Thursday Thoughts
Where the Spirit of the Lord Is
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 07/25/24
The Spirit primarily gets Pentecost in our liturgical calendar, which we focus on one week of the year. If you look in our hymnal index, her section is pretty short compared to “God” or “Jesus.” In fact, there are more hymns under the “Church” section than the “Spirit” section! But, the Spirit is everywhere at all times, guiding and enlivening creation and the church.
Each week as we gather for worship I pray that we would be open to the Spirit’s guidance as we steward our resources well. And daily I pray that the Spirit would guide us as we head into our future here at PMBC.
In Jesus’ farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, he prayed that his disciples would be united with one another, loving each other as they have been loved by him (John 15:12). He also prays that they would bear fruit in continuing his ministry in the world (John 15:16). This is a tall order that still guides the church’s aspirations and ministries today: to love one another and to bring the Good News to the world through word and deed.
Thank goodness we don’t have to do this on our own power - because some days I have just enough power to curl up with my book on the back patio (I know y’all can relate)! Part of the Good News is that Jesus promised the Spirit would come as a helper, advocate, and comforter.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth” (John 14:15-17a).
So, today and every day I will continue to
pray the same thing: that as your minister and fellow sojourner in the faith I
would be open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and that I would hear the
truth she speaks. And I will continue to pray that together as a congregation
of fellow believers we would individually and collectively be open to the
Spirit’s guidance as truth-seeking, Gospel-speaking followers of Christ!
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
"Let the Birds Remind Us"
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 07/18/24
The other afternoon when I arrived home from the office there were two American Goldfinches on my zucchini trellis. I was glad to catch them before they flew off!
I don’t know about you, but these past few weeks (months? years?) have filled me with fear for the future of our world. Violence, politics, empire building - how long, O Lord?
The German theologian Karl Barth is known for having said that we must preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. But this preacher is ready to burn all the newspapers, bury her head in a good book, sink her hands in the garden soil, and let all the terror of the world work itself out!
Unfortunately, as people who care about serving as Christ’s hands and feet in the world God created and sustains, we can’t really do that long-term. (But we certainly can for moments to restore our hearts - even Jesus took naps!)
Instead of hiding from the events of the world in this time where it seems fear meets us every time we turn on our phones or tvs, let me leave you with a few words from Scripture that this Ma and Pa Goldfinch pair brought to my mind:
- “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:29-31
- “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” Luke 12:24
Today, take a few moments to look out your windows or up at the trees, see the birds, and remind yourself that even when the world around us threatens to crumble, we (and the birds) are immeasurably valuable to God. And then let us pray that God’s justice and mercy would meet us here in the midst of anything the world throws at us.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
A Blessing for Change
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 06/20/24
Friends, since I am away resting and staring at the ocean, I leave you this blessing. Sometimes we need a little reminder that what has shaped us in the past can be let go of today.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
For when you need permission to change[1]
Blessed are you, dear one,
when the world around you has changed.
Everything is different now:
your body, your age, your relationships,
your job, your faith.
The things that once brought you joy.
The people you loved and trusted
and relied on.
The way you exist in the world.
Things have changed.
and it would be silly to imagine
you haven’t been altered along with them.
You are not who you once were.
Bless that old self.
They did such a great job with what they knew.
They made you who you were
–all the mistakes and heartbreak
and naivety and courage.
And blessed are you who you are now.
You who aren’t pretending things are the same.
You who continue to grow and stretch
and show up to your life as it really is–
wholehearted, vulnerable,
maybe a tiny bit afraid.
Blessed are you the changed.
[1] Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (New York: Convergent, 2023), 50-51.x
When we Forget our History
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 06/13/24
For the past few years, every time June comes
around I find myself caught up in the dog and pony show of the Southern Baptist
Convention’s annual meeting. As you know, the SBC is often in the news for its
very conservative stances on just about everything. You may not know that once
the Baptists in the North (many of whom are now part of ABC-USA) and the
Baptists in the South (many of whom are now the SBC) were once part of the same
loosely affiliated movement. The Northern and Southern Baptists split in 1845
over the question of whether a slaveholder could be elected as a Baptist
missionary. Now we still share a name, which can be very confusing to
outsiders. (This is a very loosely summarized history.)
Word has just come out that the SBC convention delegates voted 91% in favor of ousting First Baptist Church of Alexandria because the church affirms women in ministry. Although their Senior Minister is currently male, they affirm that women can serve as senior ministers. And although on paper the SBC shares our history of affirming local church autonomy, they continue to disfellowship churches for being in disagreement with denominational polity that prohibits women ministers.
Oh how easy it is to forget what movements the Spirit has already made in history! The first SBC woman to be ordained, Addie Davis at Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, NC, happened in 1964 - 60 years ago![1] The first Baptist woman known to be ordained was M. A. Brennan in 1876 at Bellevernon Freewill Baptist Church in PA (Phillips was Freewill Baptist at its founding) - 148 years ago! Baptist women were, of course, preaching and teaching long before those first ordinations.[2] But, Baptists are just babies in the history of the church - we weren’t born until 1500 years after Mary Magdalene proclaimed Christ risen!
The history of women in ordained ministry is complicated, ebbing and flowing alongside patriarchy. In the ancient catacombs in Rome, there are numerous painted frescoes depicting women praying publicly and breaking bread (what we call communion). Women are recorded in ancient writings as missionaries, ministers, and partners with Paul and other men whose names we remember. 34% of the women the apostle Paul commends by name are women![3] Mary Magdalene was the first at Christ’s tomb in all four Gospels, which means the first person to proclaim the risen Christ was a woman. Women clearly served in many leadership capacities in the generations of the church that are remembered in Scripture and even a few hundred years into church history - until patriarchal power structures tried to shut them up.
Obviously our congregation doesn’t need convincing that women should be in ministry - y’all unanimously voted to call one as your minister two years ago. And as I come upon my two year anniversary of serving as your minister (June 26th!), I am reminded that while the Spirit continues to call women (and men) to serve in various ministerial capacities, the complicated history of the church recognizing the Spirit’s freedom to call whoever the Spirit desires to call continues.
When the Spirit fell on that room of scared disciples on the first Pentecost, Peter stood up and proclaimed that despite public perception, the disciples were not drunk - they were simply filled with the Spirit. He recalled for them the words of Joel 2:28-32 - reminding all who had gathered that the Spirit would be poured out on “all flesh.” This included sons, daughters, young men, old men, and male and female slaves. These folx would then prophesy and preach the good news. All of them.
Friends, my prayer is that we would never limit the Spirit’s work by pretending that it is our responsibility to determine who God calls, who the Spirit fills, and whose voices are worthy of proclaiming the risen Lord. That’s not our job. Our job is only to be open to the Spirit’s presence in the lives of those whom the Spirit has called.
I would ask you all to be in prayer for our sisters in the SBC and other spaces where they have been called and yet are being silenced.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
[1] For the history of women’s ordinations in the
SBC see Elizabeth H. Flowers’ Into the
Pulpit: Southern Baptist Women and Power since World War II (Chapel Hill,
NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012).
[2] For our early history of women preachers see
Curtis W. Freeman’s edited volume, A
Company of Women Preachers: Baptist Prophetesses in Seventeenth-Century
England: A Reader (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2011).
[3] Elizabeth Gillan Muir, A Women’s History of the Christian Church (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2019), 5.
Waves of Mercy
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 06/06/24
Yesterday evening we tried out a new beach near Pt. Judith (well, the beach is actually rather ancient, but we had never been there!). Being so early in the season, it was a bit chilly when we arrived. This did not, of course, keep my teen from swimming. Meanwhile her mother did some beach combing (and found beach glass!), reading, and general appreciation and observation of the ocean. (I attribute this difference in preferred beach activities to my having been raised on the Oregon coast and her having been raised on the California coast.)
The ocean always feels like a sacred place to me. Between the smells, the feel of the sand under my feet, the sounds of kids playing, and the lap of the waves, I almost always leave feeling relaxed and at peace. Even a gray and stormy day at the beach will do this for me. What a gift the ocean is!
A few months back I was reading Revelation 21 in a funeral service and was struck once again by John’s proclamation that in his vision of the end, “the sea was no more” (21:1). As much as I love the ocean, the people of Biblical times were much more ambivalent toward it. The ocean was a source of food and transportation, but it was also a source of chaos. It was moody, dangerous, and a route of transportation by which enemies came and invaded. Revelation is telling people that the chaos and uncertainty of the world will be gone in the end - but does it have to do away with the ocean?!
The Bible isn’t all doom and gloom about the sea. In Psalm 98:7 the sea is invited to praise the Lord: “let the sea roar, and all that fills it!” Genesis 1 tells us that God created the seas and sea animals. Jeremiah 5 reminds us that the sea remains under God’s commands, “I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it” (5:22).
This summer I hope that you get to spend some time at the ocean, contemplating its power and beauty. While I do pray that God’s presence rights this world of chaos and uncertainty, I’m also hopeful that this beautiful part of God’s creation will be redeemed along with the rest of God’s good creation. Afterall, the Psalmists believed that the ocean’s waves could praise God!
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
