Summer went by quickly and now we are in to fall programming. Sunday School has resumed at 9:00 a.m. with energized teachers and learners. New and returning voices in the Chancel Choir bless worship with faith and praise. And another sign of fall is excitement over the ministries of Capitol Hill for 2010 as we prepare the budget for a new year.
The fall Stewardship theme of New Love, New Mercy comes out of the book of Lamentations. These scriptures resonate with people who have suffered or who have acquired the art of being with people who have suffered. In Lamentations 3:21-24, we read three verses that shine like a diamond against a black cloth:
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God's mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in God."
The Jews for whom Lamentations originally was written certainly needed hope. They had experienced firsthand the destruction of Jerusalem and their temple by the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar; that experience had overwhelmed them. They had seen priests murdered and families torn apart, and they had been marched into captivity in Babylon.
In Lamentations’ five poems, or songs, the Jewish community cries out to God in the midst of suffering. The author of Lamentations was not writing to help people understand suffering or to point an accusing finger at people who are suffering. Instead Lamentations reveals our compassionate God who is always ready to enter the valley of the shadow of death with us bringing new life, new mercy, and new hope.
That is why we gather each Sunday– to hear again that we are not alone; God is with us. Our community of faith gathers to affirm that God is present with us in all circumstances. Out of gratitude for a God who loves us and is always with us (even when we don’t feel that divine presence), we respond with our first fruits. New hope and new mercy come every morning. The book of Lamentations invites us to bring the first fruits of our income and life to God as an act of worship.
We will celebrate the offering of our financial commitments to God through Capitol Hill Christian Church on Commitment Sunday, October 11, in 10:00 a.m. worship. It is an opportunity for us to do as Betsy Schwarzentraub writes:
"Here is the basis of our hope - Yahweh, our radically generous God! And this is our opportunity; to live out such a hope by the way that we receive, give, use, manage and share all God has given us,
Beginning and ending with our every life breath, and including everything in between”
Blessings,
Candice
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