Wednesday Words for January 30, 2013
from Pastor Carrie Smith
Thought for the Day:
“A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, ‘I can’t prove a thing, but there’s something about his eyes and his voice. There’s something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross—the way he carries me.”
- Frederick Buechner
In our prayers: Carol Stupar, Bruce Johnson, Bill Kohl, those who are preparing for baptism, our new members and their families, our new Council members and other new congregational leaders, missionaries around the world.
Sunday at Bethany: Oh, what a day this will be! We will celebrate our Global Mission work around the world with special music from Bethany Choir and the drumming ministry. Senior seminarian Sarah Rohde, a former ELCA Young Adult in Global Mission, will be here to preach at all three services. Susan Gavle will update us on the ELCA Malaria Campaign. The pews will be decorated with the dozens of gorgeous quilts sewn by the Piecers. New Council members and officers will be installed at the 9 am worship service.
And…we can’t forget that we will welcome a host of new members to our community, at the 9 and 10:45 services. Thanks be to God!
Baptism dates: An extra baptism date has been added to accommodate the many baptism requests we’ve had lately. If you or your child is ready for baptism, please consider these dates: March 30 (7 pm), April 7, May 19, May 26. A summer date will be chosen soon as well. A baptism preparation class will be held on Sunday, March 10th after the 3rd service, and individual classes may be arranged with the pastors as well. Contact me if you have any baptism questions: carrie.smith@bethanylc.com
Where in the world is the pastor’s spouse? For the next few weeks, Robert is traveling. These first few days he is in Jerusalem and Bethlehem for meetings with groups that coordinate the efforts of churches to help the Palestinian people. One of these groups is PIEF (Palestine-Israel Ecumenical Forum), which is a World Council of Churches movement that “rallies churches together enabling them to coordinate their efforts and initiatives for a just peace in Palestine-Israel.” Robert is co-moderator of this group: PIEF Late next week he travels to Geneva, Switzerland to the offices of the Lutheran World Federation:LWF
Theology on Tap! Join Pr. Paul and others as they gather for faith talk and beverages on Thursday, February 7th from 7:30-9 pm at Brink Street Bar and Grill in downtown Crystal Lake. Contact Pr. Paul with questions: paul.cannon@bethanylc.com
A Celebration of Life for Alice McDonald: Bethany member Alice McDonald passed away recently, and her family has planned a celebration of her life for Saturday, February 16th at 11 am. This celebration will be at Park Place, 406 W. Woodstock Street, Crystal Lake. A brunch will be served. If you have any memories to share with the family, you may bring them to the office and we’ll make sure they get to Alice’s family. We continue to hold the whole family in prayer.
On this day when former Illinois Governor George Ryan was released from prison to a halfway house, I came across this paragraph in one of my favorite books of devotions:
“In 2003, George Ryan, Republican governor of Illinois, called for a moratorium on the death penalty. Persuaded by the work of law students exposing race and class discrimination, he called for a halt on executions. Though his political career was tainted by scandal, the 2003 moratorium affirmed and fueled the fire of many Christians and other abolitionists who are working for restorative justice and for an end to the death penalty.” (from “Common Prayer: A Book for Ordinary Radicals” by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro.)
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This Week’s Texts: 4th Sunday after Epiphany
Jeremiah 1:4-10
4Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 5“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 6Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 7But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, 8Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” 9Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. 10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Psalm 71:1-6 (Message Version)
I run for dear life to God, I’ll never live to regret it.
Do what you do so well: get me out of this mess and up on my feet.
Put your ear to the ground and listen, give me space for salvation.
Be a guest room where I can retreat; you said your door was always open!
You’re my salvation—my vast, granite fortress.
My God, free me from the grip of Wicked, from the clutch of Bad and Bully.
You keep me going when times are tough—my bedrock, God, since my childhood.
I’ve hung on you from the day of my birth, the day you took me from the cradle;
I’ll never run out of praise.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Luke 4:21-30
21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” 24And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Peace,
+ Pastor Carrie Smith
carrie.smith@bethanylc.com
