Food, Fellowship & Flames: Ash Wedneday @ Boulevard

Ok, so the title is a little cheesy...I get it.

Today is Ash Wednesday and the official kick-off of the 2009 Lenten Season. While there are many churches & many denominations that do not celebrate Ash Wednesday with the impartation (read. putting the ash cross on your forehead) of ashes here at Boulevard it is a much beloved and meaningful service. For a little more on Ash Wednesday click here. Join us for our Ash Wednesday Service @ 7 PM in the Sancutary.

We will also be gathering @ 5:30 PM for the annual Ash Wednesday Spaghetti Dinner. Kyme Rennick and a host of vouletneers have been working hard to put on yet another wonderful Boulevard communal meal. Doantions will be accepted and all are welcome. Spaghetti Dinner @ 5:30 PM in the Fellowship Hall. All are welcome!

Sermon: "Transfigured" A Refleciton on Mark 9:2-9

This sermon is entitled "Transfigured" and is a reflection on Mark 9:2-9.

I remember my grandmother once saying that stories never really begin where you start when you tell them. Sure you might have entered the picture at the point in which your little brother runs into the TV room with the cookie jar stuck on his hand, but truth be told, the story started far before that. Nowhere is this piece of wisdom more true that in the collections of scriptures that make up our reading for today. We enter the story of Jesus and the “inner circle” of disciples making their way up the unnamed high mountain but the clue that this story does not exist in space is found in the three little words that begin verse 2, “Six days later.”

Six days before our story begins Jesus and his disciple entourage are making their way to the villages of Caesarea Philippi from the town of Bethsaida. This would have been a long walk – at least 40 miles as the crow flies – but much longer on foot. As they made their way along the road Jesus begins to speak to the disciples and not just about the weather. He asks the entire 12 about who he is really. The crowds and the people have guessed that perhaps Jesus was a prophet or perhaps John the Baptist but along that dusty path to Philipi Jesus is more concerned who the disciples think he is and Peter is the only one who answers, and does so correctly, Jesus is the Messiah and you know it and I know it and now the disciples know it for sure but as we later find out what they know or believe the Messiah is to be is a far cry from what the Messiah will be in the person of Jesus the Christ.

The disciples have in their minds a clear understanding of what the Messiah is to be and it is evident that when Jesus begins to detail how suffering, condemnation, death and ultimately resurrection are part-in-parcel of the Messiah they are really taken off guard and Peter even goes as far as to try to straighten Jesus out on this whole suffering thing and as a result Jesus calls him Satan. This is going nowhere and so Jesus addresses all who can hear him and essentially tells the crowd that following a Messiah that will suffer and die will mean suffering for the followers as well. It is at this point that I am sure a couple of the disciples were wondering: what in the world did we sign up for?

Flash-forward 6 days to where our reading begins. There have been 144 hours of silence in Mark’s Gospel since Jesus rewrote the Messianic job description and when we pick up the story Jesus is making his way up a high mountain with the “inner circle” of the disciples, James, Peter and John. Arriving at the top of the mountain and finding themselves all alone Jesus “transfigures” there before the disciples. Transfigure is an awkward term. Nobody uses it. At its core the word is about transforming physically, and when we use it to describe what happens on this mountain top we encounter an outward transformation that reconciles Jesus’ outward appearance with his inward nature. Jesus is revealed to the disciples the same way that he is seen by God. Glowing in awesome splendor, flanked by Moses and Elijah, Jesus is God’s beloved Son.

What I love about this story is the disciples reaction. God is, before their very eyes, transfiguring Jesus, reconciling his outward and inward appearance and there with the voice of God just seconds away the disciples want to build houses. In the Middle East and really all over the world you encounter this same attitude. All over the Holy Land landscape you find little churches, shrines, buildings that were built on the very spot of something. They are little time capsules seeking to memorialize a specific event so that for time immemorial folks like you and me can journey to the little church or rock or wherever and encounter the same space and the same air that Jesus breathed. But I will say this, I do not blame the disciples for wanting to build something permanent or otherwise in response to this event. For a band of folks who days before were hearing that the man that they came to know as the Messiah was going to be punished and was going to suffer, I would want to preserve this Jesus too. I would want to build a house for the glowing white Jesus, the greater than Moses and Elijah Jesus, the “beloved” Jesus. I would want to sit and stay with that Jesus even though more so than the Jesus who is going to reach his greatest glory dying on a cross for your and my sins. I bet that your favorite Jesus isn’t that kind of Jesus either.

You see I think that a lot of us, myself included, have something of a favorite Jesus. A Jesus that fits in well and in is on board with whatever we are into. Groups and individuals that protest funerals saying that Jesus hates the same things that they hate. Groups that don’t give two rips about the Creation say that the Jesus that they know is the Jesus who didn’t regard this world with much, so why should they? Picking out your favorite Jesus, wanting to preserve your favorite Jesus, only following a narrow Jesus that will never make you feel uncomfortable, never challenge your presuppositions, never push, never rebuke, and ultimately never have to die because we follow him so very wonderfully is really no Jesus at all.

Here is my point. The church and the world have done a great job of clinging on to this faded photograph of Jesus and building a whole house around it. We fill this house with comfy couches, and stock it with only the things that we like and in order to preserve everything we put a big ol’ lock on the door and a theological security system that quickly tells us who’s who. But the reality is that if we do as God says and we “Listen” to Jesus – not some superficial listening, like being in the same room while someone is speaking – but listen we learn that this is no time to start building houses. This is no time to hunker down, preserve and invest in some of those velvet ropes that they have at museums. Listening to Jesus tell the entire story in words and in actions prevents us from finding a favorite Jesus to build for and compels us to follow Jesus down off that mountain and start thinking in terms of relationship rather than real estate. For this all boils down to relationship in the end; it is about knowing Jesus by walking down off that mountain with him and eventually into Jerusalem with him rather than curating his museum.


So this is our charge as we move into Lent. Let’s spend 40 days together on the road. For he is moving closer to Jerusalem. Next stop: Capernaum. Its about 30 miles from where we are now and I bet by the time we get there we are going to learn something new, something that challenges our notions about serving and knowing Christ and the world around us. There will be no time to build, just try to keep up.

God hears...

Dr. Brad Binau presents Elijah: Preparing the Way - Feb. 22 through March 15

The Christian Education Committee is proud to bring back Dr. Brad Binau, Professor of Pastoral Theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and friend of this church. Dr. Binau has presented classes here at Boulevard for three years now and his classes are always enlightening, fun, and thought-provoking. Dr. Binau joins us this Lenten season to present Elijah: Preparing the Way, a 4 part series on the Prophet Elijah who is an often forgotten but essential element of the story of Easter.

Dr. Brad Binau, a ordained minister in the Lutheran Church, is married to Rev. Ann Palmerton, Associate Pastor at Broad St. Presbyterian Church located in Downtown Columbus. He has been teaching at Trinity since 1993.

Classes will run from Sunday, February 22nd through Sunday, March 15th during the Educational Hour (10 AM to 11 AM) and will take place in the Fellowship Hall.

I hope you will take advantage of this great opportunity!

Iowa Mission Trip Information Meeting

Last October members from Boulevard and a member of Mifflin Presbyterian Church in Gahanna participated in Presbyterian Disaster Assistance's relief efforts in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This trip was as much of a spiritual event as it was physical. Working along side men and women from all over the nation, we reached out to the larger Body of Christ with the hopes that by bearing each others burdens we might model faith to others. By the time we were heading back to Columbus we knew how to dry-wall, rip up concrete floors, and we knew for certain that nobody wanted to leave the people or the work that remained in Cedar Rapids.

For those of you who have some flexibiluity in their schedules and are interested in pariticpating in the mission of the church, I would like to invite you to attend the Iowa Mission Trip Informational Meeting THIS SUNDAY, FEB. 15th @ 1:00 PM. We will meet in Rm. 111 and there will be a light lunch at no charge. During our time together we will discuss the work of Presbyterian Diaster Assitance, the expected work we will encounter in Iowa, as well as the expense of the trip and talk about the dates of the trip and our length of stay.

If you are interested in participating or just curious about the work we do in Iowa please plan on being at this meeting. If you have a conflict but would like to learn more about the trip please get in contact with me and I will update you as to the content of the meeting.

Hope to see you there!
Peace,
Brett

Funeral for Joyce Parks

I wanted to take this opportunity to update you on the funeral for Joyce Parks. As many of you now have learned Joyce passed yesterday morning at Ohio State University Hospital. She was surrounded by her family and went very peaceably. Her family, friends and members of Boulevard will gather on Thursday, February 5th at 4:oo PM for her funeral which will take place in the Sanctuary of Boulevard Presbyterian Church. Deyo Davis will be taking care of the preperations.

If you would like to help out with providing refreshments for the visitation please be in contact with Barb Rine or Debbie Henry.

Joyce Park's obituary can be found here

Peace,
Brett

Praying for Joyce Parks

As many of you have now heard, Joyce Parks, a faithful long-time member of Boulevard Presbyterian Church was taken to the hospital on Sunday. As of this morning we do not know much concerning her condition other than she is in critical condition and could use the prayers of her faith community.

I invite you to take a moment today and pray along with me & other members of the Boulevard family for Joyce Parks and her husband Jim and her children, including Grace Parks, an elder of the church.

Mighty and merciful God,
you sent Jesus Christ to heal broken lives.
We praise you that today
you send healing in Doctors and Nurses,
and bless us with technology in medicine.
We claim your promises of wholeness
as we pray for those who are ill and suffering,
who long for your healing touch.
Make the weak strong,
the sick healthy,
the broken whole,
and confirm those who serve them
as agents of your love.
Then all shall be renewed in vigor
to point to the risen Christ,
who conquered death that we might live eternally.
Amen