Blog

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

Psalm 51:1-12

Reflection: v.6 ‘you desire truth’

As a preacher, I have learned the intentional practice of ‘veiled’ speaking—expressing my opinion or answering a difficult question in the least offensive or divisive way possible. Sharing what I believe to be true about our rich and radical gospel, while measuring it out with enough kindness, compassion, and context to seep through people’s defensiveness.

When you work with an ecumenical community with diverse backgrounds, traditions, and opinions, you learn how to speak (and write and preach) strategically. Such communicating can be a gift in our polarizing world, where we are quick to retort, exclude, and assume. There is a time and place for such strategic speaking—a time to make room in the conversation for, yes, even our enemy.

And yet, there are times, I must confess, that I have used my precious veils to hide and shield myself from conflict. There were times when I tried to cushion and soften hard truths, not for the sake of compassion or unity, but for my own comfort and fear of rebuke. Times when I have tiptoed into the deep truths of our scriptures with such trepidatious obliqueness that instead of hearing what they needed to, people heard what they wanted to, and I let them. This year has had many lessons for us people of God and I think one of them has been that the truth matters. So, let me speak clearly and without trepidation. The explosion of violence and hatred we witnessed on January 6th at our nation’s Capitol was the product of weeks, years, and even generations of bombastic lies and misinformation shared among the disgruntled, the vengeful, and the misled alike. Speaking the truth, sharing the truth, acknowledging the truth matters, and is as important as ever. I pray God gives us the strength, the courage, and the wisdom to hear it, speak it, and write it on our hearts, especially when we resist its difficulty.

Prayer God of all that is true, guide us in your wisdom.

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

Reflection: v.31 ‘I will make a new covenant’

At Mercy we share in communion every Sunday. The pastors take turns presiding at the table, so I am often blessed with the opportunity to lead there. As I pour bright grape juice into a cup, I speak a version of the words of institution, reminding us that this cup is a new covenant. Over many weeks of speaking these words I have started weaving in some practiced liturgy of my own.

Behind my mask I smile and remind my community that a ‘new covenant’ is just a fancy way of saying that God is faithful to us. We see it here in the words of Jeremiah, in which God notes that though the people of God broke their side of the covenant, God remains faithful. I believe that is part of what we are called to remember at the table. And though we hear these ‘fancy’ oft-recited words frequently, do we remember, as they tell us to do, that God is faithful to us? There are a lot of people out there who will try to tell you who God is and what God is about. Sometimes our sacred scriptures get used to push people down or leave people out—or worse, sometimes they are used to perpetuate violence, racism, and bigotry. This is part of why I believe it is so important to talk about who God is and remind ourselves of this often, lest we forget, or start to believe that God is as hateful, vengeful, or bigoted as we can be to one another. No, beloved, our God is faithful. Our God loves human beings. Remember this promise.

Prayer Write it on our hearts that we may remember your faithfulness!

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Brittany Fiscus-van Rossum

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Reflection: v.34 ‘for they shall all know me’

This season of ministry has been challenging for me. On my best days, I believe I am a good pastor. I love human beings in all their messy complexities. I love listening, learning others’ stories, and building relationships. But in this season of ministry the patient practice of getting to know someone is more difficult. There are so many other things of which to be mindful and cautious, and so much extra work to do, so many new people, that it is hard to make time or space in my brain and my heart to learn and love more human beings. That is how it was when I first met John. John was new to our community and had started coming around, like many, after the pandemic began. I did not know John’s name but knew him as the man who could never seem to wear his mask properly.

What I perceived as his negligence frustrated me to no end. I hate nagging people about their masks, but am daily forced to persistently and consistently remind, remind, remind people to ‘please pull up your mask.’ One day after reminding John for the third time, I realized I did not even know the name of this man who was frustrating me so. I asked. He seemed pleased that I did. A few weeks later John came through our clothing closet, his mask perfectly in place. I addressed him by name and he halted and looked at me with surprise. ‘How do you know my name?’ he asked me. I reminded him that I had asked him a few weeks ago. ‘And you remembered?’ I laughed and responded that I did. He laughed too and said that this made him feel a certain kind of way, a good way, and that our church had good public relations and kind people. His response made me feel a certain kind of good way too. As John moved down the clothing closet line I teared up, because in that moment I remembered that I am a pastor, not just a mask enforcer, and that it is good to be known.

Prayer Help us to perceive and know you, God, in the faces and names of others.

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Adam Bennett

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Reflection: v. 19, ‘Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.’

Thanksgiving belongs to God!

Countless are the times our Lord has come and saved us from situations that very well could have had a different outcome. Whether it was caused by us or some unseen force, the Lord foreknew our circumstance and intervened.

Every tear we’ve ever shed throughout our lives, He has counted, and He hears every crying out to Him! He was there with us, in our neediness, in our trials and tribulations, in our sorrows and our rebellious times. Never failing to show His grace and loving-kindness towards us.

He saved us from certain death through sin. He forgives without our merits, through Christ Jesus’ death upon the cross! Thank God for the goodness of our Lord Jesus, taking upon Himself the sins of all the world.

Everyday, we should all be filled with thanksgiving and love towards Him who first loved us!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we are humbled before you! Thank you for your loving-kindness towards us, your handiwork! Thank you for saving our souls each day and for showing us the way, the truth, and the life through Christ Jesus. Lead us in the ways of righteousness, that we may never stray away. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen, so be it!

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Bill Smith

Ephesians 2:1-10

Reflection: v. 8, ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God’

Paul here is reminding the Church at Ephesus that salvation comes by grace. It is not about us, or what we have accomplished, but because of God’s grace.

Through God’s faithfulness to human beings, we have been redeemed. Our redemption is in fact a gift of grace! Hence, there are no ‘big I’s or little you’s’ in the church, because all of us need and depend upon the grace of God that is so abundantly shared!

Prayer Thanks be to God that my salvation comes from you, O Lord! Thank you for the gift of your grace!

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Bill Smith

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Reflection: v. 2, ‘let the redeemed of the Lord say so’

Coming up in the church, I always heard this verse quoted after a revival. Upon reading this psalm, those memories came back to me. But. really I think this declaration has a deep meaning that urges us to speak up about what is true. In this current day of quick ‘transactional religion,’ it can be helpful to remember these old ways of giving witness to our faith.

Our God is transformational, and that is something we can witness to with our stories and experiences. As the Psalmist remind us, it is the redeemed of the Lord who should and can give witness to the amazing grace of God.

Prayer God our Redeemer, let us be a witness to your grace!

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Gregory Brown

John 3:14-21

Reflection: v. 21, ‘for those who do what is true come to the light’

Reading this passage takes me back to a poem I once heard. In verse 20, Jesus speaks about the light and darkness—I was thinking about that as I was looking over this passage. I noticed that today it’s cloudy, hazy, and gloomy outside—there’s no light. It could seem like there’s no beauty.

There’s a poem I know that goes something like this: Love is exactly like the sun, but only on the inside. For without the sun, there is all darkness outside. Without love, there is all darkness inside. Just as without the sun, there’s no light outside, without love there is no light inside. The sun is the center of the outer world, love is the center of the inner world. For love and sun is synonymous. So move more and more into the realm of love and you will be moved into the source of light and life without any effort. Be love—and God is love. There are no arguments, nor any philosophy that could ever help like love, for if love helps, then everything fits together, but if love fails, then everything falls apart.

That caught my eye, once I started reading the 20th verse, where it talks about the children of God being children of light. We are of the light, and we are God’s children. Light is very much a part of love, and love very much a part of life.

Prayer Source of love and light and all that is true, remind us that we are your children.

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Kent Smith

Numbers 21:4-9

Reflection: v. 5, ‘the people spoke against God and Moses’

It’s easy to complain when you can put the blame on others. A cursory glance on Yelp will show most restaurants get more negative reviews than positive ones. Even the Israelites complained about their food. Chased far from the land they were born in, threatened with death, lost in a hostile wilderness, the Israelites certainly did not seem to be in a position of strength, let alone comfort. The Israelites fell prone to a common temptation. They complained to Moses and God, ‘We have no food, we have no water.’ The temptation is strong to see these complaints as justified.

This community knows the suffering of going without something to eat and are sympathetic to that plight. Yet did the Israelites’ laments align with reality? In the same breath they said, ‘We have no food, the manna you provided for us is miserable.’ Something doesn’t add up in this case. They cried out for not having food, but yet they also complained about the taste of the food they didn’t have? We know from Exodus, that they received manna, which is described as made with honey, and quail was given to them in addition to the manna!

This time, their problem wasn’t insufficiency, as no one was described as dying of thirst or hunger during their sojourn in the desert, it was ingratitude. For this, their ingratitude was rewarded with a den of poisonous snakes. Perhaps it would have been just to leave them to their fate, but God delivered a way for them out of this, as well—by gazing on a bronze serpent, the Israelites would be cured of the venomous bites of the snakes. The source of their suffering became their salvation from suffering. Jesus himself references this story in John 3:14-16. As humans brought suffering on themselves, so the Son of Man must be witnessed to relieve that suffering.

Prayer My invitation is that we would reject ingratitude in the face of abundance, and see where God provides when we are in need.

Digital Version of Devotional

Author Ray ‘Stonewall’ Walker

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Reflection: v. 21, ‘wonderful works to humankind’

I’m not really a Christian-oriented person, but I believe this is a good text for people who are in distress or doubt. I think everybody who sits here or comes to Mercy is not necessarily a Muslim or a Christian or anything of that nature. I myself am an unorthodox individual in my thinking, but I respect the people who are Christians who share the food that they share and the bedding that they share. It’s a calm environment here—these people are God-sent. I come here and I can get shoes or something to eat and get away from the anger and the madness that exists nowadays amongst different kinds of people.

Here, you can find different kinds of people sitting around and fellowshipping. It’s a way of me getting into paradise, coming here. The days that I come—not only can I get a clean pair of pants, but I can fellowship amongst brothers who I’ve been knowing for three decades. A lot of the people here are my friends, and it’s a better environment than over there in that hell-hole across town. I get a breath of fresh air when I sit here and listen to Chad play the guitar, and the other pastors preach. It’s stability and peace of mind. Everybody can be together, regardless of what they’re wrapped in, or what kind of shoes they’ve got on. Everybody is judged here, foremost, by the content of their character, as Dr. King said, and not by the color of their skin—and that’s a good thing. It’s like being in a utopian environment, for me, because I can sit right here in the middle and watch the whole show, eat my bowl of soup with garlic, and it makes my day.

Prayer Gracious God, fill us up with your love like hot, delicious soup!