Home > Pastor's Corner > Pastor's Letter > 2005 Letter Archives
Rev. Ed Moore's monthly letters from Covenant's newsletter, archived here for your reference.
January February March April May June July August September October November December
It's still Advent as this is being written, and the Scriptures we're hearing in worship have a lot to say about angels. In Matthew, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and explains that his betrothed, Mary, will have a son who must be named Jesus. In Luke, the angel Gabriel visits Mary and announces that she has been chosen to bear the Son of God. When Jesus is born in Bethlehem, an entire choir of angels ("a multitude of the heavenly host") sings the Good News to some minimum wage workers, the shepherds. This is the time when we hear much of angels. Soon it will be January, though, and the angels will be put away with the Christmas decorations.
It's unfortunate that we've come to think of angels as seasonal workers because it really does them an injustice. They're much more liberally distributed throughout the pages of the Bible than many folks realize, present even at the creation itself, when God remarks, "Let us make human beings in our image." The plural there, the Old Testament experts tell us, refers to God and His senior staff, the elohim or "holy ones." Angels, that is.
Our English word angel is very close to the New Testament original, angelos, which means messenger. Angels are, first, God's messengers. Wings, halos and other perks we traditionally associate with the position are more the product of artists' imaginations than the result of careful study of scripture. Angels are messengers first; costumes are unimportant.
Did you ever stop to think that you may be called to be an angel? If you're chosen to speak a Word from God to someone who really needs to hear it, then you've met the New Testament definition. You're an angel. You've delivered the Good News, changed someone's life, told them about the mighty works of God, sung the anthem the heavenly host premiered at Bethlehem.
January can be a trying month: cold, cloudy, dim, February minus the glitter. The face in the mirror may have lost its summer tan, gone to a wintry pale. But cheer up! It's an angelic face.
If you've delivered the Good News to one of the least of God's people, you're kin to Gabriel. And that's good family!
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
February 2005: Been Listening?
A recent Sunday bulletin carried an announcement telling the Covenant community that the Holy Spirit was calling some among us to serve as Confirmation Mentors. Youth who are in the sixth through eighth grade are eligible to be confirmed - to become full church members, confirming the baptism vows parents or other sponsors made on their behalf when they were very young. Each youth moves through the confirmation process with a mentor, an adult who guides and shares along the way. The announcement was carefully worded: no one was asked to volunteer to serve as a mentor; instead, each of us was asked to discern if s/he might not be among those the Spirit was calling to this ministry.
United Methodists seeking to become pastors are asked, early on, to articulate their call. Why do they think God is asking them to lead a congregation? What particular gifts can they bring to the work? What did the folks in the congregation have to say about this? Did they applaud . . . laugh . . . cry . . . sit in stony silence? Why? Still on speaking terms with the spouse?
It's a good process, but carries the unfortunate implication that only those who are pastors have a distinctive calling from God. What the proto-pastor is really being asked is why s/he believes there has been a call to the pastoral ministry, as distinct from all the other ministries that are equally strong, valid summons from the Spirit. It's assumed, you see, that baptism carries with it some call to ministry; being a pastor is but one way that call may be answered. So, who among us, as a consequence of baptism, is now being called to serve as a Confirmation Mentor? We're not looking for volunteers; we're expecting those who've been called to step forward.
That's not the way some folks understand church, is it? Some among us believe church is a voluntary association: I choose to belong, will help out as I'm able, will contribute as I prefer.
Recall, though, the New Testament Greek word we translate church: ecclesia.
It means the called out community. Every one of us. Not a volunteer in the lot. Been listening?
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
March 2005: A Time for Silence
Over the last few months I've run across several articles about a dilemma facing the U.S. Navy. There is evidence suggesting that the Navy's newer sonar equipment is causing serious problems for some species of whales. Whales, we're told, can communicate across great distances under water by emitting sounds that are inaudible to humans (the whale sounds we can hear are just a fraction of the true vocabulary). This submarine conversation means, of course, that whales' ears are fearfully and wonderfully made, way beyond the auditory equipment we humans rate.
The sonar seems to interfere with whales' acute hearing, causing some of them to become confused and beach themselves. There is speculation that the Navy's noise may even cause pain in whales -- headaches or earaches -- though no one is certain. For all we know, sonar may sound to whales like fingernails on the blackboard, more than enough to drive any intelligent creature to desperation. If whales begin to form gangs and act out, we'll have only ourselves to blame!
Reading through the lections for Lent - the scripture passages we'll use in worship these weeks leading up to Easter - I noticed how noisy the last days of Jesus' life were. The Hosanna parade we celebrate on Palm/Passion Sunday must have been loud and boisterous; Jesus' overturning the merchants' tables in the temple was certainly not accompanied by soft violins in the background; the arrest in Gethsemane evidently involved armed combat; the mob cried out "Barabbas, Barabbas!" when Pilate asked whom they wished to have released; the procession through the streets of Jerusalem to the cross must have been accompanied by wailings, curses and taunts. We're told there were shouts of derision at the crucifixion itself. For Jesus, who loved to escape into the quiet of the wilderness, all that noise must have amplified the anguish.
The whales let us know when the noise has gotten to them - they run up on the beach in their distress and die there, unless coaxed back out to sea. But the noise that affronts our souls seldom drives us to such extremes. Instead, we try to cope with it, to adjust to it, all the while maintaining that stoic "I can deal with the stress!" front so valued in our culture. We complain about the traffic, the pace of everything, the expectations, the callousness, the compulsion to produce more and more . . . without noticing the toll the noise is taking on our souls. The whales are more honest.
As Lent unfolds, find some time for silence. Silence, you recall, was the prelude to the resurrection: no brass band or troupe of cheerleaders stood outside the empty tomb heralding the Good News inside. Angels, it appears, prefer to speak into silence. Give them some this Lent, then listen carefully.
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
It was one of those mid-March days that pretend to be the beginning of spring: warm and sunny, a gentle breeze, the sort of day that evokes fervent hopes among winter-weary folks. Alas, it was one of those days. The next was frigid, windy, with the famous "wintry mix" coating the streets and stinging the faces of people trudging to work. As I made my way from the parking lot to my office at Covenant, I wondered how the Native Americans who once lived here endured such abrupt changes in the environment. How did they cope with a temperature plunge of 40° from one day to the next? How did they dress their children? How did they survive in such uncertainty?
We've come a long way in stabilizing parts of our environment. The new climate control system we're installing at Covenant will be able to heat one section of the building while cooling another, making even those cold/hot spring and autumn days manageable. When the project is completed, we will enjoy a consistent comfort level whatever the weather outside. That part of the environment is under control. But others are not.
In some ways our world remains as chaotic as was the weather for Native Americans. It confronts us with challenges to spiritual survival. Who could have foreseen the federal government's intervening in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, making the vexing, heart wrenching drama even more painful? Why must we litter the landscape with casinos in order to fund schools? When did that part of the climate change? How do we respond, as Christians, to a war that asks sacrifice only of those fighting in the field and their families at home? Who - again, overnight - redefined patriotism?
As people of the resurrection, we are witnesses to God's final Word on His creation: all that Jesus of Nazareth was, taught, and lived will ultimately be established in what the New Testament calls the Kingdom of God. That is what's coming. We're called to live, as the Spirit guides, in anticipation of that day. Speak, Holy Spirit.
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
May 2005: The wind of the Spirit
When Mary and I were in London a couple of weeks ago, I hopped the Underground - tube, subway - and visited St. Paul's Cathedral, the great church that dominates the city's skyline, a holy place where John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism, often worshiped. As I sat there absorbing the beauty and history, letting the Spirit lead me where it wished, I remembered another time I had been in that sacred spot.
It was three years ago, in January, a day when the English winter was whipping London with cold winds, sleet and rain. My brother Will and I were in St. Paul's, sitting in the nave, each deep in our own thoughts. Suddenly we felt a rush of cold air and heard loud voices from the back of the church where the main doors stand. Because they're so large, those doors are usually kept shut during the week and visitors come in through a side entrance. But the cold wind had flung the tall doors wide open, and the Cathedral staff were mustering all available hands to try to force them closed. That's why we heard shouting - it required a group effort to put the wind back in its place.
Sitting in St. Paul's this time, I wondered if we sometimes treat the Holy Spirit as the Cathedral staff did that London wind (you'll recall that the Spirit often appears as a wind in Scripture). As soon as it begins to open doors we prefer to keep closed, as soon as it announces its presence with a chilly blast that disturbs our comfort, we throw all our energy into putting it back in its place. So untidy, the Spirit!
Your Church Council recently took a brave step. They voted to discontinue our rental agreement with Ets Chaiyim at the conclusion of the 2005-06 academic year. Ets Chaiyim has rented most of our main floor for years, bringing us valuable income, but restricting the programs and ministries we've been able to offer. But now we need the space, to be about the work God means us to do. The Council, I think, is welcoming the wind of the Spirit, with all its disturbances and challenges. It may be chilly, but we've no intention of trying to shut the doors against it. After all, it's just trying to find its way home.
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
June 2005: How do you read the trends?
As I write this, it is in the fifties outside and the weather people are predicting temperatures in the forties overnight. The coming weekend will be Memorial Day, and it's not usually this cool so late in the spring. Recently I've joked with some church members that the weather has been fine, provided you like England in May.
In a conversation a few days ago, a friend of mine suggested that we may be seeing the signs of global warming. He has read up on the subject and learned that a temporary decline in temperatures in some parts of the world may be a symptom of global warming. We've all read about the melting of glaciers and the Arctic ice sheets. Perhaps my friend is correct, and the climatic pessimists have turned out to be prophetic.
So much depends upon how carefully we read the trends, doesn't it? There are controversies over evolution in some school districts, disagreements about stem cell research among our leaders in Washington, and every day there's a news story claiming that the Christian Right is still in its ascendancy. Some folks who read these trends say they're predictive of another spiritual Great Awakening just over the horizon, that Christianity is returning to the public square with new authority.
I'm not so certain. It may be, instead, that something is melting: the church's integrity as a community of folk who understand themselves, first, as Jesus' disciples and not subservient to any political party or ideology. When He was being questioned by Pontius Pilate, Jesus told the Roman official, "My kingdom is not of this world." He didn't mean that His followers were to be disengaged from ministry in the here and now; He was cautioning them to remember that this world's political and economic structures are transient, and that Christians' final allegiance must reside elsewhere. So much depends upon how we read the trends, doesn't it?
May the Spirit be our guide.
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
The sanctuary at Savage United Methodist Church -- between Laurel and Columbia -- was built in 1888 by craftsmen who also constructed the nearby Savage Mill. It has elegant brickwork, carved ceiling beams, stained glass windows and plaster walls - just what you would expect in a late 19th century Methodist building. During the four years I was pastor there, the church began to grow because of the many new housing developments springing up all around it.
I remember asking one young couple why they had chosen to join that church. The woman hesitated a moment, then said, "It smells like the church back home." She'd grown up in a small United Methodist Church "back home" in Ohio and now lived in a sterile, planned, zoned, brand-new "community" on the edge of Columbia, the sort of place where the developers import "mature" trees to mimic Mayberry. The brick sanctuary at Savage UMC, redolent of candles, church suppers and old hymnals, made her feel "at home." She sensed welcome the moment she and her husband arrived.
Welcoming is a ministry. Abraham welcomed angels and, in turn, received the news that he and Sarah would have a son, Isaac, to fulfill God's promise (Genesis 18). Welcoming Elijah the Prophet in a time of famine, a poor woman found blessing for herself and healing for her son (I Kings 17). On the day of resurrection, two disciples met a man on the Emmaus Road and invited him to share the evening meal. As the stranger broke the bread, they recognized him as the Risen Christ. In welcoming him, they experienced the resurrection. And they learned that "back home," in God's Kingdom, death had no power (Luke 24).
As a ministry, welcoming brings blessings all around. It invites the one who is journeying to find a place where she is valued as God's child and known by name. It brings her home. The welcomers, in turn, find their community nourished by the gifts the traveler has brought: that house in Emmaus became the first earthly place where the Bread of Heaven was broken.
Welcoming is at the heart of evangelism. Sometimes we think of evangelism as being principally about church growth, but that is not the Biblical perspective. Evangelism is a means by which welcoming is expressed, and congregations grow when the gifts of those welcomed are set free in the church. The gifts the church needs are all around it - they're present in the lives of people who are waiting to be welcomed, to be invited to come inside and sit at the table.
We're planning to begin a substantial effort to let new residents know Covenant is nearby. We'll also be reaching into communities where future members of the church family already are living. As you pray for our ministries at Covenant, include the ministry of welcoming. It's as vital as anything else we do. Ask the Holy Spirit to show us new, creative ways to open the doors and set places at the Lord's Table. There are so many folks who need to hear that "back home," where Jesus came from, death has no power.
Grace and Peace,
-- Ed Moore
August 2005: Spreading the Joy
We've been running a film series Sunday nights in July at Covenant, watching movies that pose significant questions for faith, and spending some time in discussion. One of the films was Elmer Gantry, starring Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons, the story of a salesman-turned-evangelist who makes it into big-time revivalism by teaming up with a charismatic preacher named Sharon Falconer. I won't give away much of the plot here; suffice it to say that there is excellent acting, some classic tent preaching, and a tragic ending.
When we discussed Elmer Gantry, our group agreed that the filmmakers had done a masterful job of leaving us with ambiguities and shades of grey. We just didn't know who among the characters was a true believer and who was a charlatan, and we all felt that Gantry raised troubling questions about our susceptibility to emotional manipulation. The film did what we hoped it would: it forced us to think about our faith.
As I thought more about the film, I realized that - for all its ambiguities - Gantry teaches one lesson clearly: Christian faith should be lived out in the midst of a community that sets boundaries for us and holds us accountable. There's no such thing as a solitary Christian, however attractive that notion may be in our radically individualistic culture. No, we cannot sit in the garden Sunday mornings, listening to the birds, marveling at creation, and "experience God" just as well as if we were in a worshiping congregation. The garden may be lovely, but the robins are no substitute for a caring, supportive body of believers. And they cannot gently call me back to the core traditions of the faith when I begin to mistake my own emotions for messages from God.
Before long we'll make invitation cards available to the Covenant family. They'll look like business cards, but will be designed to invite folks outside the faith community to join us in fellowship. Won't you keep a few in your pocket? There's no such thing as a solitary Christian. Spread the word!
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
September 2005: Lessons, Past and Present
A few days ago my daughter Abbie and I visited the Montgomery County Fair. We try to go every year, and make a special effort to watch the pig races. I mean, how often do you get to see pigs competing for a pile of Oreos? It's not to be missed!
County Fairs remind us where our community came from. Not too long ago Montgomery County was largely agricultural, and Gaithersburg was a smallish farming village. The railroad that runs through town didn't transport commuters to and from jobs in D.C.; it took farmers' produce to markets up and down the east coast. Our County Fair, with its agricultural and livestock exhibits, reminds us of our history.
Because technology and population growth have transformed our community, we are at risk of forgetting our past, perhaps imagining it a quaint and unsophisticated time well enough left behind us. That agricultural period is something we've outgrown, and the farm animals at the fair are now just for display. They're interesting, cute. We've come so far, understand so much more than we did "back then."
This isn't to romanticize the past or denigrate the present; progress has brought us innumerable benefits. We need to remind ourselves, though, that, as Christians, we never leave the past behind us. We stand in a tradition bequeathed to us by generations of living, breathing women and men who confronted the same life issues we do. Their experiences of God in the midst of joys and sorrows, triumphs and tragedies, are timeless witness to the human encounter with the Divine. They are a rich source of inspiration for us, as we struggle to be faithful in this time where God has placed us.
In a few weeks we'll begin a study of one of the most misunderstood and, frankly, difficult pieces of our tradition, the book of Revelation. Film and popular literature have so abused Revelation that some Christians now find it frightening, unintelligible, or both. When written, though, it was a source of comfort and Good News to the community to whom it was addressed. Our task will be to listen through their ears, to hear the text as they first did, using the vocabulary that was familiar to them. If we do our study well, perhaps we can share the encounter with God they found centuries ago in the last book in our Bible.
The sisters and brothers who first treasured Revelation are waiting to share their testimony with us; starting September 20, we'll accept their invitation. If you would like to be part of the study, call the CUMC office or e-mail me. If you will be joining us or not, pray for the Spirit's guidance. We need it!
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
October 2005: The Spirit of Giving
Have you made a contribution to hurricane relief yet?
The Sunday after Katrina struck, we made special offering envelopes available during worship, so that the Covenant congregation could easily support UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief. After only two weeks, we had collected a bit more than ten thousand dollars. Members of our church family, I'm sure, actually gave much more than that: some chose to mail offerings directly to UMCOR, while others gave on-line by following links on our church's website, www.covenant-umc.org.
What this generosity shows is that Christian people have a need to give. Just as we have needs for nourishment and for fellowship, we have a need to give. Tragedies like Katrina summon up an immediate response from somewhere deep within us, and we feel the need to give so that suffering may be alleviated. We don't consider whether or not we will give, only through what means and in what amount. We acknowledge the need. It is a part of what it mans for us to claim the name of Christ.
On Sunday, September 25, we began our annual giving campaign for the support of our ministries at Covenant; it will culminate the Sunday before Thanksgiving when we make our estimates of giving for 2006 a central part of worship. Our Stewardship Committee, led by Jim Wells, will do an excellent job of encouraging the church family to give generously for the support of our many ministries and missions.
As you listen to the encouragement and read the materials that will be available, attend to the needs Covenant has for strong support in 2006. But attend, as well, to your own need to give. There is something deep within us, stirred up by the Spirit, that hungers to give so that others may experience the Good News. And we are most at peace within ourselves when that need - the need to give to others - has been satisfied.
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
November 2005: Listening for Hope
For the past several weeks, about thirty folks from the CUMC family have been kindly attending a study I've been leading on Revelation, the last book in the Bible. I say kindly, because they have been attentive and responsive as we have struggled with the most enigmatic book in Scripture, and forgiving when their instructor has been at a loss to explain some nook or cranny of apocalyptic literature.
We have tried to listen to Revelation with the ears of the people who first received it from St. John. For them it was not a fearful roadmap to Armageddon, but, instead, a Word of graceful assurance that God is ultimately in control of history and will lead His people into the New Jerusalem, Caesar and his legions notwithstanding. Hearing that sustained note of hope behind the clash and din of John's literary style has been a challenge, but the Spirit has been along with us for the ride and will guide us home.
One Sunday at Bethesda UMC, we sang Amazing Grace. As the organist played the hymn, he sustained a single note in the background: it was always there, as our voices rose and fell and as the organ led the people. "It's called a drone," he said, when I asked him about it, "and you always hear it when that hymn is played on bagpipes. I like to play it as the pipers do."
How is your hope these days? Not your mood or your opinion, but your hope? In the background of Revelation is the note - the drone - of hope: unwavering, constant, the first note in the anthem that will be sung when the New Jerusalem finally comes. As the pipers who first played Amazing Grace understood so well, we need to hear that sustained note behind all the variations of our lives. Can you hear that note of hope?
Thanksgiving will soon be here, and Advent will follow. Our secular culture will do all it can to wrest both of them from the Faith and co-opt them for commercial ends. It will be disheartening, stressful. But, if you're open to the Spirit's voice, you'll be able to discern a single note in the background, strong, clear, unwavering: the drone of the New Jerusalem. Listen, and be thankful.
Ed Moore
Covenant Messenger
December 2005: Remembering Advent
Have you noticed how often films use amnesia as a centerpiece for their plots? Ingrid Bergman's first starring role was in the 1945 Hitchcock film Spellbound, where she plays a psychiatrist who helps Gregory Peck recover his memory after months of amnesia. The Bourne Identity, a 2002 film, stars Matt Damon as a CIA agent whose amnesia has blotted out memories of the more unsavory aspects of his career. There are dozens more of these, films that employ amnesia as a driver for the drama.
In most Hollywood depictions, amnesia develops after a character is involved in an accident: the onset is sudden, and the past is instantly obliterated. Memory, true identity, is recovered because someone recognizes the inadequacy, the falsehood, of the replacement narrative that has been substituted for the Real Life stolen by the amnesia.
In our Advent calendar at Covenant, we've scheduled our Longest Night service for December 22. Longest Night acknowledges the presence of the darkness. It provides us a time and place to confess that all is not tidings of comfort and joy. It lets us light a candle in memory of one who has died; in hope of a dream not yet fulfilled; as part of a prayer for peace, healing or wholeness. We share the Eucharist, offer anointing for healing, and center ourselves in the great mystery of the Incarnation.
It is a form of spiritual amnesia that has distorted our understanding of Advent, leading us to believe it should all be joy, light and good cheer. In the early church, Advent was more centered around hope for Christ's Second Coming than anticipation of His birth. It was an article of faith that the Word had become flesh, lived among us, been crucified and then raised triumphant over death; Christians were convinced that was true. Yet the world remained immersed in war, bad things happened to good people, rulers were not to be trusted, and diseases swept away young and old alike. When would Mary's boy return to set it all right, to bring in the New Jerusalem?
Advent was the time when this hope was expressed, this yearning given voice, when the empty places in life were confessed and laid before the altar of God's promise. On Longest Night we recover that ancient, powerful grounding for Advent.
The dissatisfaction many Christians feel this time of year is symptomatic of Advent amnesia: the replacement narrative secular culture has urged upon us - all must be tidings of comfort and joy, else something is wrong with us - has suppressed our true identity as the people who hope for the day the Incarnate One comes again. Being the true church is naming the darkness for what it is, and proclaiming hope all the more boldly: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!”
Grace and Peace,
Ed Moore
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