It was an exciting honor, this past week, to get to welcome five new members and baptize five people. Neither Ben nor I had ever baptized so many people at once and it felt almost like a mass baptism. At youth group that night we got a little sidetracked talking about how the early church might have managed the mass baptisms on Pentecost (if they’d had a garden hose, they certainly would have used it, they concluded). Anyway, on Pentecost morning our MPC Celebration was busy and full, and perhaps it was because there were so many moving pieces that morning that we forgot to have our membership co-chairs speak about why they gave the new members each a loaf of bread and a small bouquet of flowers. This is a new tradition at MPC and a beautiful one, which Anna Santos brought to us. Why do we give new members a loaf of bread and flowers? Well, the flowers are for fun and for beauty – and we do hope that we will share in these diverse kinds of enjoyment together. The Westminster shorter catechism reminds us our chief end in life is “to glorify God and enjoy God forever,” and we try to remember that beauty and pleasure are ways in which we enjoy God’s gifts. So whether you received flowers on Sunday as a new member or if you’re enjoying them in your garden or where they grow on the side of the road, let their blossoms remind you that enjoyment is one of God’s calls to us. On a different note, the bread stands for the way our community nourishes one another. The new members who join us are going to be nourished by the church – but they will also nourish us, as they share their spiritual gifts and as we break bread together in fellowship and in sacrament.
Our stewardship season is drawing to a close for the year. Although we focus on money and numbers during stewardship season, hoping to get an accurate budget created, we can also use this time to focus in a more general way on how we nourish others and how we are nourished at church. I think MPC is really good at this, from the ways in which we celebrate together, to our programs for children and youth, to our witness of courage and justice in the world. Even the jumble sale was not “just” a fundraiser but it was a ministry and a service, gently helping people to re-purpose items they didn’t have space for anymore.
Thank you all for the ways in which you feed one another, body and soul.
Every Blessing,
Talitha
PLEASE NOTE: Rev. Talitha will be on vacation May 25-31.
