Greeting Holy People of God,
As we continue our focus on “God’s work. Our Hands.” I give thanks to God for the ways you reach out beyond our Christian organizations through service agencies that reach far and wide. This last week’s entries to the basket on the table by the entrance include volunteering at the VA Hospital and the Iowa City Food Bank, donating blood, Scouting America and Quilts of Valor. Thank you for using your hands to do God’s work through these organizations that reach out beyond us.
Last week we celebrated the baptisms of Ronan and Juniper Betts, the children of Jeffry Betts and Chelsea Burk-Betts. For the Baptism, I give the parents the opportunity to select our Hymn of Day. They chose ELW 641, “Let’s Build a House” and also known as “All Our Welcome”. What a beautiful hymn for baptism and the work we are called to! I see God’s hands at work as we welcomed Ronan and Juniper into the work we do building a house of welcome. A place where “children tell how hearts learn to forgive.” A place where “God’s children dare to seek to dream God’s reign anew.”
In baptism we are reminded about the huge, big building project we get to be a part of. We are building “a safe place”, a “rock of faith and vault of grace”, a “banquet hall on holy ground where peace and justice meet”. This is an amazingly wonderful building project God invites us into. It is a building project where hope and love can be seen and experienced.
For this is a place where our hands “will reach beyond the wood and stone to heal and strengthen, serve and teach and live the word they’ve known.” The words we have known, our proclamation of God’s good news in Jesus Christ is made known in all the places your hands reach out into this world through our building and our welcoming. Through the work of our hands, we answer the question Jesus posed to his disciples, who do you say that I am. Peter said, “you are the messiah.” We say, yes you are the Messiah, the carpenter who works along side us, showing us the way.
Remember you can still drop a note in the basket of the places your hands reach out beyond this community and within this gathering of people.
Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,
Pastor Connie Spitzack
