TRANSFORMED BY FAITH TODAY from @Epworth United Methodist Church of Gaitherburg and the Rev. Jennifer Fenner

New Beginnings: Episode 8 January 2021

Revelation 21:1-3

The newness of the new year already does not seem like enough, right? Ready for a do-over for 2021?

The truth is the passing of one calendar year to the next never will be our fulfillment. God is the newness we need.

Revelation 21 - the powerful vision given to John as he is incarcerated on the Island of Patmos and his church under great trial - includes the prophetic words from Isaiah 25.

The newness, the complete renewal God promises for this earth has three profound components.

1. We will be God's people  and God will be our God in a way that is deeper and more intense than even our best moments now. We will belong completely! All of us!

2. There will be no more death. None. The wages of sin are death. There will be justice and righteousness that overtakes our brokenness and sin. And death will be permanently swallowed in the victory of God. ALL OF IT.

3. And - my favorite honestly - as it seems to show God knows we need not just justice but Gods attention and tenderness - God ---with all the power of hands that created the universe - God, will personally and specifically take tender fingers to wipe every tear from your eye and from mine!

There is newness and renewal.

And then there is God's newness.

As we struggle in these days may we draw hope from these profound promises of God!

And may we look and be

- signs of God with us,

- hope in the face of death and redemption in the face of sin, and - - compassion and tenderness in the moments of deep suffering and need.

It is amazing how those three things can change even today!

TRANSFORMED BY FAITH TODAY with the Rev. Jen Fenner of @Epworth United Methodist Church of Gaithersburg 

 New Beginning Episode 7 Jan 2021

Lamentations 3:22-23

If there has ever been a day to begin anew in this nation it is today.

Did yesterday’s events leave you feeling consumed? Because of the Lords compassion we are not consumed.

God’s steadfast love is our foundation. Great is God’s faithfulness. And yet injustice and evil are still present in so many ways. Today God we ask for the stillness of mind and heart, so that we would hear you. We ask for your truth that you promise will set us free. We ask to abide in You

Apart from you we can do nothing, and certainly nothing in Your Name for Your Kingdom

TRANSFORMED BY FAITH TODAY

New Beginnings

Episode 6 January 2021 - Epiphany and All Things New

Isaiah 43:18-19 Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Do you believe that new things are possible?

Or do the former things - the things you have experienced, the things that have scarred you, the things that have inspired you - what you have seen and what you have come to believe - forever dictate what you see for the future?

Will  you leave space for GOD to do a NEW THING?

Epiphany - God pushing open WIDER the message of salvation to include all nations is important. We so often make God in our image, according to what we have experienced, and what we believe. We believe some lives are worth saving but not all! We believe God is about our nation when God will not be constrained!

For all our limiting attempts, God will always be God.

Jesus was the long awaited Messiah. Jesus was not the one to save just the people of Israel. Jesus had come to save ALL from their sins.

Believing new things in God are possible requires always leaving the door open to what God does beyond what we see or imagine - the  impossible is possible with God.

Leave the former things behind. Look I am doing a new thing, God says.

Is God big enough in your life to lead you into new ways, to include new nations, to provide streams in the wasteland and a way in the wilderness......God must be God to you - if this is possible. May it be so!

TRANSFORMED BY FAITH TODAY

PSALM 121: New Beginnings

New Years resolutions can feel like a hopeful fresh page on January 1 and quickly become another burden to carry by January 3rd

God promises to be the shade at our right hand as we cross deserts of open road.

The newness of a new year is only sustained by the God that constantly and consistently makes all things new.

Are you taking God up on the offer to be your strength and your shade?

Where does your help for all thing new come from?

Psalm 121 says our help is from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

Will you let God author the newness in your life this year?

Transformed by Faith Today with Epworth United Methodist Church of Gaithersburg Maryland and the Rev. Jennifer Fenner

There is a new year ahead of us and we are grateful.

But new year rarely bring newness if there is not an internal change.

2 Corinthians 5:17 speaks of the ways in which faith brings new creation - new beginnings.

The foundation of faith is the possibility that God's grace in Christ allows us to start anew.

You and I are not bound by past choice or even our weakest moments. Newness is not based upon our own strength or skill or even dedication to this year's resolution. God's grace makes things new. And the ability to start anew is a door that remains open always by God's grace.

Will you find a deep sense of newness?

Will you live with others granting them the possibility to begin anew as well?

New creation in Christ does not limit accountability or responsibility but rather softens hearts to the possibility that things can be change and the world can become what we do not yet see!

MARY DID YOU KNOW? sung by Floyd Jones

TRANSFORMED BY FAITH TODAY with 30 Days of reflections on Advent and Christmas Songs

Is there something God has told you that you JUST KNOW?

No circumstances or conversations with others can take away the certainty of what God has given you?

Claim it! and Hold on to it! God is faithful.

Mary, had that kind of knowing, when it came to the nature of her son.

Mark Lowry, author of the lyrics to Mary did you Know? detailed the idea for the song. "It came from a conversation with my mother," he said. She told me - no one but Mary - had the 100% conviction that Jesus was born from a virgin. And perhaps that certainty, the knowledge that Jesus was not an ordinary child,  was the only thing that strengthened her as she watched him suffer and die on the cross.

Lowry shared that his mother's reflection on Mary led him to consider other questions he might have for her......

Mary do you know that the baby you cradle will one day cradle you?

Do you know that he will walk on water, heal the sick, give sight to the blind?

Do you know?

Today as the Christmas festivities fade, hold tight to the secret, the promise, the gift God has spoken in you. THERE IS SOMETHING you KNOW because GOD HAS SAID so. Trust it! Claim it! Lean into it! God is amazingly personal and connected to each of us. It is part of the depth of love we are given. Rest in what you know even in the face of evil and sin and challenge and heart ache! As Mary said, may we all say ....here we are, your servants! May it be with us ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD!

O TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN sung here by Floyd Jones

TRANSFORMED BY FAITH TODAY from Rev. Jennifer Fenner of Epworth United Methodist Church Gaithersburg Maryland

Have you stood in a thin place - where God reached from the heavens to the mountain top you were standing upon?

Do you have a story to tell and a witness to hope for someone today?

The Christmas Song Go Tell It on the Mountain was published in the early 1900s by John Wesley Work Jr, a choir director, educator and Harvard alum. Wesley Work is credited as being the first African American collector of African American Spirituals.

Obviously the song existed much earlier than that - sung by those who believed in the good news of God even in the midst of the incomprehensible injustices of a slavery system whose remnants continue today.

The song speaks of mountains - and scripture is full of them. Many times God speaks to Abraham on Mount Moriah, Moses (with the ten commandments), Jesus on the Mount of Temptation and later on Mt Calvary, the disciples as they witness Jesus' transfiguration.

Modern day Christians of the Iona community refer to mountain top God experiences as thin places.

Isaiah 52 speaks of the beauty of mountain spaces and the feet of those who share the good news of Gods Hope

7 How beautiful on the mountains

are the feet of those who bring good news,

who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings,

who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion,

“Your God reigns!”

8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;

together they shout for joy.

When the Lord returns to Zion,

they will see it with their own eyes.

To whom will you bear HOPE today?

Go tell it from the mountains.....the power of an incarnate God with us!

Joy to the World! After this year - WHO ISNT LOOKING FOR JOY!?! But where do we find deep true lifting joy?

Has 2020 left you reeling from the pain of human sin - whether lies, selfishness, or death? Do you long for a world in which systemic racism, concentrations of power, and the misallocation of resources would be overcome by compassion and truth and grace?

Do you just simply wish that even in this pandemic some would not be standing in 100 car+ lines for food while others feel less effect?

Psalm 98 is the foundation of the lyrics to Joy to the World. Powerfully the joy described is two part

- Joy that God has revealed God's love through Christ who literally saves us from sin and death.

AND

-Joy that God will come again to rule in truth and grace

Methodism was founded on the theological understanding that we need personal holiness through God's grace in Christ and a role in social holiness - the ultimate work of the kingdom of God!

Methodist's hold the basic Christian belief that  God took human form in the person of Christ and God will come again to bring complete righteousness to earth.

Hasn't 2020 shown us enough?

We need JOY! Joy that comes from salvation. Joy that comes from the knowledge that Christ will come again.

Sin hurts and breaks and diminishes.

Death is real

And generations, systems, and structures of injustice really do imprison all of human kind

Come Lord Jesus to rule in truth and grace.

WE NEED YOU!

Make known your salvation

And show your righteousness in all the earth!

Oh sing to the Lord a new song,

for he has done marvelous things!

His right hand and his holy arm

have worked salvation for him.

2 The Lord has made known his salvation;

he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.

3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness

to the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen

the salvation of our God.

4 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;

break forth into joyous song and sing praises!

5 Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,

with the lyre and the sound of melody!

6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn

make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!

7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

the world and those who dwell in it!

8 Let the rivers clap their hands;

let the hills sing for joy together

9 before the Lord, for he comes

to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with righteousness,

and the peoples with equity.

The Hallelujah Chorus composed by Handel was originally part of an Easter oratorio. Gradually the Hallelujah Chorus found its way into Christmas celebrations. That is in part because there is no one season to worship God. Praising is what we do.

Taken from Revelation 19:6-7 it describes the beauty of God's glory and reign.

Scripture says:  Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God  the Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,

Hallelujah is the Hebrew word for Praise. It is the highest form of Praise. There is something about the days after Christmas that can feel hollow and empty. For all the effort, all the lights, all the gifts, food, and reach to people - some of the empty places remain empty. Perhaps because, it is only God who is worthy of our praise!

And praising God fills some of the deepest places of need and calling within us. You and I were made to worship. Worshipping God fills places within us like nothing else can.

Try worshipping God just because today.

Lift your hands and heart in praise

Seek to see God's glory.

It is so much more lasting and powerful than any tradition or holiday we try to re-create.

Revelation 19 details  praise in the days when Christ returns again in final victory - in complete justice and truth.

There will be a day.....when the emptiness is filled, the wrong righted, and Truth will prevail.

In the meantime we wait and hope with patience and worship the Glory of the God that still breaks in around us each day.

I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY

TRANSFORMED BY FAITH TODAY

30 Days of Reflections on Advent and Christmas Songs

Has the fanfare of Christmas ever just felt like too much?

Have the bells of Christendom rung so much their sound has become hollow and commercial?

Have you ever just had enough?!

That was how Henry Wadsworth Longfellow felt as he grappled with national racism, deep personal grief, and the heartache of parenting a grown son wounded in war.

The year Longfellow wrote the words to this song  had been a hard one following on the heals of several hard ones. His beloved wife of 18 years, Frances,  caught fire and burned to death as Longfellow tried to save her. The fire scarred his face so badly he wore a beard the rest of his life and was too ill to attend her funeral.

An abolitionist in the midst of the U.S. Civil War, Longfellow could hardly see peace and justice winning out in the nation that still to this day can not see all lives of equal value. Still the Christmas bells insisted.....

And his son Charles was wounded in the war, forcing Longfellow to travel to the hospital and bring him home to nurse him to health.

2020 was not the only hard year in history. And as the bells rang long into the night, Longfellow resisted what felt like false hope and unfulfilled promises. Hence the second to last stanza:

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to all!

And yet is it not into the midst of heartache and brokenness that any real hope must come? Hope that is seen - is not hope at all, scripture tells us. And the promise of Hope Born this Day in the City of Bethlehem (still under oppression and in the midst of violence in 2020) is a true promise, a real promise, a God-sized promise.

Longfellow wrote, as the hope infused his heart:

"Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to All.”

Beyond all the plastic, artificial, commercial, and even fabricated light - may the true light - the Light of the World - the Light that is never overcome by darkness - break into your heart and mine! God does and will have the last word!

The true hope of Christmas will not be thwarted.

God is with us.

God has overcome the world.

And God invites us to be brave enough to continue to speak for justice, live with hope, and walk by faith, not by sight.

That is the power of Christ among us today.