYC like we’ve done before as soon as pandemic will allow. We’re eating Chilean sea bass at that place in Hell’s Kitchen around the corner from Birdland. We’ll catch a set of jazz, which John doesn’t like but I do, and, maybe, we’ll buy Arturo O’Farrell a drink. We’ll catch a play. We’ll walk across the Brooklyn Bridge even though John’s knees are getting bad and we might have to catch an Uber halfway. Two years ago, we met in Chicago. We met another friend and sailed out of the Chicago harbor into Lake Michigan. That friend died unexpectedly three months later. The memory of that day, though, still shines, so much so, I’m not sure if anybody died, after all.
I saw John, his wife, and son walking away at the far end of the parking lot. My son and I jogged over to say goodbye. We hugged. They were flying out on Sunday. It was a quick trip. Celeste travels a lot for her job. This was like a business trip, family business, the business of burying John’s brother. When you’re at a funeral, are you closing an old chapter or opening a new chapter? What were we doing, exactly? What was happening? This was a business trip for all of us—a numbing, surreal trip to mark a milestone, to thank God for a life we’ll miss. The gospel choir had called out our destination. The preacher even offered to punch our ticket.
Hugging a friend is a funeral home parking lot puts everything on shaky ground. Through the soles of your shoes, you feel the tectonic plates grind and time dimensions blur back and forth. You’re not only blinking back tears. The now and then come in and out of rapid focus. John and I both presume there will be other times of gathering, other times to make memories and to remember and make sense of this one. We’re counting on it.
When we hugged this time, it took us both a little longer to let go.
* * *
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
matt@firstpres.church
* * *
Lenten Daily Devotion
Monday, MARCH 22, 2021
LUKE 9:12-17
The story of Jesus’ feeding of 5,000 people is the only miracle story found in all four Gospels, which highlights its importance in the memories and imaginations of early Christians. The story prompts our reflection on how we perceive ourselves and the world around us: do we perceive and act out of a sense of scarcity or a sense of abundance? Scarcity is the world’s logic, but abundance is the gospel’s logic.
Practice: Prayerfully read this story several times and imaginatively
enter into the scene. How does it challenge your perception of scarcity or
of God’s abundance?
Journal: Note in your journal any movements of your spirit that you
discern – toward God or away from God – as you prayed with this
Scripture.
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-19
Friday, March 19th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
The Lenten Devotionals from the Presbyterian Outlook for this weekend are at the very bottom of this email. May they be a blessing to/for you and those you love.
* * *
Eight people were killed at three massage spas in Georgia on Tuesday night. Six were Asian, seven were women. Our sisters were killed by a white man in a time when anti-Asian hate incidents are terrifyingly high. The group Stop Asian And Pacific Islander community Hate—Stop AAPI Hate—count 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents in the last year. Most targeted women.
As we hold the whole world in our prayers, let’s pause and hold our local community in our prayers, particularly our Asian friends.
The best way I know to love the world, to serve the world, to be friends with the world, to heal the world, to engage the world, to be healthily part of the world is to be part of my church. On Sunday, we’ll celebrate God and pray for the world.
Join us on-line at 9:00 a.m. FirstPres.Live or, if you feel safe, in person at 10:15 (preregistration before noon today is preferred as we are almost at-capacity for this Sunday).
See you then.
Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
I shall be released
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
In need of a friend?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
* * *
A Timely Prayer/Gimme Shelter
Mick Jagger/Keith Richards
Ooh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Ooh yeah I’m gonna fade away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin’
Our streets today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder, yeah, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Mmm, a flood is threatening
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I’m gonna fade away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
I tell you love, sister
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away
* * *
Lenten Daily Devotion
Friday, MARCH 19, 2021
LUKE 6:6:36–42
Another hard teaching of Jesus is before us: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged.” In the hyperpolarized times in which we live, judging others is part of daily discourse and seems to have become a virtue rather than a vice. This passage challenges that notion at its very core. Today’s Scripture, combined with yesterday’s injunction to love our enemies, highlights mercy as a central characteristic of the Christian life — because God is merciful, and we are God’s children and are to reflect that family resemblance.
Practice: Prayerfully read this passage, mulling over aspects of it that
stand out to you and that resonate with your own experience. Reflect on
ways in which the merciful character of God informs our identity as God’s
own children.
Journal: Note in your journal what happened as you prayed with this
text.
Saturday, MARCH 20, 2021
LUKE 6:43-49
Jesus’ teaching in this passage is very simple yet weighty: good trees produce good fruit. Thus, good conduct comes from a good heart. Moreover, the words that come out of our mouths reflect what is in our hearts.
Practice: Prayerfully read and reflect on this Scripture, with special
attention to the connection between fruit and tree — between action and
heart, and speech and heart.
Journal: Note in your journal key reflections that emerged in your prayer
with this passage of Scripture.
Week 5
MARCH 21-27, 2021
Transfiguration and transformation
HYMN OF THE WEEK: “Crown Him with Many Crowns”
PRAYER FOCUS: Supplication — As I pour out my heart as a needy person, what do I long for from God? What friends or relations are hurting? Where would I love to see God’s healing power at work?
ACTION: Reflect on a mentor or teacher from your past who helped you grow in some way. Reach out to those you can to share what their influence meant to your life.
Sunday, MARCH 21, 2021
LUKE 8:22-25
As you pray this passage, imagine that you are present in the boat with Jesus and his disciples, endangered by the raging wind and waves of a storm. The boat is often depicted as a symbol of the church. As you pray
with this text, think of storms that currently endanger your life and the life of the church and that threaten to undo us.
Practice: Prayerfully read this story and enter into the boat with Jesus and the disciples. What assurance or challenge do you hear Jesus addressing to you in the midst of storms?
Journal: Note in your journal what emerged in your prayer time, and your
sense of movements of your spirit toward God or away from God as you
prayed with this text.
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-18
Thursday, March 18th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
Here’s the Lenten Devotional from Presbyterian Outlook.
Thursday, MARCH 18, 2021
LUKE 6:27-36
In this scene from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, Jesus exhorts us to love our enemies — surely one of the hardest things he asks us to do. Theologian Miroslav Volf claims that loving our enemies goes to the heart of the Christian faith. In his book “A Public Faith,” he writes: “Love doesn’t mean agreement and approval; it means benevolence and beneficence, possible disagreement and disapproval notwithstanding.” Thus, loving our enemies does not absolve us or deter us from pursuing justice as we understand it, from our calling to stand in solidarity with the marginalized among us, or from calling evil by its name. Justice and mercy go together — both are works of God.
Practice: Prayerfully read this passage from Luke and reflect deeply on
what it might mean to love your enemies. When you think of your enemies,
who comes to mind? Members of your family or church? Fellow citizens?
Foreign adversaries? If you are to pray for your enemies, what will you pray
for? As you reflect on Jesus’ admonitions, what do they compel you to do?
Journal: Note in your journal any insights that emerged from your
prayerful engagement with Jesus’ teaching.
* * *
Bruce Reyes-Chow recently spoke words that got me to thinking. He said when Pandemic began, he started various church programs (he’s a pastor and former moderator of our denomination) and practices that made sense at the time. We all hunkered down in unique ways. We adapted new patterns.
“I found that I couldn’t hold the intensity for the whole time,” he said during a recent Zoom. He has noticed that he (in his pastoral duties) and we (in our daily duties) might be pushing the edge, attempting to do more than we can do. He notices about himself that we have over-functioned, over-extended, and have become over-whelmed.
As we dream a new normal, may we walk before we run. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we’ll arrive at The New Day exhausted, or worse. Continue to take care of yourselves. Wear your mask. Be safe.
Beth Hutchens shares this timely prayer…
Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the gentle night to you.
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.
Deep peace of Christ,
of Christ the light of the world to you.
Deep peace of Christ to you.
* * *
News:
I’m so glad to see you coming back for in-person worship. When you’re ready, when you feel safe, please come. Remember to preregister by calling the church office from Monday 8:30 to noon on Friday.
* * *
CYF will be hosting a Spirituality Center in the church chapel for the season of Lent beginning this Sunday. Open House hours will be Sundays 11am-2:30pm. Come for some quiet reflection time by walking the labyrinth, contemplating scripture, and creating at your own pace. One household will be admitted at a time. Check in and temperature recordings will be necessary as well as face masks while in the building and chapel. Sanitizing wipes will be at each station for further protection between visitors. We hope you will find it a blessing for this season of inward contemplation and examination.
Sunday school continues. Follow this link for a virtual version of the Lenten Spirituality Center Lenten Spirituality Center
* * *
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter):
An annual competition is held by The New York Times to see who can create the best original lexophile. This year’s submissions (more coming):
When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.
I got some batteries that were given out free of charge.
A dentist & a manicurist married. They fought tooth & nail.
* * *
Good Word
Amos 5:24
let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
LET US PRAY
Holy God, I’m hungry and you give me food. I am thirsty and you give me fluorinated, clean water from easy-to-access taps everywhere I go. I am naked, I am sick, I am imprisoned.
I,
I,
I,
Forgive me for thinking about me first:
I,
me,
mine,
I cannot see the world,
I cannot see my neighbor,
I cannot see into the headlines
BECAUSE
I so often spend so much time gazing, gazing, gazing into my mirror. I’m so enamored with me. And so, my problems, my dreams, my wants, my faults, my life becomes amplified and distorted. And I see that I’m not created in your image so much as I am mis-shapened by my anxieties and selfishness.
Heal me and forgive me and help me. Help me repent. Help me to turn. Help me to turn to you. And help me to face my neighbors near and far that you call me to love and serve.
Help me to reach out—
So many around me are hungry—literally and spiritually…
So many thirst for clean water—in Malawi, in growing American cities with polluted well water that can’t keep up with demand for clean water…
So many are naked to the cold…
So many are sick without healthcare, without a loving church family to surround and encourage them…
So many are warehoused in prison; they never can see the stars…
Turn my head. Gently, gently tune my vision.
That I might see my neighbors and rejoice in what I see, in what YOU see,
that I might reach out with love and service to the humanity you have redeemed (through your blood and you tears and your sacrifice)—like a mother bending near her child, like a father praying on his knees, on his aching knees for his beloved. Thank you, merciful God, for your love. Teach me to love like that.
Fill me up so that I can empty myself again and again and again with great delight in the name and manner of your son, Our Lord,
Jesus,
Jesus,
Jesus-the-Christ.
AMEN.
* * *
Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
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