During this Eastertide (April 9-May 27), we have been reflecting individually and collectively about our money stories:
Remembering (April 30) what about our personal history has shaped our relationship with money,
Releasing (May 7) what attitudes or feelings about money get in our way,
Reimaging (May 14) how our money story can be different,
And this Sunday, we look at
Restoring (May 21, Consecration Sunday), how we can come into greater wholeness in our relationship.
If you’d like to reflect on these themes on your own, I encourage you to check out the online study journal here.
It is also Consecration Sunday, when we bring forward our financial and service pledges in worship, to represent our collective commitment for the new program and fiscal year ahead (July 2023-June 2024). Your pledges are vitally important for planning our year ahead. Please remember to bring your pledge forms with you on Sunday; extras will be available on the welcome tables and in the pews. If you’ve already pledged online, we’ll have representative forms you can bring up as part of the offering.
We’ll look at a story of restoring a broken relationship (twin brothers Jacob and Esau, Genesis 33:1-17). After an early betrayal and decades of estrangement, the twins reunite. It’s one of the most moving stories I know in scripture. We’ll also remember how a post-resurrection Jesus anonymously appeared to his disciples and helped them find a new kind of abundance in going forward (John 21:1-19).
This Gospel story is particularly fitting for where we are as a congregation, in figuring out the process of discerning our purpose and addressing the long-term needs and purpose of our building. What abundance does God have in store that we haven’t figured out yet? What possibilities are right under our noses or about to come into view?
I look forward to celebrating this Consecration Sunday in worship and in a robust coffee hour afterwards.
In faith,
Kent
The image is “Safety Net” by Hannah Garrity, based on John 21:1-19
Patterned fish represent the catch that Jesus urged his disciples to find. The artist contemplated what money has to do with saving lives, weaving a guilloché pattern in the background, reminiscent of currency, portraying the flow of financial resources from government support, to charities, to crowdfunding, to church missions that are the fabric of the net that will catch us all.
© a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org
