Welcome from Pastor Patrick Curley

"I See Red"

                It's enough to get you boiling mad!  Red is everywhere!  Bulls don't like it... even though they are supposed to be color blind.  It flashes to warn you of danger.  It's the color of choice for "Past Due" stamped across a bill.  It says "stop" when you want to "go".  The devil's red, at least in popular thinking.  Yes red is everywhere and usually says something we don't necessarily like.  But red is also the color of blood.  Again, an uncomfortable thought until you apply it to the blood that Jesus shed from the cross to save us from our sins.  Then red is good.  Then it is comforting and not alarming. Like the blood donors volunteer, it brings life for those who receive it.  Maybe this is why Valentine's Day is red.  It is the color of those hearts we see everywhere this time of year.  Hearts pump blood.  But they also speak of love.  Valentine's Day just wouldn't be the same thing if it we didn't see those red hearts and candies (pink is still a kind of red).

                It's an odd thing to think of when we think of Valentine's Day and all the love that goes with it.  Red roses, red lipstick... O.K. but red blood?  But how do you have love without blood; maybe I should ask it- how do you have love without sacrifice?  You can't.  Not real love anyway.  To know if you really love something or someone, you must be willing to give all for it.  You must be willing to die for it.  Otherwise it might be kindness or romance or some other version of love but not the real thing.  Love requires the potential of red blood. 

                Jesus gave us the ultimate Valentine when He demonstrated His love for us.  He didn't attempt to woo us so later to get something in return.  He truly loved not counting the cost to Himself or asking anything in return.  He offered His life upon the cross because He loved us and wanted us to be with Him forever.  He shed His blood.  It was red.  He died so we would not.  Because of Jesus, we will now live forever in Heaven.  Now that's what I call love.

                 Think of that when opening your red, heart shaped box of chocolates this year.  Red is bloody, yes, but also beautiful.  This month, at least, it is the color of love.  So may it be that we truly see red is all times and places because that is how God loves us so abundantly.  Let us see red not because we're angry and upset but because we see God's hand sustaining every breath we take.  May we see red because each of us is covered in blood, the blood of Christ the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world.  Happy Valentine's Day!  Go out and paint the town red... in Jesus' name. Amen.

“True Freedom Through Christ”

I know we all like to think of ourselves as free spirits.  We come and go as we please.  Eat what we want, dress how we feel and pursue our own definitions of happiness.  Yeah, we like to think that but in truth we are more at the mercy of whims and forces than we’d care to admit.  More often than not our choices are made up before we even know they are in front of us to make.

Take, for example, the subtle but omnipresent influence of advertizing that creeps into our psyche and tells us we really won’t be happy unless we wash our hair with this or that shampoo.  There is a whole science behind where products are placed in stores to make us buy them.  Everything from colors used on packaging and those catchy rhythmic tunes we hum to ourselves control much of what we eat, wear and dictates what we think will make us happy. Then there is peer pressure, parental/societal expectations, fear and guilt and trying to be like our role models. We aren’t so free after all but this is only the half of it. Our very will is bound by sin. 

Free will is something Adam and Eve had for a brief time in the Garden of Eden before they succumbed to Satan’s temptation and disobeyed God.  After that, there is no free will.  Man’s will is held in captivity to sin; a slave to it.  This is known as concupiscence.  We are bent from birth to choose our own way over God’s which is no choice at all when you understand we can do nothing else.  Sin makes us love ourselves most and try as we might, we find that power and influence at work in our life decisions.  This path, of course, leads finally to hell.  But even though we have no choice in the matter, God maintains His right to choose.  And in His loving grace, He has chosen us.

Lent is a season to remind us of this fundamental truth.  We are reminded of our sin and the effects of our reckless, selfish choices.  We are told again of the pointlessness of trying to find God through our power of choice relying instead totally on His love and grace to save us from sin, death and hell. But we are also comforted that He has chosen us from eternity to be His own.  Through the gift of faith He has given us we can seek His will now.  We can make choices that are pleasing in His sight while always resting on His choice to send His Son to atone for our sins.

I hope you choose to join me each week both Sundays and Wednesdays.  But do so not because I tell you or others expect it.  Come as the Holy Spirit calls you.  Come as a hungry soul wishing to be fed. Come seeking the true freedom that comes by living by grace through faith against the bondage of sin and selfishness.  See ya’! 

“A Valentine for God”

                Do you have any pet peeves?  You know, little things people do that just get under your skin? Like in October when people say “punkin” instead of “pumpkin” or in December when people decorate for Christmas with Sponge Bob and Disney characters.  February has a double whammy.  First, many people pronounce and spell the month as “Febuary”, without the “r”.  Admittedly it is harder to say “February” than it is say “Febuary”.  Maybe it’s also because February follows January which has no extra “r”?  But the other one is even more annoying.  It’s when people say “Valentime’s Day” instead of “Valentine’s Day”.  “N”, people, not “m”.

                Now this isn’t my pet peeve.  How could it be when I spelt “Christ” without an “r” once on a Lenten banner for my field work church while at seminary?  Fortunately a classmate caught it at the last minute.  I was so focused on making the lamb for “Christ, the Lamb of God” look realistic that I just wasn’t paying attention to spelling.  There would have been a peeved altar guild alright at St. John in Kendallville, Indiana, had that banner made it past quality control without the “r” for Christ.

                Pet peeves aside, forgetting Valentine’s Day when you are in a relationship is a whole different thing.  Beyond irritating, that can be hurtful to the one you love.  Flowers, jewelry, dinner, chocolate, a balloon…something to mark the day and, of course, your declared love.  Human nature makes us far too accustom to being loved than loving.  We often forget to actually love the ones we love and take it for granted they just know.  And we should say now that love is more than gifts and more than for a day but a thoughtful card at Valentine’s Day isn’t a bad idea either.

                God isn’t exactly prone to the hurt feelings and disappointments that we are.  Still, I wonder how He might be letdown, too, when we fail to say, “I love you, Lord”.  Wouldn’t it be a nice idea to place flowers on the altar from all of us on Valentine’s Day, a Sunday this year?  Well we don’t want to turn our church into a shrine of some kind with pills of oranges, chocolates and burning incense but in some way we need to say back to God, “I love you”.  He tells us every day that He loves us as He provides all our needs of body and soul.  His Word, the Holy Bible, is His Valentine to us as it tells us of Jesus who gave His life up because He loves us so. 

I pray that our lives will answer back that we love God, too, as our choices, priorities and regular worship reveal.   God isn’t peeved at you; He loves you.  Remember to tell Him that you love Him also.