Friday 21 August 2020
 
Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois

Dear Friends, 
 
I’ve been writing this week on my novel. It’s a powerful thing to be the god and creator of your own world. I decide what characters do, when they do it, and how they feel about it. I’m the sole ruler of this universe on the page. If I don’t like what I create, I can fix it. It’s called editing. You can do this when you write fiction. 
 
In real life, however, we are not the god of our universe. God is. We can’t decide what will happen next in our story. We can’t always even fully control our responses to the peaks and valleys that come up in our lives. 
 
One of the challenging things about being a person of faith is exploring how our story intersects with the story we find in the Bible. Eric did that well in last week’s sermon. Rachel does that amazingly in the sermon you will hear this Sunday. We’ve trod the Jericho road. We’ve been to the manger and to the cross. What do we bring to these places? What do we take away? How do we learn? How are we transformed?
 
Every preacher reads the Bible from the pulpit on Sunday and then tries to get out of the way. The Spirit does the real preaching. 
 
Bring your story and prayers to worship on this Sunday. You and the Spirit can think about your life.
 
See you on Sunday. Invite a friend.
 
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you.
            Be amazed.
                        Tell somebody.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
 
* * *
 
Fritz & Christine and Their Very Nervous Parents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvh_WfIKEM
 
* **
 
PHOTO Challenge! 

From your Nurture Team — Congrats to Pam Grubb for being the first (of several) to guess last Friday’s photo was of Claudia Kirby!  

Here’s this week’s photo. 

Visit http://fb.com/groups/firstpreschampaign to make your guesses, or email them to photos@firstpres.church.  
 
Please join in the fun!  We would like you to select a photo from your younger years (grade school, high school or early adulthood). Photos need not be professional. Candid shots are welcome. Please send your photos to photos@firstpres.church.

* * *
 
Good Grief ?!*&                      
Help Larry with his research on grief. His letter to his pastor (and us) follows:  As part of my research to better understand the experience of grief, I am collecting data via an online survey. If you have experienced grief in response to loss due to human death, then I invite you to take the survey.

The link to the survey is here:
  Grief Experience Survey (https://etsuredcap.etsu.edu/surveys/?s=RLAYYRD3MA or http://tinyurl.com/griefexperiencesurvey)

Thank you!
Larry
_______________________
Larry Childress, M.A.
Doctoral Student
Translational Experimental Psychology
East Tennessee State University
zldc2@etsu.edu
 
* * *
 
Listen to this girl sing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1dlWmrRstc
 

Thursday August 20^th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Overheard:

            For the first time
you’ll be aware of gravity
like a thorn in your heel,
and your shoulder blades will ache
            for want of wings.
 
(Nina Cassian/translated from the Romanian by Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant.)
 
* * * 
 
“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but above all thou shalt not be a bystander.”  Found at the Holocaust Museum.
 
* * *
 
A poem
“Memoir” by 
Vijay  Seshadri
 
Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.
The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.
If I wrote that story now—
radioactive to the end of time—
people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn’t peel
the gloves fast enough
from your hands scorched by the firestorms of that shame.
Your poor hands. Your poor eyes
to see me weeping in my room
or boring the tall blonde to death.
Once I accused the innocent.
Once I bowed and prayed to the guilty.
I still wince at what I once said to the devastated widow.
And one October afternoon, under a locust tree
whose blackened pods were falling and making
illuminating patterns on the pathway,
I was seized by joy,
and someone saw me there,
and that was the worst of all,
lacerating and unforgettable.
 
* * *
News:
 
Let’s pray for our brothers and sisters in Beirut. This letter from the President of the Near East School of Theology:
 
Dear Friends all over the world,
 
This is just a brief preliminary message about NEST. More will follow.
 
We thank God that no one was injured at NEST as a result of the huge explosion that devastated most of Beirut last night at around 6pm. There were not many people in the building, but those who were escaped unharmed. The damage to the building is extensive. All 8 eight floors above ground and two basements were hit. Glass windows, glass doors, glass panels inside the building, as well as many internal wooden doors were shattered.  Never has NEST been hit so badly as yesterday, not even during the worst days of the 15-year war in Lebanon. Of course, we are not the only ones. The devastation in the rest of Beirut is vast.
 
Our wonderful team of employees and workers are cleaning the glass today, but we have no illusions about being able to replace the glass and the doors soon. There is great demand on glass panels and repairmen in the city. We will be trying to cover the shattered windows and doors with nylon for the time being. 
 
The cost of repairing the damage will be enormous. We do not have an estimate yet, but it will be in the thousands of dollars. 
 
We appeal for your help.
 
Thank you for all your inquiries and messages of support. I may not be able to answer people individually right now, but I will do my best.
 
God bless you and keep you safe.
 
George Sabra
President
Professor of Systematic Theology
Near East School of Theology
P.O. Box 13-5780 Chouran
Beirut 1102 2070, Lebanon
 
Tel: ++961  (0)1 349901
Fax: ++961 (0)1 347129
Email: president@theonest.edu.lb
www.theonest.edu.lb
 
 
Good Word:
 
Philippians 4              
8 Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
 
Let us pray:
 
Use me today,
Holy God.
 
May something
come through me 
from you
for many.
 
AMEN.
 
Much, much love to you all.
  
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

Wednesday August 19^th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Fourth Grade Humor Edition/Animal Jokes:
 
Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide.
 
How did the anteater do in the race? She won by a nose.
 
What do you call a sleeping tyrannosaurus rex? A dinosnore.
 
What do you call a frog who is illegally parked? Toad.
 
What do you call a bug with a sore throat? A hoarse fly.
 
 
A Joke for Bankers, Financial Advisors, and Frogs:
 
A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that the teller’s name is Patricia Whack. So he says, “Ms. Whack, I’d like to get a loan to buy a boat and go on a long vacation.”
 
Patti looks at the frog in disbelief and asks how much he wants to borrow.
 
The frog says $30,000.
 
The teller asks his name and the frog says that his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it’s OK, he knows the bank manager.
 
Patti explains that $30,000 is a substantial amount of money and that he will need to secure some collateral against the loan. She asks if he has anything he can use as collateral.
The frog says, “Sure. I have this,” and produces a tiny pink porcelain elephant, about half an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.
 
Very confused, Patti explains that she’ll have to consult with the manager and disappears into a back office.
 
She finds the manager and says “There’s a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000. He wants to use this as collateral.” She holds up the tiny pink elephant. “I mean, what the heck is this?”
 
The bank manager looks back at her and says: “It’s a knick knack, Patti Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man’s a Rolling Stone”
  
* * *

News:
Mid-week Gathering TONIGHT 7 pm
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

Good Word:
 
Philippians 4              
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.[d] 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
 
Let us pray:
 
O God in all my seriousness,
                  and the seriousness that 
                  these times require,
may I recall your great love
                  and your mighty help—
and rejoice.
 
AMEN.
 
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 
 

Monday August 17^th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Some Thoughts on Race in America/
Summer, 2020
Dr. Tom Ulen
 
When I was very young, my mother hired a wonderful black woman named Irene Reese to help her keep house and, I now realize, to watch after my sisters and me. I had lunch at home with Irene almost every day of my grade school life. I loved her, and she loved … well, she put up with me. 
 
I went to a wonderful high school in Indianapolis that was 60 percent black. I played sports there, had marvelous teachers, and created some harmless mischief. My classmates and I, black and white, had very close bonds. We loved one another then, and we love one another still when we gather for our periodic reunions. In high school I must have been aware of the fact that there were differences between aspects of my black friends’ lives and aspirations and those of my white friends and me. But in the fog of shared affections and simply trying to grow up, those differences were not as salient as our similarities. 
 
I lived in a very political household in which we discussed the indignities and travails of the poor and the black. In 1964 I was the youngest delegate to the Democratic National Convention. There I learned that Mississippi’s Democrats had dispatched an all-white delegation to the national convention. I was told that that delegation systematically opposed sending any black delegates, and that struck me as wrong. I admit that my understanding of the controversy was elemental, but it was heartfelt by me and the many others who protested, peacefully and successfully, by spending the night at a sit-in on the Atlantic City, NJ, boardwalk in support of the seating of a biracial delegation from Mississippi. And that was the beginning of my awakening to the fact, hidden by a delightful, happy childhood, that there were serious racial issues in our beloved country. 
 
It’s 55 years later. I’ve had the great blessing of a charmed adult life of love, success, and generally good health. I’ve been deeply troubled by the fact that since high school, my contacts with blacks have been sporadic and, except for Little League, professional. What I have learned about race has not come directly from life experiences. It has come mostly from the news, reading, academic study, and listening to the experiences of people who have had to endure unimaginable indignities simply because of the color of their skin. And although I recognize that there have been important improvements in the black community over the course of my life, there are still many miles to go. 
 
The more that I’ve thought about it, and the older I’ve grown, the more stunned I have become at how old and urgent this problem is. It began in 1619 with our first shipment of slaves and continued with our dehumanizing treatment of African-Americans (the majority of whom were born here, rather than imported in chains, as early as the 1670s). That has been the great stain on this marvelous country’s history. It even affected the nation’s founding: The South would have left the Constitutional Convention unless the new constitution counted each of their slaves as three-fifths (!) of a person for the purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives (even though those “three-fifths persons” could not vote and got no benefit whatsoever from their governmental representatives). We nominally and officially stopped this maltreatment after the Civil War with the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments to the Constitution. And yet until the 1960s some states flouted those amendments by, for example, requiring black people who wanted to vote to correctly guess the number of jelly beans in a large jar. Amazingly, most white applicants guessed correctly. Note, please, that our mistreatment of blacks in this country lasted almost 250 years (more, if you count the Jim Crow era after the Civil War). We have only renounced that treatment – and done so half-heartedly – for 165 years. 
 
Why has it taken so long to wash the stain of slavery from the nation’s fabric? Part of the problem, I would suggest, is that most of us are removed from daily or frequent reminders of the lingering problems that the black community endures. We move in circles that barely touch and almost never overlap the circles of our black brothers and sisters. So, if we learn about what more needs to be done in addressing the stain that slavery has left on our society, we learn only at arm’s length, through dramatic events like the videotaped murder of George Floyd or the shootings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rashard Brooks. 
 
But the problems go deeper and are more persistent and traumatic. Consider these statistics. Homicide is the leading cause of death for black men under the age of 35. Half of all the roughly 15,000 homicides in the U.S. each year are African-Americans. That means that since the year 2000, there have been over 144,000 black homicides, most of them young people. There have been more homicides by gunfire in Chicago so far this year (433) than occurred all of last year (307) and over 300 of this year’s victims were black. The black unemployment rate is now and almost always has been double the white unemployment rate. 25 percent of the over 165,000 deaths from covid-19 are African-Americans, who make up about 13.5 percent of our total population. 
 
Is there any question that if these statistics described almost any other group in our society (including majority whites), they would grab the attention of everyone and demand immediate solutions? Of course they would. 
 
We can help, in ways large and small. First, let’s acknowledge the problem. Second, let’s think creatively about what we can do to remove this stain from this country’s otherwise marvelous record. And third, let us remember our greatest reason to help: We are Christians, and “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.” 
 
Let’s begin. Now. 
 
* * *
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0Pl54tiwJM
 
News:
 
The congregation met yesterday via Zoom and elected to the Session Greg Cozad (class of 2021) and Michael Hogue (class of 2022) to fill unexpired terms. The nominating committee will present a slate of officers (Elders and Deacons) for the class of 2023 this fall. Please be in touch with them if you have ideas about those whom God might be calling to serve.

Welcome our  newest members! The  following members of the confirmation  class  were welcomed into church membership on Sunday: 
Heather Lowe, Cecilia Vermillion, Ellie Laufenberg, Emily Young, Monique Masengu

Tuesday, 8 am, Men’s Bible Study
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

Good Word:
 
1 John 4:7-8                            
(New Revised Standard Version) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
 
Let us pray:
 
Grant unto us, O God, the fullness of your promises. 
 
Where we have been weak,
                  grant us your strength;
where we have been confused,
                  grant us your guidance;
where we have been distraught,
                  grant us your comfort;
where we have been dead,
                  grant us your life.
Apart from you, O Lord,
                  we are nothing.
 
In and with you 
                  we can do all things.
 
AMEN.
 
(United Church of Canada, Service Book, 1969.)
 
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church