Ongoing Response to COVID-19

Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-05-13

Thursday, May 13th 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois

Dear Friends,
 
Allen Huff and I have been in the same study group for nearly 30-years. He send me his sermon every Sunday afternoon. I read it and I wonder what on earth am I doing preaching? His sermons are so layered, thoughtful, and compelling, 
 
Enjoy this example:
 
* * *
 
         Most of us can relate to the image of pruning. Maybe not all of us have pruned grape vines, but many of us have some familiarity with pruning things like rose bushes, azaleas, or crepe myrtles. Or we’ve suckered tomato plants. Or we’ve at least weeded a garden.
 
It seems to me, too, that when reading and interpreting the image of the vine-grower pruning the vines, the tendency in the church has been to head straight for judgment. The idea that “sinners” are branches to be pruned and burned fans that smoldering ember of resentment within that part of us that wants to see bad people suffer.
 
Related to that, pruning can also be low-hanging fruit for lazy preachers who would rather scare worshipers into compliant behavior than take the risk of preaching and modeling real faith, hope, and love—that is to say practicing genuine discipleship, which, says Jesus, is what truly delights and glorifies God.
 
The detail that got my attention this week is Jesus saying that the vine-grower prunes even fruitful branches. He does that, says Jesus, “to make [them] bear more fruit.”
 
When I look back at sermons I wrote and preached 15-25 years ago, I’m amazed that people didn’t get up and leave. My early sermons so terribly, terribly long. And while much of what I wrote may have been poorly written, it wasn’t bad in principle. It just wasn’t helpful. It did precious little to help proclaim the gospel or glorify God.
 
Over the last ten years, I’ve adopted a less is more approach to sermon writing. Still, the first draft of every sermon always has way more words than necessary. After finishing a draft, I break out the pruning shears and lop and burn my way through the sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes I grieve the loss of certain things. Every word and turn of phrase meant something to me when I wrote it. But on the whole, those extra leaves and branches did little more than call attention to themselves.
 
It seems to me that that’s the kind of pruning the vine-grower does to make even the good branches produce more fruit. Even the best parts of us have extraneous stuff that can—and according to John 15, should—be pruned to allow the beauty of our God-imaged selves to shine.
 
If we step back and look at the broad sweep of Jesus’ ministry, we can see his words clipping away at the branches much like a vine-grower pruning his vines. One of the clearest examples appears in Matthew’s sermon on the mount when Jesus says (six times!) that his listeners have heard that the law says one thing (like exact and eye for an eye, or love your neighbor and hate your enemy), “but,” says Jesus, “I say to you” forgive as God forgives you, and love and pray for your enemies as well as your friends. (See Matthew 5) He doesn’t just turn the law upside down; he prunes it in order to allow all the branches to grow and become more vital.
 
While Jesus does get frustrated with and speak prophetically to those who continue to live selfishly, judgmentally, and violently, he nonetheless forgives and loves everyone whom he teaches. He claims them as branches.
 
“I am the vine, you are the branches,” he says. That opens the door to a thought-provoking inference. It is—in part, anyway—Jesus’ own body that he prunes. When he prunes, he does so not to cut off fingers or toes, not to get rid of certain individuals, but to give the whole body, all humanity, new opportunity to grow. In John 10:10, he says, “I came that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly.”
 
         To reiterate a point I’ve made before: Jesus comes not to prepare us to be dead, but to teach us how to be alive, here and now. And the abundant life to which he calls us involves letting go of, being pruned of, those attitudes and practices that limit our ability to love and to be loved by God, and to love and to be loved by one another.
 
         Later in John, when Jesus tries to wash Peter’s feet, the disciple refuses to accept that Jesus should stoop to the level of the lowest servant in a household. Both lovingly and firmly, Jesus prunes Peter of his short-sighted arrogance. “Unless I wash you,” says Jesus, “you have no share with me.”
 
            Jesus seems to know that if his followers think that Jesus is above servanthood, then they will assume that they, too, deserve deferential and preferential treatment. And any attitude or ideology that allows one person or group to assume superiority over another person or group runs counter to Jesus’ teaching about the last being first and the first being last. Being antithetical to Christ, those mindsets must be pruned from all who claim to be disciples of Jesus.
 
         Here’s the crux: Human beings are not pruned from the vine. Human sin is. Our idolatry is. Our selfishness, our prejudice, our pride, our greed, and our affinity for violence are all fruitless shoots to which the vine-grower takes his pruning shears. Being all about restoration and renewal, being all about Resurrection, Jesus wants to prune our spirits of those things because they keep us from living abundantly and loving unconditionally. 
 
     The other key image in today’s passage is that of abiding in Christ. When the pre-Friday Jesus says that when he is “lifted up from the earth, [he] will draw all people to [him]self,” (John 12:32) I hear him saying that to experience the post-Sunday Jesus, we must learn to let go of everything that prevents us from abiding in him. Otherwise, the idea of the crucified God will make no sense.
 
To abide in Christ is to draw our energy and our identity from the vine which is, as Paul says, “rooted and grounded in love.” (Ephesians 3:17) Think of the differences in hydrangea blossoms. Hydrangeas flower in blue, white, and pink. The difference is not the same as the difference between varieties of roses, whose blooms and aromas are genetically engineered. Hydrangea blooms get their color from the relative pH of the soil in which they abide. The more acidic the soil, the bluer the blossom. The more alkaline the soil, the pinker the blossom.
 
         The Christ Vine abides in love. So, when we abide in Christ, we, too, abide in love. Those parts of us that abide in anything other than Christlike love for God, for neighbor, and for the earth, pollute our words and actions with envy, resentment, and self-serving fear.
 
When we learn to abide in unsentimental, agape love, that love prunes us of fruitless attitudes and actions. Love becomes our way of life. We embody love, because we abide in Christ, who abides in God, who IS love. (1John 4:8)
 
* * *
 
Much love to you all.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

* * *

News:

First Pres members are invited to join us for our monthly Zoom Café Time TODAY at 10am. This would be a great time for you to get to know some of our students and tutors. If you’ve ever wondered what the ESL program is like, this is a great place to find out.
 
Email esl@firstpres.church for the link.
If you have any questions, please email the ESL Director, Jeanette Pyne, at jeanette@firstpres.church


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-05-12

Wednesday, May 12th 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
My friend Kevin Murphey writes his congregation every day with reflections from scripture. He is one such reflection from last week.
 
* * *
 
For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts. As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed; nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us. 2nd Thessalonians 2:3-8
 
Determined! That’s the word that comes to me when I see the look in [a seagull’s eyes over the beach]. She is determined to find her next morsel of food. They amaze me whenever I see them. It has to take a lot of determination for any animal to survive in the wild. Yet they do. 
 
When I think about the early church and those first very brave and determined apostles, I am truly amazed. Some of them where there with Jesus right from the start. They dropped whatever they were doing, literally dropped their nets, and followed Jesus as he taught and healed and spread the good news of God’s love throughout the countryside and in the villages of Galilee. They put their entire trust in this carpenter’s son from Nazareth without knowing where it would take them, who they would encounter and when or how it would end. Amazing!
 
When their travels took them to Jerusalem and they witnessed Jesus final encounter with the forces arrayed against him, they knew they were in trouble. Some deserted the mission, others hid out of fear. But God was determined to not let humiliation, pain and death have be the final answer. God was determined to get through to us. God raised Jesus from the dead and even when the disciples saw the empty tomb, they were still not yet convinced. It would take something more. It would take God sending the Holy Spirit among them to bring them peace and confidence and the determination needed to get the Word out. 
 
Then comes the apostle Paul. As Saul he was determined to snuff out this Jesus movement. It took a blinding encounter with the risen Christ to bring him around to the truth of the good news. Then, he took off like a rocket into the world with the gospel of Christ. Obviously, once he got to know the people he had ministered among, they became as dear to him as the gospel itself was.  So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.  That’s the way the Word gets out into the world. Caring so deeply for your friends and neighbors that you are determined to share the wonder of this great good news with them – this treasure you have found and cherish. 
 
O Christ you are a bright flame before me, 
you are a guiding star above me,
you are the light and love I see in other’s eyes.
Keep me, O Christ, in a love that is tender.
Keep me, O Christ, in a love that is true.
Keep me, O Christ, in a love that is strong,
today, tomorrow and always. Amen.
 
* * *
 
Much love to you all.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

* * *

News:

Please join our church’s zoom Mid-Week Gathering TONIGHT at 7 pm for Bob and Kristi Rice’s presentation of their work in South Sudan.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

* * *

First Pres members are invited to join us for our monthly Zoom Café Time on May 13th at 10am. This would be a great time for you to get to know some of our students and tutors. If you’ve ever wondered what the ESL program is like, this is a great place to find out. 
Email esl@firstpres.church for the link.
 
If you have any questions, please email the ESL Director, Jeanette Pyne, at jeanette@firstpres.church


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-05-11

 

 

 
The Heart of Mission
May 11, 2021
 


 
 
Living the “DREAAM” – Sunday, May 23, 2021
 
Tracy Dace, a passionate advocate for at-risk youth had just relocated to Champaign, Illinois, to start a doctoral program in special education at the University of Illinois when he found his heart calling him back into the community and, eventually, through the doors of a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) congregation.
 
As Tracy was working in schools, after-school programs, a juvenile detention center and the county jail, he had an opportunity to build relationships with African American males.
“These boys and young men were brilliant, with so much promise and potential, and yet they also had experienced trauma,” he said. “I saw the opportunity to think about using a pipeline approach to prevent them from developing behavioral issues that can derail their lives, to strengthen their academic skills and disrupt generational poverty. That was the beginning of DREAAM.”
 
DREAAM which stands for Driven to Reach Excellence and Academic Achievement for Males — was Tracy’s brainchild. It is a program designed to invest in African American males at risk and to walk alongside them and their families from the ages of five through 24.
Tracy’s vision and mission began to align after attending the PC(USA)’s 2013 Big Tent event in Louisville.
 
“It was at Big Tent that I found a greater calling on our faith and our denomination. I saw people who looked like me. I saw worship done in a contemporary and multicultural way, and I heard and witnessed leaders who promoted racial justice and transformation within Presbyterianism. This larger church that I felt I could be a part of helped me to better appreciate our local expression of church.”
 
Tracy took his idea for DREAAM to the mission committee at First Presbyterian Church. The church, upon hearing Dace’s presentation, also made the connection with the denomination’s larger goals — especially as they are now expressed in the PC(USA)’s Matthew 25 initiative and supported him with seed money to get the project off the ground.
 
DREAAM is also supported in part with gifts to the Pentecost Offering. Forty percent of the Pentecost Offering is retained by congregations for local ministries, while the remaining 60% is used to support children-at-risk, youth and young adults through ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
 
Gifts to the Pentecost Offering make a real difference. “Our young people are not only our future, but they are also our present,” said the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson, coordinator of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People. “It is incumbent upon us as people of faith to make sure we are nurturing our young people in the faith and also nurturing them with our love. The Church is going to have to find ways to be vital to young people because they really need that right now.”
 
Let’s build God’s house by laying down a strong foundation of faith. Please give generously.
 
First Presbyterian Church Champaign’s Pentecost Offering will be taken up on May 23. 40% will stay local with DREAAM and will include both the boys and the girls who are with the DREAAM community.
 
Let us pray~
Teach us, as your children, God, and by your children, too. Gather us all in your house, that we might share all that we have with one another. Amen.
 
Our Mission Co-workers, Bob and Kristi Rice, will be speaking tomorrow, Wednesday night, May 12, 7pm, at our regular zoom gathering. Bob and Kristi will lead a discussion on their work in South Sudan which has continued despite the pandemic! They have been working online just as we have. Bring your questions to ask them about the joys and challenges of the work they do.
 
The Pakistani group is gathering on May 16, 23, and 30 at 3pm in Westminster Fellowship Hall to view the PEB/Bunyaad Rug Cooking Benefit classes as a group. Anyone is welcome to join us, but you must sign up with us. We are taking donations for PEB because we would not be using individual registrations and this is a benefit for PEB scholarships. Contact Sallie if you wish to join the Pakistan group in person at Westminster Hall. (We are social distancing and using safety protocols.)
 
Peace,
Rev. Dr. Rachel Matthews, Mission Coordinator
 
We want to keep 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.
 
Our PC(USA) Mission CoWorkers:
Mark Adams and Miriam Maidonado Escobar (Mexico)
Farsijanna Adeney-Risakotta (Indonesia)
Jeff and Christi Boyd (Central Africa)
Bob and Kristi Rice (South Sudan)
 
Our regional and global mission partners:
Kemmerer Village (and Camp Carew)
Lifeline Pilots
Marion Medical Mission
Mission Aviation Fellowship
Opportunity International
Friends of Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan Presbyterian Cuba Partnership
Special Offerings of the PC(USA)
Theological Education Fund
Young Adult Volunteers
 
Here in Champaign – Urbana:
CU at Home
CANAAN S.A.F.E. HOUSE
CANTEEN RUN
COURAGE CONNECTION
DREAAM
eMPTY TOMB, INC
FAITH IN ACTION
JESUS IS THE WAY PRISON MINISTRY
THE REFUGEE CENTER
RESTORATION URBAN MINISTRY
SALT & LIGHT
 
Here at First Presbyterian Church
FPCC Amateur Preachers
FPCC Environmental Committee working with Faith in Place
FPCC Presbyterian Women
FPCC ESL
FPCC Children, Youth and Families
FPCC Mission Possible/Go and Serve
FPCC Mission Team, World Mission and Community Mission Deacons
 

 

  302 W. Church Street
  Champaign, IL 61820
  217-356-7238
  info@firstpres.church
 
 

 
   
Attachments:

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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-05-10

Monday, May 10th 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
 
            Is First Presbyterian Church in a rut?
            
            I hope so.
 
            Not all ruts are bad. Consider athletes. The golfer works on her tee shot so that her body learns the stroke perfectly. She practices the shot a ton of times so that she creates a kind of muscle-memory—a rut for her swing—in order that she can hit the shot with ease. 
 
            Swimmers, quarterbacks, ice hockey wings, point-forwards—they all do it. All this practice makes it look easy out of the field. Singers and musicians do it, too. And cooks, and teachers, and preachers, and, well, you get the idea. 
 
            No all ruts are bad. We teach our kids certain routines that we want them to learn when it comes to healthy habits like brushing their teeth. There are certain things we learn by rote, so that it becomes more familiar and thereby more useful, things like dinner time prayers, and going to church on Sunday. We memorize passages of scripture (like Psalm 23) so that we can access them when we are in trouble and could use a ray of comfort. We practice giving money so that generosity becomes a natural pattern for us, a way of life that gets easier the longer we do it. 
 
            Some ruts are terrible, boring, plodding, deep, one foot in front of the other, misery. But not all ruts are bad.
 
            The 23rd psalm talks about ruts. God leads me in “paths of righteousness,” in “right paths,” in ruts of righteousness.” God’s path, then, is like a rut in that it safely leads us always to a good place: 

  •       from green pastures to still waters, 
  •       from being empty to being restored, 
  •       through the valley of the shadow of death to a table of bounty,
  •       from travail to safety, 
  •       from being lost to being home, 
  •       from being alone to meaningful relationship—relationship with God and each other.

 
            I’m told that, before the days when the railroad connected the west coast with the east, the horse drawn wagons, those lumbering prairie schooners, would follow the wheel ruts of the pioneers who went before them. These were good ruts, because they led westward via the safest, surest path.
 
            So it is with God. There is divine protection along the way (a shepherd’s rod and staff). And, God’s rutted path leads to safety.
 
            God’s road isn’t always a scenic one. And it’s not always easy; there’s a real prairie schooner in the Museum of Science and Technology in Chicago. It may have been an amazing means of transportation technology a hundred years ago, but it looks anything but comfortable now. Sometimes the path is hard, dark, and scary. But God’s road is always the right road. 
 
* * *
After the naturalist John Muir left Cuba, he took inexpensive passage to California. He was astonished by the scenery. He wrote in a letter, “This valley of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked, one vast level . . . a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea.” He stopped and counted 7,260 flowers in one square yard. (1)
 
            The Lord . . . maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
            he leadeth me beside the still waters.
            He restoreth my soul
 
* * *

            God has called First Pres on a journey. We have, because of God’s grace, worn a path to places like the Refugee Center, DREAAM House, and our ESL and Francophone family of friends. God’s ruts lead us to places like Kemmerer Village in Illinois, Sangla Hill Girls’ School in Pakistan, and the Iglesia Presbiteriano Reformada de Luyano of Havana.
 
            Our partnership with our sister church in Cuba was formalized in 2012. When they are here, or we are there, we gather to worship, to pray, to learn about and experience different cultures, and to celebrate the diversity of the body of Christ. It’s a good friendship, and it’s important that we build such friendships around the world.
            
            Los santos de Luyano han sido socios en la oración. Ellos son amigos. Son familia. Gracias. (The saints in Luyano have been partners in prayer. They are friends. They are family. Thank you.)
 
            Our friends in Cuba are in the dark valley right now. The pandemic has been particularly difficult for them, and the economy was already precarious. Without tourism, income has plummeted. The NY Times reports clean water problems and food shortages; in September, an unemployed tourism guide in Havana waited only two hours to get into the government-run supermarket. Usually, the waits can mean eight or 10 hours. For the first time in a long time they had toothpaste. (2)
 
            
            What is to blame? The revolution of 1959? The colonialism of the early twentieth century? Governmental mismanagement? The collapse of the Soviet Union. The failure of the Venezuelan economy? The US Embargo on Cuba? I’m not a political scientist or historian. I just know our friends are quietly suffering.
 
            Chicken, oil, rice, corn, and beans. There’s a shortage. (3) People wait in long lines and often leave with empty bags.
 
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil: 
for thou art with me; 
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
 
            God’s ruts have led First Pres into a complicated, beautiful relationship with our sister congregation in Luyano. And these faithful saints remind us what faithful trust looks like:
 
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: 
thou anointest my head with oil; 
my cup runneth over.
 
            When we visit, they serve us hard-to-come-by eggs every morning. They save their coffee for us so we can drink it in abundance. We have so much to learn from our friends at Luyano about hospitality, about community, about generosity, about patience, about long-suffering, about family, about loving-kindness, about sacrifice.
 
            Thank God that God has led us in ruts of friendship that lead all the way across the ocean and back.
 
* * *
 
            Jesus, the Good Shepherd, walks with us. Jesus the good shepherd nudges us when we go astray, steadies us when the valley is dark, and celebrates with us when the valley is covered with too many flowers to count.
 
             Faith doesn’t give us the answers so much as it gives us the path. 
 
            Is First Pres in a rut? 
 
            I certainly hope so. 
            
            Alleluia!
 
AMEN
 
* * *
 
Much love to you all.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 
 

 

(1) The Writers’ Almanac, April 21, 2021.
(2) It was a lucky day for the unemployed tourism guide in Havana.  The line to get into the government-run supermarket, which can mean a wait of eight or 10 hours, was short, just two hours long. And better yet, the guide, Rainer Companioni Sánchez, scored toothpaste — a rare find — and splurged $3 on canned meat. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/world/americas/cuba-economy.html, accessed April 26 2021)
(3) (Havana Times, retrieved April 26, 2021, 
https://havanatimes.org/features/cuba-the-decline-of-a-country-running-out-of-food/).


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-05-07

Friday, May 7th 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Today our son John Mark graduates with a marketing degree from the International School of Business at the University of South Carolina. He’ll leave soon for a two-year Teach for America assignment in a public elementary school in Baltimore. 
 
Join us in praying for him (and all our church graduates) in this new chapter.
 
* * *
 
Here’s a Friday poem submitted by cousin Tom.
 
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings; and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no 
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
+ e e cummings
e e cummings was the son of a Harvard professor who left the academy to become the ordained minister of South Congregational Church in Boston.  In this poem, cumming’s own theology comes through – influenced by both traditional Christianity and the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson – in a playful, modernist take on an Elizabethan sonnet (fourteen lines, closing couplet, and a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG).
 
* * *
 
Eric Corbin preaches this Mother’s Day Sunday. 9:00 a.m. at FirstPres.Live, or in-person for up to 50-people at 10:15.
 
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you.
            Be amazed.
                        Tell somebody.
 
 Much love to you all.
  
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 
* * *

On a Sunday in April, we had 22 people enjoy the sunshine and conversation in West Side Park.  We will NOT gather this Sunday, May 9. It’s Mother’s Day!!!   Join us again Sunday, May 23, 11 am to noon.  

* * * 

From your Nurture Team — Last week’s photo challenge was a stumper.  There was only one guess and it missed the mark — Mark Laufenberg, that is!  
  
Here’s this week’s photo.  

Visit http://fb.com/groups/firstpreschampaign to make your guesses, or email them to photos@firstpres.church.  
 
Please join in the fun!  We are running very low on photos, so we would like you to select a photo from your younger years (grade school, high school or early adulthood). Photos need not be professional. Candid shots are welcome. Please send your photos to photos@firstpres.church.

* * *

We should hear this song once a year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_doAV8bx0xg

Under the Boardwalk…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKmKezVBdOQ


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