The Good News Across Upstate – Vol. 2

In volume one of “The Good News Across Upstate” I shared how various pastors wrote to their congregations in their newsletter articles of how the Lenten season speaks to our soul, our individual faith life. In this posting we note that other pastors used the space allotted to them in their newsletters to speak of matters affecting their parishioners and their churches.

Virginia Anderson told her flock at Friedens Church, Syracuse, how she remembered the family owned restaurant, Ann Strathers, in the Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville where she grew up. The neighborhood has changed drastically over the years but Ann Strathers has remained, one of the few businesses to do so. It still offers its menu of good, traditional Swedish food. She writes, “it remains because it was somehow able to keep it’s identity through all of the changes, and it did so because of the quality of what it had to offer to those who live and lived there.”

Ginny used the example of Ann Strathers in talking about the situation in which Friedens Church now finds itself. No longer surrounded by a neighborhood of German Americans, how is this “German” church to respond? she posited. In answer to her own question she wrote that Friedens needed to "build on the foundations of the church family. Remember that this is a place that has been a magnate for the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of it founders."

She continued, “we must find ways to reach out to those in the neighborhood so that our Holy Ground becomes somehow the Holy Ground of others who will maintain it and care for it in the future. Like Ann Strathers we must find a way to remain and serve the wonderful spiritual food that so inspired those first immigrants. We must set a table where all are welcome.”

Mark Lawson reflected upon the fact that this Lent marks the fifth anniversary of the War in Iraq. “All war is awful,” he wrote in the UCC Bayberry (Liverpool) newsletter, “and no matter who you are or what your political persuasion, you should hate this war, too, and want it to be over.” He pointed out that the vast majority of Americans agree with this statement and only disagree over how and when to end the conflict.

He went on to say that he is “most impressed to share…that none of the options are good ones. We are searching for the option that is the lesser of all evils.” And so, from his point of view, “everyone could stand a strong dose of humility when opining about Iraq.” He concluded, “The message of the Lenten season is the same every year, but it seems to have special poignancy this year. Simply put, it is this: we are sinners, and human sinfulness plunges us into tragic situations we cannot solve on our own. But God has not abandoned us, and there is always hope. Just beyond the cross is always an empty tomb.”

A Prayer for the Church and World during this Lenten Season of Reflection

Holy God, we rejoice that you trust us to do your will in the world, and to be examples of the newness of life that you give us in Christ through our communities of faith. Please forgive us when we do not trust your promises of love and grace. Open our eyes, free our tongues, strengthen our hands to do the work of faith, to proclaim your love to our love-starved communities, and to shine the light of peace on the darkness of hatred, greed and violence. Encourage us to do what is right, to pray for what is good, to believe what is true and work for all that is beautiful.

With the psalmist we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and of Baghdad, of Belfast, of Mogadishu, of Orlando, of Guantanamo, of so many places in the world that you love so much. Grant that we may finally learn to accept your love as do the chicks that gather under their mother hen’s wings. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.

Rick