March 29, 2015

Today is Palm Sunday. It is a day we celebrate Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem and begin what is commonly referred to as “Holy Week” which extends from today through Easter. During this week we will celebrate baptisms and receive new members, continue our Wednesday Lenten Music, Worship and Lunch Series, commemorate Good Friday, hold a Saturday “Eggstravaganza” where the Good News of Jesus will be proclaimed, participate in an evening Eater Vigil, and Celebrate Easter beginning at Sunrise. We will also celebrate the life and bear witness to the resurrection of Harry Villhardt, husband of Terry and father of Susan Vallette, this Tuesday at 11 a.m. In one week the Good News of Jesus will be proclaimed meaningfully in many ways. It is a week that shapes our identity and community together. As Jesus rode into Jerusalem Palm Sunday people sold him short. They thought he would be an earthly leader of a revolt that would throw off the yoke of Roman domination. Little did anyone know, despite his teachings that Jesus was to lead a cosmic revolution that would overthrow sin and death and bring us close to the loving reign of God Almighty. It was just too huge for even his disciples to grasp. It’s huge for us today! As we baptize Jonah Earp on Palm Sunday we claim his participation in God’s love, life and redemption by an action of God, not us. We promise to nurture Jonah until the point that he claims Jesus as his Lord and Savior. We will do the same for Malakai Hausmann next Saturday as he is baptized during the Saturday Easter Vigil. The fulfillment of such promises result in the attention we give to ministry to children and youth. EPC’s efforts such as Sunday School, Children’s Church, choirs, youth group, VBS, youth camps and confirmation are led by faithful members that are engaging in ministry to nurture believers and so fulfill the promises we make at baptism. On Palm Sunday we welcome Ann Hearin, Sharon Bowman, Betsy Marvin, and Rick Schuette into membership of EPC. These new members claim Jesus as Lord and Savior. They renounce evil and claim dependence on the grace of God. They promise to be faithful members of this church, giving of their time, talents and treasure to further the mission of Christ. We promise to nurture and support these members in their journeys of faith, to comfort them when afflicted and strengthen them in all of life. Some new members are seasonal residents who will affiliate here and with another congregation. Such affiliation creates strong bonds of community wherever they may be. Having a church home, or homes, is a powerful statement of belonging to God and intending to serve and grow in concert with others. I highly encourage membership as a means of being faithful to God and to God’s mission. The next opportunity for membership at Eastminster will be a “Discover Eastminster” experience beginning at 8:45 and concluding at noon on Sunday April 19. I’d love to speak with those contemplating next steps of faith at any time! So, I look forward to this week and to the years ahead with all the comings and goings that are involved. Wistfully, we will say “so long till next year” to many wonderful seasonal residents. Your participation here has surely touched the lives of many! Make sure the church office has your contact information so we can keep up to date and encourage one another from afar. You are an important part of the fabric of faith God is weaving at EPC. At the same time we will seek to be faithful, strong and vibrant as led by the God’s Spirit this Holy Week and beyond. Have a blessed Holy Week and Easter all!

Tims Tidings March 15 2015

Today we will explore the text of a woman who “gives God what she had.” Last week we observed a woman that “did what she could.” It is noteworthy to me that the subjects of these two Scriptures are not rich, powerful or famous. We don’t even know their names. Yet their devotion to their Lord resounds through history. Like these women, we are called to have hearts that care and to give gifts that cost in the name of the Lord who provides. We are called to prayerfully listen for God’s guidance and to follow it in our daily living. We can reliably discern God’s will as we reflect on scripture, listen to the counsel of Christian friends, hear the voice of God’s Spirit in our hearts, and pay attention to circumstances. Many of you do just that and God is blessing your lives and ministries in good times and tough times alike. Sunday after the 10 a.m. worship service we will have an Irish Potluck that reminds many of Saint Patrick. Protestants don’t believe that saints have any special powers; they are examples. People like you and me that God uses in extraordinary ways. Here is part of his story: Patrick grew up in England son of well to do parents. In the early 400’s AD, when Patrick was about sixteen, he was captured and carried off as a slave to Ireland. Patrick worked as a herdsman, remaining a captive for six years. He writes that his faith grew in captivity, and that he prayed daily. After six years he heard a voice telling him that he would soon go home. Fleeing his master, he travelled to a port, two hundred miles away, where he found a ship and, after various adventures, returned home to his family. But that’s not all… Patrick recounts that he had a vision a few years after returning home: “I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: "The Voice of the Irish". As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Folcut, which is beside the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us." Patrick left the good life he had, and he returned to Ireland, the country of his captivity. There he served as a powerful evangelist and led thousands and thousands to faith in Jesus Christ. Like the women in our scripture, we see Patrick having a heart that cares and a gift that costs. God used him powerfully. May God do the same with us today!

March 8, 2015

Raspberries. When I say that word does it make your mouth water? That sweet-sour taste. The sticky red-purple juice. That beautiful smell of ripeness. Raspberries. In the city of Boston is a memorial to the Holocaust. On one of the clear plastic walls of the memorial, built in a corridor that runs for about a city block, is a moving story attributed to Gerda Weissman Klein. Gerda experienced first-hand the horror of the German concentration camps in World War II. It is hard for us to imagine the stark conditions in those camps. However, in the midst of the hate and violence of the Nazi regime Gerda tells a lovely story of beauty and grace. Gerda is befriended by a young Jewish girl named Ilse. One day coming home from a work party, Ilse finds a delicious raspberry. A raspberry was a delicacy in such an environment. Ilse places the raspberry in the ragged pocket of her overcoat--to lovingly share it with Gerda that night. Gerda writes, "Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one red raspberry and someone shares it with you, a friend." It is a haunting story. To think that in such a hostile place such a lovely act could still live on is a testimony to the enduring power of love and the triumph of the human spirit over great odds. Ilse left a lovely fragrance that helps us overcome the stench of hatred and evil from that terrible time in history. In a like manner today’s text speaks of a woman who anoints Jesus with expensive nard, and Indian spice. She does a beautiful thing for Jesus… a fragrant, extravagant act of love and sharing. An act that showed the value of Christ being broken for our sins, even when the world could not understand. At the moment of Jesus’ anointing, it’s raspberry time. It’s time to focus through an extravagant, costly act of love upon his extravagant costly act of giving his life for the sins of the world. As we imagine the strong aromatic fragrance of that perfume filling the room and the head of Jesus still damp… I wonder, What is your raspberry? … What is your focus? … What is your good and beautiful thing… that extravagant gift of love that God calls out from your life? For what purpose does God desire the priceless vessel which is you to be broken open and poured out like expensive perfume? Where does God want the sweetness of extravagant love God has bottled up in you shared for the sake of others? Raspberries. There’s a whole sanctuary filled with them here today. May we remember the extravagant love God gives us, and like this woman, pour our love out in a way that the world will remember. Jesus says, “She has done what she could.” May we do likewise!