Friday 31 July 2020
 
Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois

Dear Friends, 
 
In this Friday greeting, I include a sermon (!) for you from a great Charlotte preacher named Jerry Cannon. There’s nothing quite like hearing this stellar preacher preach. He’s a fine writer, too. So, read a Friday sermon. 
 
On Sunday, I’m going to look right into your eyes and preach about wrestling with God. Some of you, I know, could preach about that topic from personal and immediate experience. Bless you all. And while we’re at it, bless me, too. If it’s true that preaching is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” about half the time half of you are mad at me. 
 
See you on Sunday. Follow the links at FirstPres.Live and join us at 9:00 on Sunday.
 
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
 
* * *
 
From your Nurture Team — Congrats to Kathy Havey for being the first to guess last Friday’s photo was of Mark Schoeffmann!  

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.
  
* * *
Grace for People Who Have Messed Up
by Rev. Dr. Jerry Cannon
 
“13 Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So, Levi got up and followed him. 15 Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) 16 But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?” 17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” – Mark 2:13-17 (NLT)
 
God uses whom God chooses, and God moves through folk who are willing to serve. God works through those who are open and humble; and God speaks through those who make themselves available to carry God’s Word.
 
Through the preacher, God gives proclamation, through the teacher, God gives illumination. Though the disciple, God develops discipline, through those in crisis, God brings out commitment.
 
Through the challenge, God builds character, and through the struggle, God shows strength. Through pain, God raises power and through hopelessness, God sends the Holy Spirit.

Yet God’s grace and God’s invitation to a Christ centered relationship is particularly extended to sinners, and people who have messed up.
 
Sinners according to Mark’s gospel are the focal audience of Jesus’s evangelism. And this invitation of inclusion is emphasized as Jesus says: “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Jesus invited Levi, (also known as Matthew) the tax collector to enter a relationship with him and to follow as a disciple. What must be noted is that tax collectors were viewed as traitors and thieves among their own people because they got rich working for the Romans in the earliest forms of a corrupt political system. Yet appearing as a top draft pick for “team Jesus” was someone whose reputation was shady and whose “Linked In” profile was a “known sinner.” And as if drafting Matthew weren’t enough, Jesus also went to a house party with other tax collectors and sinners!
 
And one may raise the question, didn’t Jesus care about ruining his credentials by hanging out with shady characters like sinful tax collectors? I believe he cared, but not in the way that you and I care. For he said: “Healthy people don’t need a doctor — sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
 
Thus, the wow for me in the text lies in the inclusive word “sinners.” And it is only inclusive because Romans 3:23 (NIV) says: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The truth is, “sinners” refers to everyone; the folk at the dinner party who thought that they were better than everybody, the other tax collectors hanging out at the buffet table, and everybody else in earshot of this proclamation.
 
It is here that God’s saving Grace is being offered not just to the greedy but to the needy. This grace was packaged and wrapped particularly for folk who the “self-righteous” looked down on, and folk who knew they needed redemption but may have felt unworthy given their current lifestyle and vocation.
 
Because we are all sinners, saved by grace; Jesus offers us a chance of redemption and transformation that moves us from selfishness to Christlike expressions of inclusion and acceptance of all. It is this grace, extended to folk who have slipped up, fallen down, and messed up, that hope arises that acceptance and inclusion in our community and our world evolves. It is the Grace that comes to messed up people like you and me, who become transformed miracles. It is the Grace that comes to messed up people like you and me, who inspire and witness to “self-righteous and the sinners” of our world.
 
Jesus said: “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

I am glad to have a savior who seeks sick people, sinners, and folk like me who have messed up.
 
Rev. Dr. Jerry Cannon serves as a Minister of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Presbyterian Foundation. He is Pastor/Head of Staff at C.N. Jenkins Memorial Presbyterian Church, a thriving congregation dedicated to community service in Charlotte, N.C. He has served as a mentor to many young adults since being installed in September of 1992.
 
* * *
Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Rest in Peace.
https://vimeo.com/62834898
 
* * *
 
Did you like Hamilton? You’ll love this!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFduNE4pXAQ
 
* * *
I miss  the Chesapeake Bay. Sing it, Otis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVjnBo96Ug
 
* * *
Turn it up. My bucket list includes hearing this song live in Chicago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEmvBdRLg4k
 
 
 

Good Word:

Genesis 32:22-32 (The Message)
22-23 But during the night he got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He got them safely across the brook along with all his possessions.

^24-25 But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn’t get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob’s hip out of joint.
²⁶ The man said, “Let me go; it’s daybreak.”
Jacob said, “I’m not letting you go ’til you bless me.”
²⁷ The man said, “What’s your name?”
He answered, “Jacob.”
²⁸ The man said, “But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it’s Israel (God-Wrestler); you’ve wrestled with God and you’ve come through.”
²⁹ Jacob asked, “And what’s your name?”
The man said, “Why do you want to know my name?” And then, right then and there, he blessed him.
³⁰ Jacob named the place Peniel (God’s Face) because, he said, “I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!”
^31-32 The sun came up as he left Peniel, limping because of his hip. (This is why Israelites to this day don’t eat the hip muscle; because Jacob’s hip was thrown out of joint.)
 
Let us pray:
 
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. 
 
(Thomas Merton)
 
PEACE to you all,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 
 
THE BURDENS OF LIFE/After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces patience. James 1:3 (CEB)
 
            The members of certain African tribes are known to carry a heavy load on their heads when they have to wade an important river.  This weight forces them to walk with more secure steps and to maintain perfect balance with their eyes focused on the other side.  Don’t we have in this a beautiful image of the believer who goes through a test whose burden weighs above him or her? 
 
I must keep my eyes on Jesus, the author of faith, so that I won’t stop carrying through doubts or hunger, nor be too burdened by the force of the waves.
 
I must carry my load upright, with trust, counting on the help of my Lord.  Then I will experience that the test of crossing is less heavy than I feared.
 
I must ensure my steps, supporting myself in prayer and in the Word, so as to discern the will of God in any daily decisions of my life. 
 
I must maintain my balance.  The test makes us notice our laziness.  We draw close to the Lord. When we carry the load “above our heads”, the Lord will go with us. 
 
Prayer: All powerful God, thank you that you strengthen us and allow us to carry the load with victory.  Amen
 

Wednesday July 29, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Here is a great devotion from my friend Rev. Kevin Murphey. Be enriched:
 
These words of Isaiah (noted below) were written centuries before Jesus was born, yet they describe him so completely the gospel writers are confident it is referring to him. Jesus certainly is the one who will bring forth justice, quietly, gently, diligently, faithfully. The way Jesus lived and ministered to all he met is surely how we too are called to bring forth justice. Those who have been bruised by this world, those whose spirits are dimly burning need us, even deserve for us to carry on Jesus’ life-giving work. We need not shout it out in the street. We can be adamant without being obnoxious. And the only way we can do it is by relying on God’s Spirit.

What does bringing forth justice look like in today’s world? It begins with understanding each other. We hear their stories and by listening well, rather than trying to lift up our own voice and tell them how they ought to live, we find the places of connection between us. From those stories we also learn what it is that motivates them, what are they passionate about, what are they good at doing. When we get to know the other we also come to understand what bruises them, where in their lives their spiritual wick is burning down. Hopefully, they are listening to us and our stories also. Then God’s amazing Spirit walks with us and helps us develop deep empathy for them. Our imaginations begin to work and we start coming up with new and fresh ideas that move the world toward justice. It is slow work. It cannot be rushed. New relationships need time to deepen. We need to rely upon God’s help, so prayer and listening for God’s guidance is a must. 

The work of bringing forth justice is good and necessary work anytime, but especially today. There are so many bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks out there. There are so many structures that do not treat everyone fairly or equally. This is the work of Christ and it is the work to which Christ calls his church. In doing it we are made new, we are refreshed by God’s Spirit, we find joy in sharing God’s love. In doing it we are being the blessing for which God has blessed us. 
 
Take on Race:
 
Light looked down and saw darkness.
      “I will go there,” said Light.
Peace looked down and saw war.
“I will go there,” said Peace.
Love looked down and saw hatred.
“I will go there,” said Love.
So he, The Lord of Light,
 the Prince of Peace,
the King of Love,  
came down and crept in beside us. 
Praise the LORD.
The Lord’s name be praised.
 
News:
 
Prayers for Sarah Laufenberg’s family are appreciated. Her dad, Gordon, is expected to be in hospice care soon. Prayers for Gordon, wife Kathleen, our local Laufenbergs are appreciated… “Be good to me, Dear Lord; the sea is so wide and my boat is so small.”
 
Wednesday (tonight!) Mid-Week Gathering 7 pm
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

Humor: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
 
These from Ruth Craddock:
 
Does anyone know what page of the Bible explains how to change water to wine? Asking for a friend.
 
Yesterday my husband saw a cockroach in the kitchen. He sprayed everything down and cleaned thoroughly. Today I’m putting the cockroach in the bathroom.

GOOD WORD:
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.        Isaiah 42:1-4 
 
Let us pray:
 
Holy God, we pray that families who grieve might be strengthened by your presence. Where there is pain, bring comfort. Where there is sorrow, bring the healing of your joy. Redeem our memories. Help us, by your Holy Grace, to commend our lives and work to your merciful and eternal care. AMEN.
 
PEACE to you all,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

Monday July 27, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
One of the many hard things about pandemic is how our rituals around death have changed. No big funeral. No robust hymns. No reception with food afterwards. Many families are awaiting to bury their dead until the time when we can gather for a proper service. While waiting is not satisfactory, what is the alternative? 
 
This is hard on families, but it’s hard on church families, too. Gathering together—congregating—when there is a death is what the church family does. We mark milestones with worship, with a holy pause, with an opportunity for collective praise. This difficult silence is deafening.
 
Many of you have lost loved ones and could not travel for the small graveside. Or you are one of the many families waiting for a larger memorial service at such a time when it’s safe to gather. 
 
We know that God’s Spirit intercedes for us with “sighs too deep for words” and that our sighs of grief are matched by God’s at least sigh for sigh. This is good news, but our grief and this unnatural waiting is hard, so hard. 
 
Today please pray for those who have experienced loss during pandemic.

Take on Race:
 
On Memorial Day and Veterans Day we say “Veterans Lives Matter,” and we thank God.
 
On Labor Day we say “Workers Lives Matter,” and we thank God.
 
On 9-11 we say “Blue Lives Matter,” and we thank God.
 
On Presidents’ Day we say “Lincoln & Washington (and others) Lives Mattered,” and we thank God.
 
Our church has affirmed these and other times of special pause. We celebrate the Irish (at St. Patrick’s Day), and our largely European Heritage on Reformation Sunday, and our particular connections with Scotland in the Kirking of the Tartan. We celebrate and thank God for our LGBTQIA friends and family at nationwide Pride weekends. 
 
In our church, we have long affirmed, and not been ashamed to say, “Children’s Lives Matter,” “Young Lives Matter,” “Immigrants’ Lives Matter,” “University Lives Matter,” “Women’s Lives Matter.” 
 
I came to this church largely because of the efforts you made to embrace the world through ESL, the welcome of all races, and the special efforts to welcome Congolese and other new immigrants into the protective, celebratory fold of the church.
 
Celebrating these disparate members of the whole-wide household of God are all worthy celebrations. Why? Because God made and blessed us all, and, of course, all lives matter. So we lift up our youth  on “Youth Sunday” and our Veterans stand on “Armistice Day” and women lead worship when we celebrate the “Gifts of Women Sunday.” We focus on our Cuba Partnership when Pastor Daniel Izquierdo is in town. We give money and attention to our Raindrop agency, which differs year to year.
 
In these days when we are pondering racial disparity in our country and reaching to better live our creed and our national aspirations, it is appropriate to say “Black Lives Matter.” 
 
If we can’t say these words, then, I daresay, no life matters. 
 
News:
 
Cheryl Kelton Bourguignon was Bev Kelton’s daughter. Her graveside was Saturday. 
Cheryl was stuck in a body crippled by MS. But family says that her spirit transcended her body. Speech, mobility, higher-level decision making became compromised when she was in her late twenties. But she always loved people, and she had a way of showing it. She wanted to a part of things. She liked being at the center. 
Prior to MS: Cheryl was the athletic one, a cheerleader, interested and proficient at language. Cheryl liked to travel. The world wasn’t big enough for Cheryl. She was vivacious. She was vibrant.
She was a good mom. She loved her boys, Nick and Mike. In these later decades, the family had to work together to help care for her. It was time and energy well spent. The family is richer for it.
Cheryl didn’t rail against MS. She lived into it. She was disabled by it, yes, but she was not defined by it. Cheryl was Cheryl, a child of God, the apple of God’s eye.
 
The family appreciates your prayers.

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

 
Humor: (Serious times call for re-creation, joy, and humor.)
 
What has four wheels and flies?
A garbage truck. 

GOOD WORD:
“I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
Amos 5:21-24

LET US PRAY:
 
Holy God,
bless us to be a blessing.
And help us reach beyond
our cocoons of safety
to a wide world,
which you love
and redeem.
AMEN
 
PEACE to you all,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church