This, We Know.

I'll tell you the truth: There's a heckuva lot that I don't know. And, in fact, if comfortable certainty is the measure of one's knowledge, then I must confess that I probably know LESS every day, the older I get.

This past year has surely amplified that feeling. It has been a year that has raised - and continues to raise - hard questions, and offered no easy answers. Pandemic has assaulted our health, and safety, and normal social conventions. Lives, and livelihoods, and community ties have been lost. The life and rhythms and routines that we previously took for granted have been upended, and where once were easy assumptions, we now have perpetual uncertainty. How long will this go on? How many, and how much will be lost, before the end? What impacts will linger, to shape our lives and communities long after this sickness has passed us by?

I don't know.

The scourge and sin of racial animus and injustice, woven through the fabric of our national legacy and history from the beginning, continues haunt our steps. And, it seems clear that it will continue to do so, until it is truly faced as such, and reckoned with in earnest. Myriad lives have been lost, countless innocents have been systematically harassed and imprisoned and dehumanized; dozens of protests and demonstrations have erupted across our nation this very year... How long will we be so haunted? How long, before we find the courage to face ourselves? How long before the Church in this nation rediscovers her calling, to demonstrate and announce the gospel of "repentance, that leads to life"? How long?

I don't know.

And what shall we say with regards to the state of American democracy, today? Can a people effectively self-govern, who cannot discern truth from falsehood? Who prefer lies and conspiracies and absurdity and propaganda, so long as it feeds their fear, complements their pursuit of power, and massages their own fragile sense of self-importance? Who cannot even tell the difference between sedition, and patriotism? Can a people self-govern, utterly divorced from self-awareness? Can a nation endure and abide - constructively co-exist and together seek the common good - when we cannot agree even upon a common reality? I'll be honest...

I really don't know.

The present is confounding, and the future is inscrutable; "Now we see as in a mirror, darkly", the Apostle Paul says. There's just a whole lot we don't know; about what's happening, and where it's going, and what we're supposed to about it. It is easy to feel paralyzed beneath the weight of uncertainty. Easy, to feel trapped by futility and fear. Easy, to just want to "check out", at least for a while. But, if Jesus is to be believed, then it is not avoidance - or power or courage or cleverness or even knowledge - that will set us free from fear; it is LOVE. Specifically, love for God, expressed through love for one another.

These are difficult days, and it feels difficult to know how we are supposed to proceed. We face a community hampered by isolation, a nation crippled by vitriol, and a Church bereft of integrity. But, let us not make complicated what Jesus has made simple. When all else has failed, when the fruits of our cleverness and shows of strength and self-righteous posturing have revealed themselves to be rotten will we return, humbled, to the root of our faith? Will we return, and respond again to the radical call of the self-giving love of Christ?

I'll be honest: I don't know how to "pastor" or lead us charismatically through this moment. I'm tired and frustrated and saddened by the state of the world, and the state of the (white, western) Church within it. I'm saddened by my own lack of clarity and clear, compelling answers to meet the challenges of these days. I want to have the comfortable confidence of a PLAN, again, but uncertainty and constant disruption scoff at our best attempts at such, don't they? Where do we even begin?

This is my best attempt at an answer, today: That we begin, at the beginning. We begin, with Jesus. We begin with the love of Christ, made real through humble, sacrificial love for one another. And that, not theoretically, but ACTUALLY. In practice. And toward this end, we have an opportunity before us, today.

A sister in our midst is in need. She is a mother of four children, abandoned by her husband, in the middle of a pandemic. Now a single mom, with kids struggling to navigate a year of "virtual" education effectively on their own she must now, for a time, step away from the job that has been her only consistent - if limited - source of income in order to better care for them; to address their mental, emotional and educational needs. The situation for this family is critical. As a community, we have committed to do what we can to come alongside them in this moment. My conviction is that, at the least, as a family of faith we will not allow this family to lose their home in these months ahead.

There's a whole lot I don't know, today. But this, I do know:

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples (Jesus says), if you have love for one another." And,

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction..."

I don't know where our country is headed, and I don't know what sort of reckoning the Church is going to face; I don't even know what life and ministry and worship will look like next week. But I know this: we can start HERE... and see what the Spirit of God sees fit to stir up, from there.

To be clear: we can't "afford" to do this, financially speaking. But I am convinced that we cannot afford NOT to do it, in view of the economy of the Kingdom. So, the opportunity we now have is to raise the $15,000 we will need in order to meet our commitments, and ensure that we can provide this housing assistance from now, through the summer months. Other avenues of assistance are being actively pursued, and we hope upon a return to relative "normalcy" in schooling, etc. come the Fall of 2021. Between now and then, however, this is our burden, blessing, honor and calling to bear, together.

This is the purpose behind our "$15k Campaign". More info can be found at churchofthecommons.org/15k-campaign .

We may not be able to gather, during these winter months. We may not be able to visit easily in one another's homes, for some time. We may be deprived of our songs and sanctuaries and comfortable social interactions. But, we CAN still WORSHIP, and we ARE still the CHURCH. And I pray that we may turn again, and all the more wholeheartedly to the way of love, in Christ; to the root of our faith, during this season. As we do so the Lord will be glorified, his people will be blessed, and his Kingdom will advance.

I don't know much. But this, I know.

Every Blessing,

Pastor Chris