Thursday May 21^st 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Last night’s concert was great. The Gathering Band rocked it. Such beautiful songs. So uplifting. Such fun. If you missed it, go to our Facebook page and watch at your convenience. Whew, that was fun. 
 
Remember, every Wednesday evening at 7:00 we are attempting to gather the flock for prayer, study, conversation, music . . . something. Call it our weekly, Wednesday Potluck. Our Spiritual Formation (Ken Chapman), Worship (Judi Geistlinger), and Mission (Rachel Matthews) teams are working together on this offering. Please be in touch if you have ideas. See you next Wednesday with Rachel Matthews leading a Bible study and discussion of the book of Joel. (She might even quote Billy Joel.)
 
* * *
 
Pray for your Session. They meet tonight. We’ll be praying for you.
 
News:
 
Some of you might be ready to connect with other church people for study, fellowship, and mission. Consider this, today:
 
Compassion, Peace and Justice. This ‘ChristCare Group’ meets on the 1^st and 3^rd Thursdays of the month at 11:15 AM- 12:30 PM. 
 
This from convener Rittchell Yau: May 21^st we begin discussion of He Calls Me Friend by John M. Perkins. You are welcome to join us on the 21^st and catch up on reading the book later. Micah 6:8 and Isaiah 6:8 serve as key scripture that guide our focus as we explore a variety of issues and topics related to compassion, peace and justice.      
 
 
* * *
 
CU-Better Together Coming together to fight hunger and give hope to school families in need. Here is the sign up for the Interfaith Alliance. Please share widely. Thank you!
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F044EAEA822ABFA7-cubetter
 
Good Word:
 
Proverbs 1:7 (King James Version)
 
⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
 
Let us pray:
 
Give me, O my Lord,
that purity of conscience
which alone can receive your inspirations.
My ears are dull,
so that I cannot hear your voice.
My eyes are dim,
so that I cannot see the signs of your presence. You alone can quicken my hearing
and purge my sight,
and cleanse and renew my heart.
Teach me to sit at your feet
and to hear your word. Amen. 
[John Henry Newman (1801–1890)]
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 
 
Just for fun. We’ll see live music in person again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBZnGk1nAjw
 
 
 

Wednesday May 20^th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
A great 44-word sermon:  
 
“During the Covid 19 pandemic make sure you test positive for faith. Keep distance from doubt, and isolate from fear. Trust God through it all and the Peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”    
 
Great, huh? 
 
This was written by Simao Nhoca; he was an asylum seeker from Angola who sent his wife and baby son here ahead and our church looked after them even getting her to the hospital at labor with their second child, a daughter. After Simao arrived here, the family was awarded permanent residency. Recently they moved to Houston where he found work in his field as a petroleum engineer. He attended our men’s bible study for a time. The family remains thankful for the care they received here and stays in touch regularly. Simao is an evangelist. He preaches in the mall. He leads a bible study, teaches his young children the bible and to pray every day. 
 
Bob Kirby reports that Simao “calls and gives me a sermon periodically to which I just respond, ‘Amen brother. Amen.’”
 
Let the people of God TOGETHER say, Amen!!
 
News:
 
Wednesday Vespers TONIGHT! The Gathering Band will join us for a concert. I just love these musicians and I really dig their tunes. Bring dessert and join us. Tune it at 7:00 tonight, Wednesday at FirstPres.Live
 
CU-Better Together Coming together to fight hunger and give hope to school families in need. Here is the sign up for the Interfaith Alliance. Please share widely. Thank you!
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F044EAEA822ABFA7-cubetter
 
Expand your horizons! Want to learn more about Pakistan, and Hindu, Muslim, and Christian Relations? Join Sallie Hutton and many other saints (including my Rachel) on Wednesdays at 1:30 to 3:00 o’clock for what we officially call the Education Is Path to Peace: Pakistan ( the Pakistan Study Group).
 
This from Sallie: 
 
“We are currently reading and discussing the book Despicable Missionary.   It is about a strong, determined Christian girl form the rural Lahore area in the 1960-1970s.  The book discusses her life and what it was like during that time period and in the in a dominantly Muslim culture.  It is a true story. 
 
Our group focuses on learning about Pakistan and their culture and supporting the work of the Presbyterian Sangla Hill School. Study leadership is shared among the members of the group and biblical studies follow the theme for the day. 
 
All who want to learn more about our PC(USA) school in Pakistan, who want to support those schools and learn more about Pakistan, Islamic religion, their culture and current events are welcome to join us throughout the year.  We are able to have Veda Gil, Executive Director of Presbyterian Education Board- Pakistan join us.  We have members from the local Muslim community as well as Pakistan Christians who now live in Springfield, IL as part of our group.  WE would love to have you join us.”
 
Email info@firstpres.church for the link.
 
Good Word:
 
Proverbs 1:7
 
Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord,
    but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
 
Let us pray:
 
O Lord Jesus Christ,
the Way, the Truth, and the Life:
Do not let us stray from you, the Way,
nor to distrust you, the Truth,
nor to rest in anything other than you, the Life. 
Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) 
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 
 
 

Monday May 18^th 2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
On Thursday, your Session will elect a Covid-19 Response Team; after that election, I’ll share their names with you so you can begin picking their brains. They will add their brain power and mighty spirits to all of the serious
thinking and praying that has been going into the basic question we all wonder about: When will be begin face to face worship?
 
Right now, gathering face to face is premature. But talking about it, and making plans is not. The Worship Team with Peter Yau’s advice has been dreaming about plans for when we gather again.
 
I’ve been thinking “what ifs” about our return to face to face worship. Consider this:

After the stay at home order has been lifted, the governor (guided by public health officials and good science) has suggested stages that will guide public gatherings such as face to face worship in local sanctuaries. 
 
We are in stage two now. At stage three in our region, arriving perhaps by June 1, face-to-face public gatherings will include no more than 10 people with proper social distancing and masks. Stage four, which may arrive by July
1^st at the soonest, might suggest that our sanctuary can be filled with up to 50 people per face-to-face service. Stage five, after a vaccine is available, would allow us to return to normal worship attendance practices.
Who knows when stage five will come; most people suggest that will be at least a year from now.
 
In each of these cases, people over 60-years-old (the age varies depending on whose standards one considers), and those with a compromised immune system of any age would be urged not to gather face-to-face for any non-essential
functions. 
 
If stage four begins in July, that might mean 50 people under the age of sixty who are well can gather for face-to-face worship in our sanctuary. Their temperatures might be taken at the door near the parking lot. They’d be
required to wear face masks for the good of the community; only families would sit together; everyone else would be physically distanced around the sanctuary, from the front pew to the back, from the left to the right. 
 
Does the idea of asking everyone over the age of 60 to stay at home hurt your soul? Mine, too. Who gets to tell them to go home?
 
Does taking forehead temperature scans in the parking lot sound welcoming? It sounds inhospitable to me, also. 
 
And who gets to turn away the 51^st person? Who will tell the family arriving late, “We’ve run out of space. You must go home?” (Or, go to the chapel and watch worship on a screen.)
 
This is not an ideal configuration of worship. Does it feel Draconian? It does to me, also.
 
While the goals we set for face to face gatherings will, surely, be designed to keep everyone safe, and while they might be most prudent and theologically “moral,” they may seem harsh. And, perhaps not everyone will agree.

 
Some of you have admitted that you won’t be back in face-to-face worship until there is a vaccine. Some have said that when the coast is clear, they won’t be in the first wave to return. Others of you are ready. I,
certainly, am. 
 
But at what cost will we gather? 
 
What will be gained? 
 
What could be lost?
 
Pray about these matters with me and write me a private note about the best, safest, and most humane way to move forward. If you find a great link pointing to good science about public gatherings, send it to me; I’ll forward it to
the Response Team. Your staff and leaders have been talking about these things and holding them up to the light from every angle. Our Covid-19 Response Team will begin the first of their many conversations this week.
 
I am certain we will get there. 
 
I just don’t know when, or, precisely, how.
 
I’m trusting our Shepherd, who says in John’s gospel, he is the way. Faithfully, one step at a time, I endeavor to follow.
 
Thanks, in advance. 
 
 News:
 
Chuck Milazzo died last week. We rejoice his baptism is complete in death, and we grieve with his family his earthly absence.
 
Wednesday Vespers: This week, The Gathering Band will join us for a concert. Tune it at 7:00 on this Wednesday at FirstPres.Live
 
CU-Better Together Coming together to fight hunger and give hope to school families in need. Here is the sign up for the Interfaith Alliance. Please share widely. Thank you!
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F044EAEA822ABFA7-cubetter
 
 Men’s Tuesday Bible Study! Join them tomorrow from 8:00 am-9:00 am (email info@firstpres.church for the link)
 
 Dog & Cat Humor (From Claudia Kirby): Day seven at home and the dog is looking at me like, “See? This is why I chew the furniture!”
 
(From Diane Mortensen:) What’s the difference between a cat and a comma?
One has claws at the end of its paws, and one is a pause at the end of a clause.
 
Confuse your doctor by putting on rubber gloves at the same time he does. 
 
Good Word:
 
Psalm 66:8-12 The Message (MSG)
 

8-12 Bless our God, O peoples! Give him a thunderous welcome! Didn’t he set us on the road to life? Didn’t he keep us out of the ditch? He trained us first, passed us like silver through refining fires, Brought us
into hardscrabble country, pushed us to our very limit, Road-tested us inside and out, took us to hell and back;

Finally he brought us to this well-watered place.
 
Let us pray:
 
O Thou Eternal God, out of whose absolute power and infinite intelligence the whole universe has come into being, we humbly confess that we have not loved thee with our hearts, souls and minds, and we have not loved our neighbors as
Christ loved us. We have all too often lived by our own selfish impulses rather than by the life of sacrificial love as revealed by Christ. We often give in order to receive. We love our friends and hate our enemies. We go the first
mile but dare not travel the second. We forgive but dare not forget. 
 
And so, as we look within ourselves, we are confronted with the appalling fact that the history of our lives is the history of an eternal revolt against you. But thou, O God, have mercy upon us. Forgive us for what we could have been
but failed to be. Give us the intelligence to know your will. 
 
Give us the courage to do your will. 
 
Give us the devotion to love thy will. 
 
In the name and spirit of Jesus we pray. Amen. 
 
(Adapted, Martin Luther King, Jr.)
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

Washing the Elephant

BY BARBARA RAS
 
 
Isn’t it always the heart that wants to wash
the elephant, begging the body to do it
with soap and water, a ladder, hands,
in tree-shade big enough for the vast savannahs
of your sadness, the strangler fig of your guilt,
the cratered full moon’s light fueling
the windy spooling memory of elephant?
 
What if Father Quinn had said, “Of course you’ll recognize
your parents in heaven,” instead of
“Being one with God will make your mother and father
pointless.” That was back when I was young enough
to love them absolutely though still fear for their place
in heaven, imagining their souls like sponges full
of something resembling street water after rain.
 
Still my mother sent me every Saturday to confess,
to wring the sins out of my small baffled soul, and I made up lies
about lying, disobeying, chewing gum in church, to offer them
as carefully as I handed over the knotted handkercheif of coins
to the grocer when my mother sent me for a loaf of Wonder,
Land O’Lakes, and two Camels.
 
If guilt is the damage of childhood, then eros is the fall of adolescence.
Of the fall begins there, and never ends, desire after desire parading
through a lifetime like the Ringling Brothers elephants
made to walk through the Queens-Midtown Tuunnel
and down 34th Street to the Garden.
So much of our desire like their bulky, shadowy walking
after midnight, exiled from the wild and destined
for a circus with its tawdry gaudiness, its unspoken
pathos. 
 
It takes more than half a century to figure out who they were,
the few real loves-of-your-life and how much of the rest—
the mad breaking-heart stickiness—falls away, slowly,
unnoticed, the way you lose your taste for things
like Popsicles unthinkingly.
And though dailiness may have no place
for the ones that have etched themselves in the laugh lines
and frown lines on the face that’s harder and harder
to claim as your own, often one love-of-your-life
will appear in a dream, arriving
with the weight and certitude of an elephant,
and it’s always the heart that wants to go out and wash
the huge mysteriousness of what they meant, those memories
that have only memories to feed them, and only you to keep them clean.  
 
Barbara Ras, “Washing the Elephant” from The Last Skin.  Copyright © 2010 by Barbara Ras.