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Brothers and sisters,
As the Christmas season wrapped up in the beginning of January, I remember saying to Robin and Kathryn, “Well, we’ve got a little time before Lent will be here this year.” Then, I blinked. And now, it’s Ash Wednesday!

The actual practice of coming to worship on a night like tonight and having ashes placed on one’s head dates back over a thousand years, with the earliest recorded mention of Ash Wednesday coming sometime in the 8th century. The ashes themselves are meant to signify several different things. In one sense, they are a reminder to us of the words of God to Adam after the Fall, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis
3:19; emphasis mine). Thus, the ashes remind us of our own sinful nature and of our mortality.

In another sense, the ashes are meant as a sign of grief. We grieve over our own sins and understand that we ought to confess and repent. We grieve the brokenness of our world and acknowledge that there is so much work to be done to help people with their daily needs, as well as their spiritual needs. And we grieve that while we know God’s kingdom is coming, it has not come yet. And so the ashes can be understood as a sign of grief for the way things are, longing for the way things ought to be, and hope for the way things will be one day.

There’s one other interpretation of the ashes that I will put forth in my Ash Wednesday meditation tonight. I also see the ashes simply as a marker of who we are as Christians. They are outward signs of inward truths. Those truths? That we have decided to follow Jesus. That we understand that there is a cross that awaits us at the end of this season. That we choose to help others even when it may not be in our best interest. That we believe in the inherent dignity of all people, created by God in God’s own image. That we know that even if there is a crucifixion coming, even if our bodies are mortal, that Christ has already overcome death.

So, Ash Wednesday is kind of a strange day of the church calendar. It is a day on which we mark ourselves with a symbol the reminds us of our own mortality. The cross of ashes is a mark of death. But it is also a day on which we declare that death does not have the final say. Yes, we are all of us taken from the dust and to the dust we shall return, but there is still more beyond that moment. And in the meantime, the ashes convict us of our need to reach out to those who need help, to work for God’s kingdom in all that we do, and to remember that no matter how dark things can get—God is with us. Always. May we live into the truth of the Gospel during this Lenten season.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

Brothers and sisters,

As I write this article, we are just a few days away from Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. I’m excited for the game! You’ve got a superstar quarterback in Patrick Mahomes going up against a team in Philadelphia that has few (if any) true weaknesses. Some pundits are excited over the possibility of a tight game. Others are serving up hot takes saying that the game’s going to be a blowout. Regardless, Sunday night will be fun!

Since the Super Bowl is this Sunday, I wanted to remind you all one last time that our church’s Souper Bowl of Caring will be wrapping up at morning worship. You can still bring needed food items on Sunday, February 12th (needed items are listed on the Souper Bowl of Caring announcement in this Illuminator). As part of this effort, we are going to ask the children on Sunday morning to help bring some of the food up to the altar as a tangible sign that we engage in these kinds of projects as part of our commitment to God and God’s kingdom. So, the children will walk down the aisles of the sanctuary on Sunday morning with a wagon. If you’d like to participate by placing some food in the wagon, be sure to sit near the aisle on your pew. You can either bring a food item to place in the wagon or we’ll be happy to bring you one before the service. I think this will end up being a wonderful way for our children to see the church at work and understand that everything we do is ultimately for God.

I will also tell you to stay tuned over the coming months as we begin to transition from winter to spring to summer. The staff and several committees are already working on opportunities for missions, for fellowship, and for special worship services. From the church yard sale, to special Lenten services, to the return of a little friendly competition between college fanbases, there’s a lot that will be happening at Hope Valley over the coming months!

Also, based on absolutely nothing but what I hope happens, I think Kansas City wins, 28-24, with Mahomes leading a touchdown drive in the last two minutes.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

Brothers and sisters,

Two weeks ago, I wrote to you all about some of what we’ve been discussing in our Wednesday Night Bible Study meetings. We’ve been reading through the book Worship Come to Its Senses by Don E. Saliers and we’ve been thinking about some of the “senses” that Saliers says worship may be missing. Last night, we talked about some of what Saliers has written about the sense of delight that we can find in worship. And there was one phrase he used that sticks with me today. He talked about a Christian way of living into “the marriage of duty and delight.” And that can seem like a strange phrase, but I’ll give you an example that may seem a little weird at first, but bear with me.

Right now, I’m replaying one of my favorite games. It’s a cozy farming simulator called Stardew Valley. The plot is simple enough: your character was working a thankless job in the city when they learn that, in his will, their grandfather left them his old farm in Stardew Valley. As the player, you then go about the business of reviving your grandfather’s farm. It’s a really easy, relaxing game (so relaxing, in fact, that I sometimes fall asleep while playing it, dooming my character to run into the side of a mountain until I wake up). And there are so many amazing things you can do in the game! You can fight monsters and clear out old mines. You can restore the local community center and help revive not just your farm, but your whole community. You can build structures and plant your crops in such a way that you create a farm that not only produce lots of crops, but looks beautiful. And all that is wonderful—I take great delight in playing the game! But to get to all that, you have to do the basic things. Crops have to be watered. Weeds need to be cut away. Animals need to be fed. Resources have to be gathered. There is a certain sense of duty that goes along with Stardew Valley. Certain things have to be done on certain days. But if you master those basic things, you can see opportunities to do delightful things within the game. But is starts with your regular duties.

In a similar way, when we come to worship each week, even on those days we don’t necessarily feel like coming, we begin to see opportunities for delight. We become more familiar with the structure of worship and we can begin to see moments that bring us joy. When we come to worship regularly, we learn our favorite hymns and get to sense the joy that comes from hearing them sung by a room full of people. When we come to worship dutifully, we can hear the communion liturgy and internalize it, remembering the traditions of the church — the ones that teach us of God’s love — have been passed down for generations dating all the way back to the disciples themselves. When we come to worship regularly, we can learn about the things happening in each other’s lives and we can see the ways that God may be calling us to love our brothers and sisters, to reach out to our community, or to grow in our faith. And in doing all of that, we experience the joy and delight of a God who loves us deeply. The “marriage of duty and delight” is that understanding that God is with us in everything and because of that, we can take joy in everything.

Grace and peace,
Pastor Ben

Brothers and sisters,

As we start this new year, one of the things that has been on my mind a lot has been worship. Why do we worship? Why do we do the things we do in worship? What does our worship say about our relationship with God? As part of that process of thinking and wondering, I made my way back to an old favorite book of mine, Worship Come to Its Senses by Don Saliers. The book is short, but it asks a lot of good questions and offers a lot of meaningful insights into what it means to worship.

In fact, the book is so interesting, we are reading through it and talking about it during our Wednesday night meetings (you’re welcome to join us!). Last week, January 4th, we took a look at the introduction to the book and pondered this double question that Saliers offers, “What makes Chris-tian worship true and relevant, and how can our liturgical gatherings shape and express authentic Christian faith and life in the world of everyday?” (p. 13-14). And so, I wanted to offer you all some of my own opinion on those two questions. First, what makes Christian worship true and relevant comes down to the fact that we believe that God is present with us in worship. We cling to Christ’s promise that whenever Christians gather together, God is with them. And so the truth of any worship service comes from God. The service must be rooted in God or it can never begin to approach truth. The relevance of worship, then, has to come from us understanding that the God we encounter in worship is the same God we meet in our everyday lives. Worship is not something we do from 11:00-12:00 on Sun-day morning. The actions, the attitudes, the affirmations have to make their way out the door and into the world. Otherwise, worship is irrelevant at best.

That answer bleeds over into my opinion on the second part of Saliers’ double question—how can our liturgical gatherings shape and express authentic Christian faith and life in the world of everyday? I think the best way to answer this question is with an illustration. On Communion Sundays, we ask folks to grab a communion cup as they are coming into worship. The ushers don’t force anyone to take a cup, but they also don’t “verify” that a person “should” get a communion cup or not. They simply offer the cup. Because communion isn’t about making sure we’re worshiping with the “right” people. It’s about worshiping with everyone. As part of the liturgy on Communion Sundays, you’ll usu-ally hear me say something like, “The invitation to this table does not come from me or Hope Valley; it comes from Christ himself.” And that’s the truth. Christ calls us to share a meal with each other when we come to worship, regardless of who has come to worship. We fellowship together without asking questions. In other words, communion teaches us to love our neighbors regardless of who they are. It teaches us that grace is available to everyone because grace comes from God, not from us. It reminds us that Jesus understands the importance of fellowship and pushes us to create spaces of community together. That aspect of worship can genuinely affect our daily living in such a way that others see God through us—if we let worship shape our lives.

So, I offer Saliers’ double question to you all—what makes Christian worship true and relevant, and how can our liturgical gatherings shape and express authentic Christian faith and life in the world of everyday?

Grace and peace,

Pastor Ben