Monthly Message
Read "From the Pastor's Desk," Pastor Michele Kaufman's monthly message:
From Pastor Michele Kaufman
July/Aug 2024
Long ago God decreed that men and women should not work constantly without periods of rest. Even in the creation story in Genesis, God "rested" on the seventh day. And yet, we modern Americans continue to identify business with busyness and success with feverish haste. Jesus understood the need for rest, and for pacing his life so that his ministry could be productive. There is a prayer that I keep in a prominent place in my study which helps me remember the importance of making time for rest:
Slow me down, Lord! Ease the pounding of my heart by the quieting of my mind. Steady my hurried pace with a vision of the eternal reach of time. Give me, amidst the confusion of my day, the calmness of the ever-lasting hills. Break the tension of my nerves and muscles with the soothing music of the singing streams that live in my memory. Help me to know the magical, restoring power of sleep. Teach me the art of taking minute vacations -- of slowing down to look at a flower, to chat with a friend, to pat a dog, or to read a few lines from a good book. Let me look up into the branches of the towering oak, and know that it grew great and strong, because it grew slowly and well.
When we keep the Sabbath it keeps us--it maintains us. God created us with a need for a rhythm of rest from the rugged rat race to drink deeply of the rich cup of faith--to allow our souls to catch up with our very being. A noted physician said to his students, "More and more we doctors prescribe long periods of rest for our patients. Most of those periods, I am convinced, are for Sundays for which they are in arrears." Much like a checking account--if there is no replenishing of resources, bankruptcy will occur. The Sabbath provides a necessary check and balance to be sure this does not happen to us. The trouble with trivia is that it trivializes us. It robs us of our true identity and the purpose God has for us. God has given us permission to spend some quality time with him and to rest our souls and bodies, that they might fill our lives with his truth and joy. Be glad that you have a day to rest and to be recharged and renewed for the soul's journey. Lloyd C. Douglas in his marvelous writing The Robe reminds us: Like a navigator needs a north star, like a builder needs a plumb line, like a mathematician needs a square root, like a musician needs a fixed note, so we who believe in a sometimes hectic and overwhelming world need a sanctuary, 5 and One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. See you in church!
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At Church Council's request, Pastor will begin to offer office hours once a week on Thursday mornings from 10-12:30. Should you like to make an appointment, call the church office or contact Pr. Kaufman directly.
June 2024
André Gide tells about an incident that took place some years ago when he made a journey into Africa. His party had been pushing ahead at a fast pace for a number of days, and one morning when the Europeans were ready to set out, their native bearers, who carried the food and equipment, were found sitting about, making no preparation for the new day's trek. Upon being questioned, they said quite simply that they had been traveling so fast in the last few days that they had gotten ahead of their souls and were going to stay quietly in camp for the day in order that their souls could catch up with them. In their primitive way they were describing the need for a rhythm in life between activity and rest.
Years ago our approach to the Sabbath bordered on the Pharisaic. "Sunday is the day to go to church; no work, no play, even the stores must be closed." Those were the blue laws of the fifties. Now, the green laws - the monetary law of the greenback - has taken its place. Many are required to work on Sundays. Sunday has become the catch all day for everything that doesn’t get done during the rest of the week.
God designed the Sabbath as a safety valve for our mind, body, and spirit. He cares about our brains when the circuitry is overloaded or when our bodies are abused by overwork. We can only work so much before it catches up to us. If we’re not careful we’ll pay in the end. Overworked, we will simply destruct. We need time to pause, rest, reflect, reconnect and re-energize in order to be whole. “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Not only is it important that we connect with God but that we reconnect with our own soul. Enjoy the summer; see you in church!
May 2024
Ascension Day...what is it? The official ecclesiastical designation for this day is “The Feast of the Ascension.” In keeping with its name, it commemorates the day the risen Christ ascended into heaven. Saint Augustine contended this holy day was first observed in the apostolic era. That would make it one of the earliest Christian holidays. By tradition, the date was established as the 39 days after Easter. That means it should always fall on a Thursday. This year we celebrate the Ascension on May 9th.
In many European nations, Ascension Thursday is widely celebrated as both a religious and a public holiday. It is religious in that the churches are open for a special time of worship. It is public in that Ascension Thursday is listed on national event calendars and government offices are closed. For that matter, banks and libraries are closed. There is no Ascension Thursday mail delivery and public transportation is likely to operate on a weekend schedule.
Each European nation has its own way to observe the holiday. For instance, in France, people attend church in the morning and then they spend the rest of the day with their families, often outside enjoying the spring weather. In Portugal, in addition to attending church and spending time with family, the custom is to make wreaths of wheat, daisies, and olive branches. The wheat is said to symbolize an abundant harvest; the olives, a symbol of peace; the daisies are said to represent prosperity. They say that if you hang the wreath in your home, you can anticipate a year of peace, prosperity, and an abundant harvest.
Around Devonshire, England, there lingers an ancient superstition that any egg laid on Ascension Day will never go bad. It is supposed to be good luck to put an Ascension Day egg on the roof of your house. In Sweden, men gather in the woods as early as 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. in order to hear birds singing at sunrise. For people whose metabolism spikes late in the evening, wandering around in the woods before dawn has minimal appeal. However, for those who call themselves “morning people,” just being in the forest when the sun comes up drips with possibilities of religious epiphany.
For many, Ascension Thursday offers an opportunity for worship with ample time for rest and relaxation with family and friends. Many Europeans enjoy the holiday so much that they take Friday as a personal day and make it a four-day weekend.
Obviously, that does not describe celebrating the Feast of the Ascension in the United States. Our local, state, and national governments do not declare it a public holiday. Our government agencies are open. Banks, courts, retail stores, manufacturing plants, and business offices run on a normal schedule. The restaurants not only continue to serve, I have never even heard of a restaurant having an “Ascension Day Special” on the menu. It is even difficult to make a case that Ascension Thursday is a major celebration in the churches of the United States. In fact, many American churches don’t even announce, let alone observe, the Feast of the Ascension. Even the American Roman Catholic church, which for centuries faithfully observed Ascension Thursday, has moved the observance to a Sunday.
About seven weeks after the resurrection, Jesus took his followers to the top of a high hill in the village of Bethany, not far from Jerusalem. Jesus turned toward them, lifted up his hands, and prayed for them. The gospel of Luke then says, “While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven”.
For a moment, consider the impact Jesus’ ascension had on his followers. In the blink of an eye, Jesus was gone and they were left with only a warm breeze blowing across the hilltop. Keep in mind these followers already knew what it was like to lose Jesus. They had been there on the day of his crucifixion. They had felt their self-confidence drain from their lives and leach into the soil around them. They knew what it was like to be overwhelmed by a sense of aloneness and an uncertainty about the future. At the ascension, the feelings they had at the crucifixion must have returned. “Oh no, Jesus is gone again. What are we going to do now? How will we get along without him?”
In the first chapter of Acts, Luke tells us that before Jesus ascended into heaven he assured his followers that he was not abandoning them. The power of the Holy Spirit would come soon upon them. This power of God’s holy presence would sustain them. The gospel of the Ascension directs our thoughts to heaven, where our Lord has gone to prepare a place for us, so that where he is we may be also. But, he doesn't tell them to go out and tell everybody how they can get to heaven. He told them to go out and teach other people about the Jesus way of living in this world. And he promised to be with them every step of the way. the Lord's ascension makes it clear that we are not to rest on Christ's laurels, uncaring and uninvolved in the world we are called to live in for now. When Jesus ascended, all the work of the gospel was not done. There is a world to be won and there are people to be served and issues to be addressed. In short, Christianity is more than a religious philosophy. It brings to those who become disciples a practical responsibility. We are those disciples!
An Ascension Day service will be held on Thursday, May 9th at 11:00 a.m. at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 316 S. Mountain Blvd in Mountaintop, Pa. All are welcome to join us….
April 2024
Easter dawns upon a world hidden in darkness. Easter awakens every sleeper with the news that Jesus Christ, the Prince of Power and the Lord of Love has appeared. Christianity is real. Christianity is alive. Christianity is anything but boring. Let us all wake up and smell the roses. Let us resolve to live our lives as if Jesus were a guest in our homes, workplaces and businesses. The truth is that the Lord is here and everywhere. He is alive. He is our Risen Lord to whom we offer our discipleship in response to his love. We sing, "and they'll know we are Christians by our love." Let us be about our Father's business as we serve him each and every day. The Chairman and CEO of Home Depot is reported to have said the following: Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up: It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning, the lion wakes up: It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: When the sun comes up, you'd better be running. When your feet hit the floor running in the morning what motivates you? Fear or a sense of mission? In all that we do, let us show and tell others the good news of the gospel. Live the gospel!
March 2024
Lent is a journey of six weeks, from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday and Easter. It is a pilgrimage for those who want to renew their lives. Lent is a time of fasting, penitence and self-examination. Lent is a time to remember what God has done, is doing, and will do for us. Lent is a time to remember what our lives would be if our Lord had not lived and died for us.
Lent is not a time to regret our faults or to rehearse our failures as much as it is a time to renew our faith that God is at work creating a promising future out of the mess that we have made of his world and of our lives. Lent is not a time when we are to practice shallow fasting - giving up things we can easily do without. Lent is not a time to fast as it is a time to fasten our faith more tightly to the hope-filled promises of God.
Lent is a time to turn to the Bible - a time to study God's word and commune with him in prayer. Lent is a time to lift up the cross - not as a pious whip to inflict self-punishment upon ourselves, or as a gavel of judgment to condemn the wrongdoings of others. Rather, Lent is a time for us to lift high the cross - lift it high enough to permit the first rays of Easter morn to reflect upon the surface so that the cross might become a beacon of light for all the hopeless, desolate, and despairing people of our world. The cross, without the resurrection, is a battle fought and lost. The resurrection, without the cross, is a meaningless victory without a battle fought. But, the crucifixion, plus the resurrection, is the redemptive act of God that turns the tides of history from the direction of ultimate defeat and death to the direction of eternal victory and everlasting life.
February 2024
Valentine’s Day occurs every February 14. Across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Still others insist that it was Saint Valentine of Terni, a bishop, who was the true namesake of the holiday. He, too, was beheaded by Claudius II outside Rome. And so Valentine’s Day has become a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world.
Love….what the world so desperately needs today is love. It seems pretty obvious that the central teaching of Jesus is love. The kingdom of God is about love. Justice and righteousness are about love. It starts out with love. Love is the energy that keeps us alive, and love is the goal. If there is a God, it doesn't say God loves, but God is love. The essence of God is love. The prime mover, the creator, the mastermind behind all that we see and discover is love. The manifestation of that love came in the person of Jesus. God sent the one born of Mary to reveal, to let us see love. God wanted to love us in a tangible way, so Jesus was born. The Word of God which is love became flesh.
In the life of Jesus we see that love is a binding relationship, a caring, a willingness to sacrifice, to lay down one's life, to enter into the other person's situation. "Greater love has no one," says Jesus, "than to lay down one's life for others." Jesus' life is a demonstration of that love. God wants us to love one another. It's God's commandment to us. Love sums up all the commandments. It has authority behind it. It's not an option. It's not a theory, an idea, a philosophy to bounce around. It's not a question or suggestion as one possible route you may take. It's a command. This is my commandment that you love one another. Love is more than a feeling. It is an attitude from which we operate. It is a way of behaving toward others. We may not always feel love, but we can do the loving thing. Love is more than words. Love is sacrifice, obedience, partnership, turning the other cheek. We may sing "I love to tell the story of unseen things above," but what the world is looking for is not words or melodies, but love, love that manifests itself in the way we spend our money, the way we vote, the way we treat those who don't deserve our love, those whose skin color or beliefs are different than ours. "Mother, father, sister, brother, everybody sing and shout, 'cause that's what it's all about. It's about love."
January 2024
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge— God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Since it is New Year's, what could be more appropriate than some New Year's resolutions? New Year's resolutions. Do you bother with them? "I'm going to quit smoking," or "I'm going to lose some weight," or "I'm going to spend more time with my family." Let’s look at 1 Corinthians. What is the first thing we run into? Paul's greeting to the church: "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ". If we take those words and then consider the verses immediately following, we find some fruitful direction for resolution building.
What is the very first word? Grace — good word — it is one around which we can, not only build a New Year's resolution, but an entire theology ... grace! "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound....". There is something extra special in knowing that the new year begins with grace ... God's unmerited favor. We have grown up in a society that tells us, "You get what you pay for. There is no such thing as a free lunch." But grace is never paid for, never earned. It is there for the taking.
Next? "Grace to you and peace ..." (1 Corinthians 1:3). As we move into this special season when we think of "peace on earth," it would be most blessed if we could enjoy real peace, certainly in our violent world, but most especially within the fellowship of the church. We as individuals desire a true sense of peace- peace of heart, soul and mind.
The apostle says, "You do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed". He says the church is not lacking in any spiritual gifts. We begin to get into something about which we can make a New Year's resolution. If we indeed do have all the spiritual gifts ... if there really is nothing we are incapable of doing spiritually ... then the resolution is to take those gifts and put them to work. One of the things Paul took pains to point out to the people in Corinth was that every individual did not have every gift. We only have them all as we come together as a worshiping community. For the church, the task is to seek out the spiritual gifts among its individual members; for you and me, the task is to make ourselves available so we can put those gifts that God has given to use in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s what it means to be a Christ-centered church.
Our New Year's resolution: let us show grace to each other and the world at large; to seek peace by being as positive with one another as we can; to honor God by putting our spiritual gifts to use in God's service; and to be genuinely Christ-centered people, both as individuals and a church. God grant us the strength and the resolve to follow through.
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Cellphone: (570) 881-2371
Home Phone: (570) 443-0832
Office Phone: (570) 474-6616 (Saint Paul's)
Email: kaufman19@verizon.net
She can also be found on Facebook under "Michele Kaufman."
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