Bethel United Church of Christ
  • Home
  • Church Info
    • Church History
    • Pastor's Page
    • Related Links
  • Get Involved
  • Photos
  • Contact
    • Submit a Prayer Request
    • Join Our Church Newsletter

November 27 - December 3                 Message from the pastor

11/29/2016

0 Comments

 
SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR
Sunday, December 4 
Psalm 72
Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12

It’s beard-growing time again !  No, not so I can play Santa.  It’s for that mysterious wild-man John the Baptizer.  He’s back for another round.
Picture
                 { drawing by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Peru }
 
From the descriptions of John’s appearance and habits found in the gospels, we can tell that John was a nazirite.  The rules for being a nazirite are laid out in the Old Testament Book of Numbers, chapter 6: 1-21.  The reason someone might choose to become a nazirite is to fulfill a sacred promise, a vow, to God.  All their days as nazirites they are holy to the LORD. (Numbers 6:8)  So, being a nazirite meant being seriously holy.
The most famous nazirite in the Bible (other than John the Baptizer) is Samson (Judges, chapters 13-16).  You would probably remember Samson most for the way Delilah seduced him and cut off his long hair, making him weak.  Samson was not a faithful example.
But John the Baptizer did not falter in his faithfulness, as Samson did.  Rather, John lived and died in his integrity before God.  He preached that people must repent of their sins, and he offered to dip, or baptize, them in water as a sign of their repentance and of God’s forgiveness.
Matthew reports John’s preaching thus:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. 
  Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.”

To members of religious groups who came from Jerusalem to hear him, John delivered a very tough message:
“You children of snakes !  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’ ; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.  Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 
                                          (Matthew 3:7 – 10) 
In other words, “Your ethnic heritage is worthless in God’s sight: your only hope of avoiding destruction is to be fruitful for God’s sake.”
John’s next act of faithfulness was to point away from himself, toward Jesus, who was on his way to be baptized and begin his ministry.  John selflessly declared, “one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”      (Matthew 3:11)
Maybe your vow will not include growing a beard. 
But will you do anything, this Advent season, as a sign of your commitment to God ?
Every year, we hear moaning from religious people about how commercial Christmastime has become.  Every year, we hear grousing from religious people about remembering “the reason for the season.” 
What if we were to take a serious vow to “make God’s paths straight” in our lives, this Advent ? 
Here are two small suggestions:
†  Make your preparations for Christmas... Christ-like.  The world is rushing madly to impress people and to revel in pleasure… but Christ gave himself.  Let us give ourselves for others.  “There’s No Present Like the Time”

†  Carefully examine your way of life, and correct whatever the Lord would find to be ‘crooked.’
 
By the way, if you want it, our church offers baptism.  We don’t necessarily have to go down to Boone Run, but we can baptize you.  
0 Comments

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 20 -- 26                   MESSAGE FROM THE PASTOR

11/23/2016

0 Comments

 
SCRIPTURE READINGS
 
for Thanksgiving Day, November 24
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 100
Philippians 4:4-9
John 6:25-35
 
for Sunday, November 27
Psalm 122
Isaiah 2:1-5
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44
Luke 21:5-19

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
             ‘May they prosper who love you.’
                                                - Psalm 122:6
These words come from a Song of Ascents.  This kind of psalm was probably developed for singing while walking uphill toward the city of Jerusalem and, once within its walls, further up hill and into the courtyard of the Temple itself.  There are quite a few of these songs in the Bible: Psalms 120 through 134 are specifically given this title, and there are others sprinkled through that book.
I have not been to Jerusalem.  Perhaps someday I will get to make the trip, and walk uphill into the modern Old City.  Yes, if you caught that, it is a lot like “Antique Tables Made Daily” (a Sperryville business).  The Old City has been built, destroyed, and rebuilt many times since the time of Jesus.... and it was built, destroyed, and rebuilt many times before Jesus walked there, too.
What is there now, scholars tell us, is a mixture of ancient ruins and buildings put up by Romans, Muslims (Palestinian Arabs and others), Crusaders, other Christians, and Zionists in the one thousand nine hundred and forty-six years since the Romans tore it all down, beginning in the year we call A.D. 70.
Jesus warned his followers that their generation was headed for a terrible time of destruction.  Try reading from Matthew 23:29 through all of chapter 24, keeping in mind what the Romans actually did to Jerusalem.  In the lifetime of some of Jesus’ disciples, the Romans desecrated the Jewish Temple by setting up within it a statue of Caesar as a god: Jews called it “the abomination of desolation.” (Matthew 24:15) (Around 200 years before Jesus’ prophecy, the Syrian-Greeks had committed similar outrages in Jerusalem: see Daniel 9:27, 11:31, and 12:11; also 1 Maccabees 1:54). Later, the Romans completely destroyed the Jerusalem where Jesus had walked. 
Later still, the Romans built a new city on top of the ruins to which they had reduced Jerusalem. They named it Aelia Capitolina.  Once they had crushed rebellion after stubborn rebellion in that land of religious zeal, they wanted to erase all trace of Jewishness from the place.  “This is a Roman city— period!” they strove to prove. 
How chilling, to realize the horror the Jews felt as their Jerusalem-centered civilization was trampled and burned by the pagan might of Rome.  
Yet pagan Rome did not have the last word.  Christians and Jews came back and added buildings.  Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, ordered churches to be built on spots where, according to local legends, great events of Jewish and Christian history were said to have taken place.  The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of these.
In the 600s, the new faith called Islam put down roots in the Jerusalem landscape, eventually erecting a great plaza and two houses of prayer on the highest hill— where, many believe, the Jewish Temples had stood, six hundred years before.  It was from the heights of Jerusalem that the Prophet Muhammad dreamed he was carried up to experience a vision of heaven.  For this reason, the high platform, called the “Noble Sanctuary” is holy to Muslims all over the world today.
Nowadays in Jerusalem, the city is fiercely divided among competing groups of Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims.  Many of their claims date back centuries— although much of what the Jews now claim is what they conquered in the 1967 war against the Arabs.  It is hard to believe that that was only forty nine years ago. 
Some friends of mine who frequently visit Jerusalem tell me that peace exists there: you just have to learn where to look, to see people coexisting side-by-side.  Those who make peace there are living in the vision of Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, of a Jerusalem where the LORD shall judge or arbitrate between peoples of many nations.
Since the founding of the modern state called Israel in 1948, the U.S. government has taken many different positions toward it.  Until now, we have agreed with most other nations, that for the sake of peace we should not recognize Jerusalem as the national capital of the modern State of Israel, but rather keep our U.S. Embassy in the long-time capital city, Tel Aviv.  Now, President-elect Trump says he will move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.  That would be an outrageous provocation against the people who have lived there for many generations.         Once again,
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
           ‘May they prosper who love you.’
0 Comments

week of november 13 - 19              message from the pastor

11/14/2016

0 Comments

 
Scriptures for Sunday, November 20, 2016
Psalm 46
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Colossians 1:1-11
Luke 23:33-43
​
Printing in color is expensive... but I wish all of the folks who receive this newsletter in the U.S. Mail could see this picture’s colors !  They are so gorgeous. 
You may have heard Stephen Colbert joke (or heard me quote him): “Whenever God closes a door, He opens a window: His heating bills are outrageous !!”
Well, judging by this week’s outrageous displays of colors among the leafy trees and azure skies, God’s ink and paint bills are out of this world, too !!
Picture
                                                  Christ, Ruler of All
Mosaic from the church of Apollonaire at Ravenna, Italy, from around AD 521-547

​
Our United States heritage trains us to think of “rulers” in a particular way:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
(United States Declaration of Independence, accessed at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript )
 
The train of thought that Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress followed two hundred and forty years ago is still chugging along down the tracks of history.  The rights which they named have morphed and grown in ways which the Continental Congressmen could scarcely have imagined:  “All men are created equal,” most of us now take to include women and people of color, not only White men.  I, for one, am very thankful for progress, and for the spread of human rights.
Yet most people, around our world and through the ages, have lived and died without benefit of “human rights.”  What they’ve had were rulers, some better and some worse.  Some rulers treat their subjects well; others treat them like slaves.
Even though we inherit the American dream of freedom, our United States system leaves room for worse or better leaders.  In each generation, under each set of elected officials, some folks enjoy their version of liberty while others feel oppressed. 
Hear what God says about this, through the Prophet Jeremiah:                     (23:1-3)
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” says the LORD.
Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, “Concerning the shepherds who shepherd My people: it is you who have scattered My flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.  So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD.
Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.”
For the past two thousand years, under governments good and bad, we humans have one right which is truly unalienable— nobody can take it away:  the right to Jesus Christ as our One True Ruler.  For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
                                         Colossians 1: 19-20
0 Comments

message from the pastor             week of november 6 - 12, 2016

11/8/2016

0 Comments

 
SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR 
Sunday, November 13
 
Psalm 98
Malachi 4
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

I am studying and writing on the day before the election.  As you are aware, the tensions and ugliness surrounding this 2016 election cycle have been ‘way beyond what most of us have been accustomed to, in years past.  Some of the talk is ‘way over-the-top, suggesting that the world will end if this or that candidate wins.
Our Scripture readings this week speak of the end of the world as we know it. 
Hebrew prophet Malachi spoke to his neighbors at Jerusalem, in the disappointing years when they struggled to rebuild the wall and the Temple at Jerusalem.  Their community’s standard of living was stagnant or sinking, and fears of enemies nearby and faraway preyed on the people’s morale. 
 
Facing these unhappy realities, Malachi gives them a bracing, timeless word from the Lord: 
“ See, the day is coming,
   burning like an oven,
   when all the arrogant and all evildoers
      will be stubble;
   the day that comes shall burn them up,
   says the LORD of Hosts,
   so that it will leave them
      neither root nor branch.”     – Malachi 4:1
So much for anybody who is not on God’s side.  God has a plan and a schedule, and God will deal with God’s enemies thoroughly and completely, right on schedule... God’s schedule, not ours.
Malachi continues, giving good news to any folks who are on God’s side:
“But for you who revere My Name
   the sun of righteousness shall rise,
   with healing in its wings. 
 You shall go out
      leaping like calves from the stall.”  (4:2)
Doesn’t that sound like fun ?  Like joy ? 
Notice there the Scripture basis of a line from one of our favorite Christmas carols, ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ : God’s answer— to their fears about the end of the world as they know it— points us to Jesus, God-with-us, whose birth we will soon celebrate.  God offers wholeness and joy.
Prophet Malachi comforted his people in two ways: he assured them that God would clean up the bad, and that God would supply their healing sunshine.
Also  at this time of the church year, we will hear from Jesus’ final teachings at Jerusalem before he was arrested and crucified.  Jesus’ disciples, two thousand years ago, were also asking about the end of the world as they knew it:  “When is the END coming ?”  (Luke 21:7; also see Matthew 24:3 and Mark 13:4)  Perhaps they were fixated on the current events of their day, in politics and culture, worrying that everything was going to hell in a handbasket... as many are feeling today.
Although the gospels report that Jesus explained it to them in advance, his disciples did not understand that their teacher Jesus, the Son of God, was about to allow himself to be killed by his enemies.  They did not understand how God was carrying out His plan to deal with sin.  Nor did they understand how their journey with Jesus, playing out right in front of their eyes, would fulfill all of God’s historic promises of life and blessing for God’s people.  They just didn’t “get it.”
The answer Jesus gave his disciples at that time is NOT about dates on the calendar or historical events to anticipate.  Instead, 1) he warned them not to be led astray by the news of the world; 2) he promised to give them “words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.”  And 3) he told them to hang in there with God, no matter what:  “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”   
(Luke 21)
Or, as Paul put it (2 Thessalonians 3:13):
“Be not weary in well doing.”
 
In this church year, we have only two more weeks of reading Luke’s gospel, before we switch to Matthew’s gospel for a year.  
What have you noticed in Luke’s gospel ?
† Only Luke tells of the angel’s visit to Mary, of her cousin Elizabeth, or of the angels’ encounter with the shepherds outside Bethlehem: “Fear not!”
† Luke is the only gospel that tells the story of Jesus meeting
Zacchaeus (19), or the conversation Jesus had with the robber who was crucified next to him (23), or of the disciples walking with the risen Jesus to Emmaus (24).

† Only Luke includes the stories Jesus told about the “good Samaritan” (10), the “prodigal son” (15), the “shrewd manager” (16), and the prayers of the self-righteous man and the sinner (18).
What is your favorite thing in Luke’s gospel?
 
Thank God for giving good news in our lifetime.

0 Comments

message from the pastor             week of                                              october 30 - November 5, 2016

11/1/2016

0 Comments

 
SCRIPTURE READINGS
FOR
ALL SAINTS DAY
Tuesday, November 1
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31
 
Sunday, November 6
Psalm 17:1-9
Job 19
2 Thessalonians 2
Luke 20:27-38

November 1st is All Saints Day.  At Bethel, we will celebrate it this coming Sunday, November 6th.
Thinking of All Saints’ Day, I want to share with you the Daily Devotional message which Rev. Lillian Daniel wrote for this past Sunday, under the title, “A Victory Speech from Someone Who Never Wins Anything.”  Rev. Daniel is pastor of First Congregational Church of Dubuque, Iowa.
 
“Be completely humble and gentle;
be patient, bearing with one another in love.”
- Ephesians 4:2
 
When it comes to little contests and games of chance, I never win anything.  But guess who guessed the number of chocolate coffee beans in the jar last Sunday?  It was me, it was me, it was me!  The humble pastor! 
Ethical concerns prevented me from keeping the gift.  Church leaders even suggested it might be appropriate to choose another winner instead of the minister, but I persuaded them to let me have my moment, since, after all, I never win anything.  I promised to share my chocolate coffee beans with others.  My win was about the honor of the thing, not material gain.  
Sadly, nobody wanted to hear the full three-hour victory speech I prepared about what led me to make the winning guess on the coffee beans.  So let me reflect on my success here in this devotional in the hope that you'll be inspired by my example. 
As I look back on a lifetime of never winning anything, I now see that I was being trained for that one competitive moment, when a decisive instinct would put me out in front of the pack.  I can't explain it, I just did what I had to do.  I went out there and executed at a high level.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the little people, as well as the coach.  It wasn't about my skills, it was about the whole ball club.  It takes a village to raise a child.  Measure twice and cut once.  It was 90% mental and the other half was physical.  As a player, I left it all out there on the field.  And lastly, God bless America.
 
Prayer:  Dear God, help us to remember that our "accomplishments" are not our own, and that every "win" is just a chance to give you thanks for what we did not achieve all by ourselves.  Amen.
 
[You can subscribe to the StillSpeaking Daily Devotional series of emails for free at
http://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional?utm_campaign=dd_oct30_16&utm_medium=email&utm_source=unitedchurchofchrist ]
 
When we consider God’s holy ones, the so-called “saints,” the most important thing to notice is not that they did great good things, but that they obeyed God and gave God any and all glory that was offered to them.  If we “want to be in that number / when the saints go marching in,” we must also give God all our boasting and pride. 
In Paul’s letter called 2nd Thessalonians, he tells them that he brags about them to other churches.  However, what he actually brags about is the way that they are growing in faithfulness toward God and demonstrating love for one another... which causes people to thank God and glorify God. (2 Thess. 1: 2-4, 11-12).  Paul goes on to warn them about an individual whom they know, who “opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God.” (2 Thess. 2:4)  Such a person would be the opposite of a “saint”— wanting all the glory for himself.
I always think of my late friend, Sam, who frequently said, “There is a God, and I ain’t Him.”  This awareness helps to save us from sin.  As C.S. Lewis put it, “The corruption of the first sinner consists not in choosing some evil thing ... but in preferring a lesser good (himself) before a greater (God).  The Fall is, in fact, Pride.”  But, thanks be to God, we don’t have to be that way.
The Good News keeps reminding us that God’s holy ones are always alive in God’s presence:  “those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead....  cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.... [To God,] all of them are alive.”  (Luke 20:35-36, 38)
This coming Sunday, we will take a little time to remember some of God’s holy ones, saints who have gone on before us.  Think of the ones you have known, or perhaps still know.  Charles Wesley described them this way: “Part of His host have crossed the flood, / And part are crossing now.”           Who do you know, who lives, or lived,
for the praise of God’s glory  ?                (Ephesians 1:12)
0 Comments
    Picture

    Contact info

    Rev. Dan Bassett
    Bethel United Church of Christ
    2451 Bethel Church Rd
    Elkton, Virginia 22827
    540-298-1197

    betheluccelktonva@outlook.com

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    June 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.