Ongoing Response to COVID-19
Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-31
Wednesday, March 31st, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
EASTER worship alert: In-person worship on this Sunday, Easter, at 10:15 a.m., is three persons shy of being filled to capacity. By all means, if you want to attend, phone the office asap so you can fill those last open slots. Should we have guests show up who have not pre-registered and if we have reached capacity, they will be invited either to go home and watch the service there on their own screens, or to watch the service on screens in our overflow space in Westminster Hall. Being filled to capacity is a good problem, but turning people away is an agony.
* * *
Jeff Kellam, the best man at our wedding, a friend, and profound mentor, wrote about OUR CHURCH in his Lenten blog. Here’s the link. You might enjoy scrolling through his thought blog. If you want to know how an ‘outside’ thinks about our on-line ministry, read this:
https://jeffkellam.wordpress.
* * *
Here’s today’s devotional from the Presbyterian Outlook:
Wednesday, MARCH 31, 2021
MARK 8:34-38
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” When Jesus exhorts disciples with these words, he is not suggesting that they pick up crosses they do not already bear, but rather that they acknowledge and name the crosses already bearing down upon their own lives and upon those around them — and that they resist all such savage forces. The exhortation invites our reflection on crosses and systemic evils that may bear down on our own lives.
Practice: Read this Scripture slowing and prayerfully, naming the crosses
that bear down on your own life and that of your community — and the
shape that your resistance to them is taking. Be as specific as you can.
Journal: Briefly note in your journal the crosses in your life and signs of
your resistance to them.
News:
Join us for our Wednesday Zoom for conversation this evening from 7 to 8.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
* * *
Holy Week Services
Maundy Thursday, April 1
7 PM Live Stream and In-person Worship
Good Friday, April 2
7 PM Online Worship (We will be joining the Methodist Church.)
Easter Sunday, April 4
9 AM Online Worship
10:15 AM In-person Worship
Online worship and live stream are available at FirstPres.live.
We are now offering a limited capacity in-person worship service with mask wearing and distance observance. Preregistration is required. To attend worship in person call the church office at 217 356-7238 by noon Friday.
* * *
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):
Did you hear about the crossed-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn’t control her pupils?
I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, & then it dawned on me.
I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.
* * *
Good Word
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the LORD. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.
LET US PRAY
These words are from seminary professor Rachel and I loved, Sibley Towner, from his book of Lenten prayers:
O God, Good Creator, with the basic ingredients of the earth—a pint of light, a dash of darkness, a peck of clay, and some mist —you fashioned the willow tree and the gray squirrel, the hippopotamus and the earth creature Adam. You made the earth creature in your own image, and from it you derived beautiful man and strong woman. When you were through, you saw the meaning of it all and you pronounced it good. We thank you that you have placed within us your image as creator, and that it abides in our hearts to this very day. We pray for the wit and the courage never to stifle it, but to shine it back to you, our creator, with works of our own creativity— beautifully built and cared-for churches, lovely flower beds, poetic words, diatonic scales, and well-designed curricula.
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 – 2021-03-30
Tonight…Virtual Dessert…7 pm Please join the Nurture Committee for conversation and sharing of your Easter Traditions. Sunrise services, foods you eat or special memories. We look forward to being with you and enjoying a favorite dessert or beverage. Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link. * * * Lenten Daily Devotion |
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Friends of PEB – Mr. Benjamin Dwight Childs, Coordinator for Academics and Spiritual Formation at Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan, shared this good news in a recent newsletter, “Last month, I learned that the government of Pakistan was undertaking an initiative to implement a standardized curriculum nationwide in all public and private schools. This curriculum will be comprehensive, covering every subject including a number of minority faiths, including Christianity, which would then be made available for the hundreds-of-thousands of minority Christian (Protestant, Catholic, etc.) students in Pakistan. In an unexpected turn of events, I have been absorbed into the group tasked with overseeing the Christian curriculum, and furthermore, I have become the lead writer for the Christian curriculum, and PEB is very pleased to give me the necessary time (and resources) to work on this monumental project. Fortunately, most work is done remotely, and so I am still able to work my regular office hours while writing the curriculum. Frontera de Cristo on their Coffee, Conversation and Compassion – This week we learned that Frontera de Cristo and our friends at Café Justo need to be in our prayers, “Café Justo lost one of its founding members last week. Doña Soraida Santiago went to be with her Lord on Wednesday, March 17, three months shy of her 91st birthday. She will be greatly missed: her contagious laughter and her happy spirit brought joy to whomever was blessed enough to meet her. Doña Soraida helped to start the coffee co-op to address the root causes of migration. Because of Café Justo, her son Edmundo Ballinas was able to return from Atlanta, Georgia, to be with his family and is now a member of the cooperative. We are grateful for Doña Soraida’s vision and perseverance, as well as that of all the first generation founding members of Café Justo. Please enjoy this Café Justo video that talks about the importance of keeping families together. Doña Soraida, presente!” 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 – 2021-03-29
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
On Preaching The Easter Sermon
An Open Letter to my Preacher-Friends
and Congregation . . .
Matt Matthews
If you’re like me, as Holy Week approaches, you’re working hard pulling together four very big services. You expect from yourself better-than-usual sermons. The liturgies all bunch up with close, rapidly-approaching deadlines. Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter. Throw in a funeral or two and an Easter Vigil, and you have a pressure-cooker-week ahead of you.
I don’t know the agony of Jesus, but, like you, I know the special agony preachers often feel this time of year, particularly this single week. I’m writing to say be encouraged. God will speak through you, regardless of you. That is not to say your efforts don’t matter. Jesus is coming, but row away from the rocks.
I told our friend Jim Freeman once that I felt TREMENDOUS pressure to hit a home run on Easter Sunday. Jim shared the metaphor he learned from his dad: The preacher doesn’t need to hit a home run. She only needs to get the ball in play. Even though I could NOT get the ball in play against a professional pitcher (I rather like to think of slow-pitch softball), it relieves enormous pressure to know that I don’t need to whack it out of the park. Really, all I need to do is stand up and read the gospel. Every time, God hits the home run.
My ego is so giant I need to be reminded of this. I need to be reminded that all of Western Christendom does not rest on my eloquence or lack thereof. I need to be reminded that it’s not about me or what I can or cannot deliver. But still—and you preachers know what I mean—when one stands up to preach and you see all of those expectant eyes looking at you, and you know some of the backstory of those faces, and you see how lonely and afraid they are, how expectant and hopeful, how smug and thoughtless (and seasonal), how they’ve been hurt and betrayed, and how they’ve done things to others from which they will never, fully, recover, the preacher doesn’t want to let them down. You love them, and you love the God who loves them. That’s why you’re in this gig. What wondrous love, indeed.
On this Easter, I want to preach resurrection in such a way that my lone sermon untangles all difficulties of modern life. I want to solve racism and matters related to gun control and violence. I want to touch the untouchable with the grace of God. I want to turn the focus of human society from demanding the rights of “I” to embracing the wholeness of “we.” I want to encourage the flock where they feel down and out, and tired, and forsaken; and I want to correct the flock where they have turned inward and sour; and I want to do those two things with perfect balance. And while I’m at it, I’d like all religions to form a circle around the world with its beginning and terminus in our sanctuary so we can sing a verse of Kum By Ya. Non-preachers would think I’m joking. But you preachers know how serious I am.
I want to hit that kind of homerun. I’m swinging for the most distant of fences.
It’s not wrong to try hard, of course, to spruce up on your T.S. Eliot quotes and to look up a Hebrew word or two, but it is wrong to confuse ourselves into believing that we, actually, can hit that kind of homerun. With God, yes, all things are possible. But we have limits. Holy Week reminds every preacher of his or her limits, brokenness, vanity. The preacher is not God. I, for one, need to be reminded.
But still.
I suspect we preachers have always wanted to point to the faraway stands, like the Great Bambino (Babe Ruth, not Baby Jesus), tap the bat on the dusty plate, and coil heroically in a photogenic stance ready to uncork the mighty swing that will knock the cover off the ball. And our aching flock will get at least a momentary charge, a spark, a thrill as that ball sails over the high wall to which we had just pointed. If we could do that, they just might adore us.
But that’s idolatry, a definite no-no for those of us who suppose themselves to be biblical preachers. We don’t preach to get the love. We preach to share it.
Even if we could hit exactly such dramatic homiletical homeruns, that would not be good enough. Our flock rightly wants and needs more, even if they don’t know it. They don’t need a cup of water, even a cup overflowing, they need to be reminded of and directed to the spring from which Living Water flows. They don’t need resurrection so much as they need a relationship with the resurrected one. Everything else, by God’s grace, follows.
They certainly do not need oratorical homeruns.
They hunger for Gospel.
They (and we) need to be invited into the story. They need to find their place. Some are the doubters, the widows at the treasury, the blustery Peters, the women at the well with five ex-husbands living with her boyfriend, or the Pharisees. Some in our pews are the ones chained by troubles, subsisting in caves, wild with dis-ease. Some are the crowd who slurred ‘Crucify Him.’ Some are in the crowd who denied Him with mumbles and such flat denial it was and still is wholly believable. All of them and us have been those in scripture who have cried out, ‘How long, LORD, how long?’
We preachers ask our flock: With whom do you resonate in this text? Whom do you despise? Where are you in this story? Are you even on the page or have you and your ilk been left out? The forgotten are characters, too. Sometimes, like the Prophet Nathan, we hold up the mirror and our beloved flock sees a reflection of themselves as red-handed practitioners of the sins they, themselves, deride. We say, I can’t be guilty. The preacher says, We sure can be guilty. And we often are. And only then can we say, look at me—a sinner in a Geneva preaching robe with the butterfly stole my mother gave me before she died, pretty on the outside, rotten in the middle.
We preachers—crooked saints, all—are privileged to stand up each week, even under the enormous pressure of Easter Sunday, and point to the one who says, Leave your baggage behind. Shuck your dirty clothes and put on the light. And members of our flock, sometimes with our help and sometimes not, find themselves in the throng of disciples, astonished and glad and muddling after the one who says it and means it: Follow me.
I’m thinking of you preachers out there, sharpening your pencils, writing those second and third drafts of your sermons, tearing the page up with rewrites and eraser-holes, pacing your carpet threadbare.
I am including you in my prayers.
Do me a solid, and include me in yours.
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.
* * *
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
* * *
Holy Week Services…
Maundy Thursday, April 1
7 PM Live Stream and In-person Worship
Good Friday, April 2
7 PM Online Worship (We will be joining the Methodist Church.)
Easter Sunday, April 4
9 AM Online Worship
10:15 AM In-person Worship
Online worship and live stream are available at FirstPres.live.
Preregistration is required for in-person worship.
* * *
TUESDAY EVENING “VIRTUAL DESSERT” MARCH 30th
Please join the Nurture Committee for conversation and sharing of your Easter Traditions. Sunrise services, foods you eat or special memories. We look forward to being with you and enjoying a favorite dessert or beverage.
Join Zoom Meeting Tuesday evening at 7 pm to share…
* * *
Lenten Daily Devotion from “The Presbyterian Outlook”
Monday, MARCH 29, 2021
JOHN 13:1-17
The Gospel of John’s account of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples features a foot-washing — a symbolic act that conveys both the nature of discipleship and the significance of Jesus’ death as a sign of his love for his disciples and of his humiliating death on their behalf. Two interpretations of the foot-washing are presented: the first asks us simply to receive Christ’s act of hospitality (verses 6-11), the second to extend it to one another (verses 12-15). The first tends to be overlooked, but receiving Christ’s
gesture of love and accepting it fully precedes and grounds extension of it to others.
Practice: Read the story slowly and prayerfully at least twice and
imagine that you are part of this scene. What do you see? What do you
feel? Do you identify with Peter’s deep discomfort? Do you find it easier to
receive or to extend hospitality — and why?
Journal: Sense the movements of your spirit and the emotions they
evoke as you reflected on this story – both movements toward God and
away from God – and note in your journal what emerged.
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-26
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.
* * *
Holy Week begins on Sunday.
Not all of you grew up observing Holy Week. It begins with Palm Sunday. Children often lead the way into worship with an impromptu parade of waving palm branches and slightly choreographed shouts of Hosanna, Alleluia, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD! Palm Sunday is sometimes called Palm/Passion Sunday. The word “passion” means suffering in the context of Holy Week. And there’s a lot of it. Palm Sunday marks the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, his last week on the face of this earth before he’s crucified in just five days.
On Thursday, we’ll celebrate “Maundy Thursday” in which we remember Jesus’ last supper and the washing of the disciple’s feet (in John 13). Maundy means mandate or command, from the Latin mandatum. Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment, that they should love one another “just as I have loved you.” Our service begins in the sanctuary at 7:00 and will be live-streamed at FirstPres.Live .
On Friday, we’ll celebrate “Good Friday” in which we remember Jesus’s crucifixion. Our service will be on-line only, at 7:00, at FirstPres.Live . Our friends from across the street at First United Methodist Church will be joining us for this service.
Many churches celebrate a Saturday Easter Vigil. We will not, formally.
Our Easter worship will be at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday at FirstPres.Live and in-person at 10:15. Our seating capacity is only 50-souls, so please sign up by calling the church office, lest you show up without a reservation and we have to turn you away, a crushing thought.
Make every attempt to walk these steps with Jesus, from holy parade to resurrection and the important stops in between.
* * *
THIS Sunday, 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). Wear your mask.
See you then.
Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
* * *
Joe Ely, You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Friday Night at the Movies. This is a lovely, 20-minute film. Turn on your subtitles, as part of it is in sign-language. That’s right, sign-language. Watch this. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
* * *
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
* * *
Lenten Daily Devotions
Friday, MARCH 26, 2021
JOHN 1:35-42
The first words out of Jesus’ mouth in the Gospel of John set bef ore us a critical existential question: “What are you looking for?” At the other end of the Gospel, on Easter morning, the risen Lord asks Mary Magdalene a similar question: “Whom are you looking for?” (John 20:15). Who or what are we looking for? These questions frame John’s Gospel and invite reflection on our deepest longings. They also reflect John’s conviction that our deepest longing is for relationship with God, made available in Christ — a conviction shared by St. Augustine in his “Confessions”: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Practice: Pray and ponder deeply John 1:35-42 with special attention to Jesus’ question, “What are you looking for?” How would you answer this question?
Journal: Note in your journal what reflection on this question evoked for you.
Saturday, MARCH 27, 2021
JOHN 11:1-44
The church has traditionally pondered the Gospel of John’s vivid story of the raising of Lazarus in its journey toward Lent. In it, Jesus makes a statement that goes to the heart of John’s Gospel, followed by a very important question: “I am the resurrection and the life. … Do you believe this?” Do you believe that Jesus offers eternal life — that is, fullness of life, a rich quality of life in relationship with God now, not just life that extends beyond death? When Lazarus emerges from the tomb, Jesus also articulates an important command for the Christian community – “Unbind him and let him go” – charging us with the ministry of unbinding others, that they may experience fullness of life.
Practice: As you pray with this vivid story, imagine that you are present in this scene. What most captures your attention as the story unfolds? How would you respond to the question Jesus asks? How might you assist in the unbinding of others?
Journal: Make a note in your journal of reflection evoked by your prayer with this story.
Holy Week
MARCH 28-APRIL 7, 2021
You are the son of the Living God
HYMN OF THE WEEK: “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”
PRAYER FOCUS: Sanctification — How can I ask God to make me more into God’s likeness — more generous, forgiving, trusting, caring, creative, just? How can I care more for the “least of these” and less about what people in power think?
ACTION: Each day reflect on a time your mourning turned to joy or growth.
Palm Sunday, MARCH 28, 2021
MARK 11:1-11
Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem is ironic. The people want a king who comes with power to deliver them, but Jesus will suffer, be crucified and resurrected, which suggests a different kind of power. Jesus does not come to rule over people but rather to model mutual service with people. The story invites reflection on the reign of God and what it might look like.
Practice: Prayerfully read today’s Scripture with special attention to what it might mean for the reign or reality of God to be present in daily life. What does the commonwealth of God look like for you? How is it present in your community?
Journal: Write in your journal of your answers to these questions, as specifically as you can.
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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-03-25
Thursday, March 25th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
A word from Ann Lamott:
“Grace is a powerful thing. Grace is Spiritual WD-40 or water wings,” she says. “The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild. Grace doesn’t come in the forms you expect.” Lamott sees it most in laughter. “Laughter really is carbonated holiness,” she says. “It helps us breathe again and again, and gives us back to ourselves.”
* * *
News:
Remember to preregister for Sunday worship 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.
* * *
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):
He had a photographic memory but it was never fully developed.
When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
Acupuncture is a jab well done. That’s the point of it.
I didn’t like my beard at first. Then, it grew on me.
* * *
Good Word
Mark 11:1-11 (Palm Sunday is coming…)
Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in God’s name!
Blessed the coming kingdom of our father David!
Hosanna in highest heaven!
LET US PRAY (THE BRETON FISHERMAN’S PRAYER)
Be good to me, dear Lord.
The sea is so wide, and
my boat is so small.
AMEN.
* * *
Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
Lenten Daily Devotion from The Presbyterian Outlook
Thursday, MARCH 25, 2021
LUKE 10:25-37
Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan in response to a question that a lawyer asks of him: “Who is my neighbor?” After sharing this parable, Jesus flips the question, asking instead, “Which of these do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” From Jesus’ perspective, the important question is not “who is my neighbor?” but rather “how can I be a neighbor?”
Practice: Prayerfully read this passage, pondering the lawyer’s question,
as well as the question Jesus flips back to him. Ask yourself: How can I be
a neighbor in my community and world?
Journal: In your journal, record your answer to this question.
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