​God’s Children
(Acts 17:22-31)
 
I’m going to begin by reading you a story that shared with me many years ago.  It is entitled “Angel Story,” and it goes like this:
            The child asked God, “They tell me you are sending me to Earth tomorrow, but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?”  God replied, “Your angel will be waiting for you and will take care of you.”
            The child stated, “But here in heaven I don’t have to do anything but sing and smile to be happy.”  God responded, “Your angel will sing for you and will smile for you.  And you will feel your angel’s love and be very happy.”
            The child inquired, “How am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me if I don’t know the language?”  God answered, “Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear and, with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak.”
            The child cried, “But what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?”  God said, “Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray.”
            “Who will protect me?” asked the child.  “Your angel will defend you even if it means risking its life,” reassured God.
            “But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore,” bemoaned the child.  “Your angel will always talk to you about me and will teach you the way to come back to me, even though I will always be next to you,” God responded.
            At that moment there was much peace in heaven, but voices from Earth could be heard and the child hurriedly requested, “God, if I am to leave now, please tell me my angel’s name.”
            And God answered, “You will simply call her ‘Mom’.”
 
Today is Mother’s Day.  This is an appropriate story to share for Mother’s Day, for it not only reminds us of the role that mothers play in our lives, it reminds us of the role that God plays in our lives.
 
The story begins with the child in heaven having a conversation with God.  Before the child is born into this world, she is with God.  Her relationship with God is her first and primary relationship.  Without her relationship with God, she will not have a relationship with a mother.  First and foremost, she is God’s child.
 
First and foremost, she is God’s child, but God shares his child with a woman, allowing that woman to be the mother of his child.  While the child is on Earth, the woman will stand in for God.  The woman will be God’s representative, doing the things the story states:  taking care of the small and helpless child, singing and smiling for the child, talking to the child and teaching her to talk, teaching the child how to pray, protecting and defending the child, and teaching the child about God.  The woman will be God’s representative – God’s angel – through her role as the child’s mother.  And she will do her best to communicate the love and grace of God to the beloved child that God has shared with her.
 
The mother with whom God shares his child will do her best but, as a human being, her best will be less than God’s best.  It is the nature of being human to be less than God.  We are finite; God is infinite.  We are corruptible; God is incorruptible.  We sin and commit evil; God is sinless and is incapable of committing evil.  We do our best, but we always fall short in some way.  Our failure is nothing to be ashamed of or guilty about – it is just the way it is.  We cannot be perfect as God is perfect, and so we will fail in some way at some time.
 
And, if we don’t fail, the world fails.  You may be the perfect mother, but you and your child live in an imperfect world, a world in which there is sin and evil, illness and war, death and destruction.  Think of the parents and children in the Middle East at this time in history. Every morning those in that area of the world wake up not knowing whether they will be alive to go to bed that night.  If we don’t fail, the world around us fails.  We are broken people who live in a broken world and, despite doing our best and giving our all, we fall short of showing forth God’s love and grace in their fullest.  That’s just the way it is.
 
Which is why it is so essential – so important – to remember that we are not only our mothers’ children but, first and foremost, God’s children.  It is in God that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).  Above and beyond, before and behind anything or anyone else, we are God’s children.
 
It is so essential to remember this because we will be tempted to forget it.  As we are born and live in this world and are disappointed and hurt by it we will be tempted to forget that we are God’s children and that it is in God that we live and move and have our being.  And when we forget this essential truth, we are vulnerable to a host of sins, such as cynicism, despair, and idolatry.  When we are cynical we are scornful, bitter, and mocking.  We take nothing good seriously because we don’t dare to believe in good.  When we are despairing we are overcome by a sense of futility and defeat.  We have no hope because we don’t believe that that for which we hope will come to pass.  When we are idolatrous we worship idols – things other than God, like money, or sex, or fame, or power, or food, or alcohol, or drugs, or people – because we have forgotten our true home and lost our way.  When we forget that we are, first and foremost, children of God, we are vulnerable to becoming separated from God through a host of sins, moving further and further away from our true parent and our true home, and becoming orphans on Earth.
 
As we move further and further away from our true parent and our true home, as we become orphans on Earth, we suffer more and more pain.  If our air supply is cut off we are in increasing pain.  If our food supply is cut off we are in increasing pain.  If our water supply is cut off we are in increasing pain.  The pain increases until we finally die.  We cannot be cut off from those things that keep us alive physically without suffering pain and, eventually, death. 
 
It is the same with that which keeps us alive spiritually:  our connectedness with God.  If our God supply is cut off we are in increasing spiritual pain until we finally die a spiritual death.  It is in God that we live and move and have our being so, if we cut ourselves off from God, we no longer live and move and exist in the way we were made to live and move and exist.  We become orphans on Earth, spiritual Zombies, supposedly alive but actually dead.
 
Henri Nouwen discovered the truth of all this through his own painful experience.  He had forgotten that, first and foremost, he was God’s child and he had slid into idolatry.  His idolatry took the form of a friendship.  The love and appreciation that his friend gave him became to him like the love and appreciation that God gives him.  In a sense, his friend became like God to him.  When his friend withdrew his friendship, Henri suffered horribly.  It felt to him like his life source had been taken from him.  He had mistakenly worshipped something other than God, depending on that thing for his well-being and, when it was taken away, he fell into a deep depression.  He lost his will to live.
 
Thankfully, Henri had not completely forgotten God.  He was able to turn again to God, to the true source of his life and, as his connection to God was restored, he began to heal.  He began to remember that he was God’s child above and beyond, behind and before anything or anyone else.   Whatever else life on this Earth handed to him, he could put it in its proper perspective because he remembered that he was God’s child.
 
Henri expressed this insight in an entry in his journal entitled “Accept Your Identity as a Child of God.”  This is what he wrote to himself and, ultimately, to all of us:

"Your true identity is as a child of God.  This is the identity you have to accept.  Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain.  You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you as an opportunity for strengthening your basic identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame.  You belong to God, and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world. . . .

Only God can fully dwell in that deepest place in you and give you a sense of safety.  But the danger remains that you will let other people run away with your sacred center, thus throwing you into anguish. . . .

Gradually, though, you will begin feeling more connected and become more fully who you truly are – a child of God.  There lies your real freedom."[1]
 
It is truly a blessing to have a mother like the one described in the story shared at the beginning of this sermon, a mother who is an angel of God.  Some of us are blessed to have such a mother.  Others of us are not so blessed.  Our mothers may be so broken themselves that they are unable to be God’s angel.   Or they may not be alive to be God’s angel for us.  Some of us are blessed to have a mother who is able to be God’s angel for us but the circumstances in which we live are harmful.  Maybe we live in a war-torn area.  Maybe we live in an area wracked by famine and drought. Maybe we live in an area threatened by gang violence. 
 
The ways in which children can be harmed both inside and outside their homes are many and various.  Once we are born on this earth we are vulnerable to the finite, corruptible nature of human beings and the world.  But none of that matters, ultimately, because we do not belong, ultimately, to finite and corruptible humans, or to the finite, corruptible world.  We belong to God and are his children.  We come from him and we will return to him.  The challenge for us while on this Earth is to remember our true parent and our true home and to live out of that memory.  People and the world-at-large can praise us or blame us, complement us or criticize us, help us or hurt us.  Will they affect us on some level?  Of course.  But on another level, a truer level, they have no power over us, because we do not come from them nor will we return to them.  We come from God and we will return to God.  We are God’s children, and he is the Lord of heaven and of earth.  He will not abandon his children – he cannot abandon his children – because it is in him that we live and move and have our being.  Whatever those around us or the world-at-large gives us, we must remember that truth and remain anchored in our identity as children of God.  Therein lies our real freedom.  Amen.
 
 
Sermon preached by Rev. Amy Johnson at the Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, Sunday, May 8, 2016, the Seventh Sunday of Easter.


[1] The Inner Voice of Love:  A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom.  New York:  Doubleday, 1996, 70-71.

Belief & Reality
(Jn 3:14-21)
 
I’m going to tell you a fable.  There was a family in a faraway country.  For an unknown reason, the family had to leave the village they were living in and find a new village to live in.  So they gathered their things together and began their journey to find a new village.  They traveled for a few days and, finally, they came to another village. An old man was sitting at the entrance to the village.  The members of the family asked the old man what the village was like.  They wanted to know if it was a nice place to live.  Before answering them, the old man asked them a question.  “What was the village you left like?  Was it a nice place to live?” he asked.  They replied, “Oh no.  It was a horrible place to live.  The people who lived there were stupid, there was nothing to do with our free time, and our neighbors never kept their house or yard up.  We were happy to leave.”  The old man sighed and said, “I’m sorry to say that this village is the same way.  You’d be better off if you found another place to live.”  And the family went on their way.
 
The next day, another family, who also had had to leave the village they were living in and who were also looking for a new place to live, came upon the same village the other family had come upon.  As with the day before, the old man was sitting at the entrance to the village.  The members of the family asked him the same question the other family members had asked.  They asked the old man what the village was like.  Was it a nice place to live?  The old man replied the same as he had the day before.  He asked, “What was the village you left like?  Was it a nice place to live?”   They replied, “Oh yes.  It was a wonderful place to live.  The people who lived there were so kind and thoughtful.  There were so many things to do in our free time.  And our neighbors were delightful.  It was a joy to live next to them.  We were sorry to leave.”  The old man laughed and said, “You’re in luck, then.  This village is the same way.  You’ve found your new home!”  And the family entered the village and began their new life there.
 
You see, the old man knew that our experience of things is dependent on us – what we believe colors our experience of life.  The old man knew that the first family would recreate the same reality in this village that they had created in the previous village.  He knew the same thing about the second family.  Therefore, he could answer them the different ways he had.  We take ourselves with us wherever we go, and we experience the world through those selves.
 
What we believe has an effect on our experience of life.  That is really what the gospel reading for today is about.  First, we hear, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (Jn 3:16).  When we hear this passage, our tendency is to think of perishing as physical death, and eternal life as living beyond physical death, as living forever, into eternity.  But I believe that John was also talking about perishing while living, before actual physical death, and having eternal life while living, before actual physical death.  Eternal life doesn’t only refer to length of life, but to the character and quality of life.  John 17:3 states that, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  Eternal life is life lived in the knowledge of God.  Life lived in the knowledge of God is life lived in the love of God and the love of neighbor.  In John’s gospel, the only commandment that Jesus gives his disciples is to love one another:  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13:34).  Eternal life is life rooted in the Kingdom of God.
 
Perishing, then, is not knowing God.  It is life not lived in the knowledge of God.  It is life not lived in the love of God and the love of neighbor.  It is life that is not rooted in the Kingdom of God.
 
I’m going to tell you another fable.  There was a castle.  In this castle there were two dining rooms.  In both dining rooms there were tables upon tables filled with glorious and sumptuous food.  There was so much food, it was almost more than the eye could take in.  In the one dining room, the people seated at the tables were starving and morose.  They were staring at the food, but they weren’t eating.  The utensils they had to eat with had such long handles that they couldn’t get them to their mouths.  They could fill the forks and spoons with food, but they couldn’t get the food to their mouths.  So, they were starving and morose.
 
In the other dining room, the people seated at the tables were well-fed and joyous.  They were laughing and talking and having a wonderful time.  They, too, had utensils that had long handles.  But they were feeding each other rather than trying to feed themselves and, when you are feeding someone else, it doesn’t matter how long the handles of the utensils are!  So, they were well-fed and joyous.
 
Those in the first dining room were not living eternal lives, whereas those in the second dining room were.  Those in the first dining room were perishing, whereas those in the second dining room were thriving.
 
When the gospel reading goes on to say that “those who believe in [the Son of God] are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already” (Jn 3:18), this is what John is talking about.  Those in the first dining room were condemned because they were not loving one another.  They were each concerned only about their own welfare.  They were literally starving, but they were spiritually starving, too.  They were perishing.  Those in the second dining room were not condemned because they were loving one another.  They were concerned about each other’s welfare as well as their own.  As a result, they were literally well-fed and spiritually well-fed.  They were living eternal lives.
 
We were made in the image of God.  If God is love (1 John 4:8,16) and we were made in the image of God, then our true nature is love.  We are not condemned when we embrace and honor our true nature.  We are condemned when we don’t embrace and honor our true nature.
 
Believing in Jesus means believing in the presence of God in the world.  It means believing in the presence of God’s love in the world.  It means believing that that love is in us, too.  But belief doesn’t end there.  What we believe has material results.  What we believe is expressed in how we live our lives, in the impact we have on the world.  The epistle reading for today, Ephesians 2:1-10, states that, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (10).  If we believe in the presence of God’s love in he world, if we believe that that love is in us, too, then we do good works, for we believe that that is our way of life – to love one another, just as God in Jesus Christ has loved us.
 
If you were to leave your village today, how would you describe it to the man at the gate?  Are you perishing, or are you living eternal life?  Perhaps, for most of us, it’s a little of both.  But God calls us to claim our true nature; to live into the image in which we were made; to grow in faith, hope, and love; to sit at the banquet table well-fed and joyous, our feet firmly rooted in the Kingdom of God, living eternal lives.  May we do so!  Amen. 
 
Sermon preached by the Rev. Amy Johnson at the Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, Sunday, May 1, 2016, the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
​

Allowing God to Grace Us
(2 Kings 5:1-19)
 
Every so often, something in life reminds me of the Edgar Allen Poe short story called “The Masque of the Red Death.”  I don’t know if any of you have read it.  It’s a fantastic story, and I mean “fantastic” in the sense that it is bizarre and unreal.  Poe creates a strange world in which a strange tale takes place.  I read it as a child and it made a lasting impression on me.
 
It’s the story of a country and its people that were being ravaged by the Red Death, a plague that was hideous and fatal.  It marked its victims with bloody stains on the body, which is why it was called the Red Death.  It’s also the story of a Prince – Prince Prospero – and how he dealt with the plague that was ravaging his country.  When the disease had killed half of the people in his kingdom, he called together a thousand of his friends, all of whom belonged to the upper crust of society, and he retired with them to one of his castles.  The castle was surrounded by a wall and had gates of iron.  Once the prince and his friends were inside the castle walls, they welded shut the bolts of the gates. Their plan was to shut out the Red Death, leaving those outside to its ravages while they partied and played inside.  This is how Poe describes their plan:
A strong and lofty wall girdled [the caste] in.  This wall had gates of iron.  The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and . . . hammers and welded the bolts. . . .  The [castle] was amply provisioned.  With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion.  The external world could take care of itself.  In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think.  The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure.  There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.  All these and security were within.  Without was the “Red Death.”[1]
 
After about five or six months of being ensconced in the castle, Prince Prospero decided to throw a masked ball to entertain himself and his friends.  He held it in a section of the castle that was unusually designed and decorated.  This section of the castle consisted of a suite of seven rooms.  Rather than leading in a straight line from one to the other, the rooms were set at angles, so that you couldn’t see much more than one room at a time.  In the middle of each room, on both the right and the left walls, there was a tall, narrow Gothic window that looked out upon a corridor that followed the angles of the rooms.  The windows were made of stained glass.  Each set of windows in each room was a different color.  The color matched the decorations in each of the rooms.  The first room had blue windows and blue decorations; the second purple; the third green; the fourth orange, the fifth white, the sixth violet.  But the most fantastic of the rooms was the seventh.  The seventh room was hung with black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and the walls.  It had a black velvet carpet.  But, in this room only, the color of the stained glass windows did not match the color of the decorations.  Instead, in this room, the windows were stained blood red.  This room also contained a big, ebony clock that struck the hour with a strange and disturbing sound.
 
Now, outside each window in each room, in the corridor that followed the rooms, there was a tripod that held a bowl of fire that lit the rooms through the stained glass windows.  This was the only light that the rooms had – there were no lamps or candles in any of the rooms.  They were lit only by the light from the fire glowing through the stained glass windows.
 
Prince Prospero and his guests were having a grand time at this grand masked ball held in the grand and bizarre suite of rooms.  But, as the ebony clock in the ebony room lit by the blood-red windows struck midnight, they all became aware of a new guest, one they hadn’t noticed before.  This new guest was dressed in a costume that offended each and every guest.  He was dressed as a corpse that had been struck dead by the Red Death.
 
When the prince saw this guest he was outraged!  Who dared to insult them by mocking the Red Death in the midst of their revels?  He ordered the guests to seize and unmask the intruder!
 
But no one approached the intruder – in fact, all the guests shrank against the walls of the room, away from the intruder and he began to walk, slowly and deliberately, through the blue room to the purple, through the purple to the green, through the green to the orange, through the orange to the white, through the white to the violet, and through the violet to the black.  As the intruder reached the violet room, Prince Prospero rushed after him, through all of the rooms, determined to seize and unmask him himself.  As he ran he pulled a dagger from his garments and prepared to stab the intruder.
 
But, when the prince was three to four feet from the intruder, the intruder had reached the farthest wall of the black room and he turned to face the prince.  At that moment, the prince uttered a sharp cry and fell, dead, onto the carpet.  Then the rest of the guests rushed as a crowd into the black room and seized the intruder, only to find that the costume held no person.
 
Poe ends his story with the following:
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death.  He had come like a thief in the night.  And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.  And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the [happy].  And the flames of the tripods expired.  And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.[2]
The End.
 
By this time you’re probably asking yourself why in the world I’m telling you this bizarre and gruesome Edgar Allen Poe story.  Isn’t this supposed to be a sermon?  Yes, it is, and here comes the sermonizing part of the sermon.
 
Prince Prospero, a wealthy and powerful man with wealthy and powerful friends, thought that he and his friends were immune to the Red Death.  They had the means to withdraw to a walled castle and lock its gates to the Red Death.  They would play and party while the plague raged on.  They thought that, because of their social and political position, they were above being harmed by those things that the poor and lowly contend with on a daily basis – in this case, disease and death.
 
But the prince and his friends were wrong.  Their wealth and their power could perhaps postpone the inevitable, but the inevitable would come, uninvited.  What they learned – too late – is that no one – no one – is immune to the trials and tribulations of this world – no one.  Disease and death are the great equalizers and, in the end, both the rich and the poor of Prince Prospero’s kingdom lay in their graves.
 
In the Old Testament scripture reading for today, Namaan, the commander of the King of Aram’s army, discovers what Prince Prospero discovered too late, that no one is immune to the trials and tribulations of this world.  As the commander of the king’s army, Namaan was an important and powerful man.  He held a position of great political and military power.  Yet, he suffered from a painful, embarrassing, and humiliating skin disease. 
 
Now, Namaan, like Prince Prospero, probably surrounded himself with other important and powerful people.  After all, he was in high favor with the king.  But it wasn’t the important and powerful people who helped him with his skin disease.  Instead, it was a lowly servant girl, an Israeli prisoner of war, who helped Namaan.  She told Namaan’s wife about Elisha, the prophet of Israel, who she was sure could heal him of his disease.  Namaan’s wife told Namaan, and Namaan set out for Israel seeking to be healed by the great prophet Elisha.
 
There was Namaan, the powerful commander of the King of Aram’s army, approaching Elisha’s house with all of his horses and chariots.  I’m sure it was a grand procession.  But Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to speak directly to Namaan.  Instead, he sent a messenger to him with instructions on how Namaan could be healed.  Namaan had expected a great show of respect, followed by a great show of healing, maybe with some thunder and lightning and the voice of God thrown in for effect and, instead, he got a message from a lowly messenger and instructions to go and wash in the River Jordan.  Ha!  He could have stayed home and washed in the rivers of Aram if that was all that was necessary!  He didn’t have to travel all that way to be insulted by a so-called prophet of God.  He deserved better!  He was the commander of a great king’s army!
 
Again, it wasn’t his important and powerful friends that helped him – it was his servants.  They – bravely, I might add – approached him while he was in a rage and convinced him that it wouldn’t hurt to try what the prophet had instructed.  What did he have to lose?
 
And Namaan was touched by their reasoning.  His rage melted away.  He did as Elisha had instructed and was healed.
 
Both Prince Prospero and Namaan suffered from the same thing:  arrogance.  Long before they suffered from physical disease they suffered from the spiritual disease of arrogance.  The dictionary defines arrogance as “the state or quality of being arrogant.”  And “arrogant” is defined as being “overly convinced of one’s importance; overbearingly proud; haughty.”[3]  Both Prince Prospero and Namaan were overly convinced of their importance.  They were both proud and haughty. 
 
But there was a crucial difference between Prince Prospero and Namaan.  The prince sequestered himself away from those who were suffering.  He didn’t allow them to touch his life in any way.  Namaan, however, was surrounded by servants.  Servants are people who tend to know suffering.  They have no status or power and are poor.  We know, from the Bible, that at least one of his servants was also a prisoner of war, the young girl from Israel.  Certainly, she had suffered.  As those who know suffering and have felt powerless in the face of it, servants tend to be humble.  They don’t suffer from arrogance.  They know how to both seek and give help, because they have had to do so with each other to survive their plight.
 
Namaan was surrounded by suffering servants and he was graced by their presence.  It was they who saved him from his arrogance and thus from his disease.  Namaan’s arrogance would have prevented him from being healed had not the humility of his servants saved him.  The humility of his servants allowed Namaan to receive God’s grace.  And his response was deep gratitude and deep faith.  He was no longer an arrogant, prideful man, but a humble, faithful man.
 
Who knows what would have befallen the prince had he been exposed to those who were suffering?  Perhaps they would have shared their survival tips with him.  Or, perhaps, when he fell sick, they would have ministered to him.  Or, perhaps their humility would have saved him from his arrogance.  But the prince wasn’t blessed, as Namaan was.  He was not blessed with the presence of those who suffer, and so he was never delivered from his arrogance, and so he never experienced God’s grace.  Truly, as Poe says at the end of his story, for Prince Prospero and his guests, separated forever from others and from God by their arrogance, “Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion.”
 
The story of Prince Prospero and the story of Namaan teach us that no one is immune from the trials and tribulations of life.  It doesn’t matter what position we hold in life or how much money we have.  We will all suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” at some time in our lives.
 
The story of Prince Prospero and the story of Namaan teach us that arrogance prevents us from experiencing God’s grace in the midst of the trials and tribulations of life.  It keeps us separate from those who can be a blessing to us.  And it keeps us separate from God. 
 
The story of Prince Prospero and the story of Namaan teach us that humility saves us.  Humility allows us to seek and receive the healing we need.  It allows us to let others minister to us.  It allows God to grace us through others.
 
And, finally, the story of Prince Prospero and the story of Namaan teach us that when God graces us, we are changed.  When the redeeming grace of God is given the opportunity to enter our lives, our lives can never, ever stay the same.  We are given a new heart and a new spirit, one reoriented and redirected by God.[4] 
 
May we allow God to grace us, for, when we do, we are blessed.  Amen.
 
Sermon preached by the Rev. Amy Johnson at the Canton Community Baptist Church, Canton, CT, Sunday, April 24, 2016, the Fifth Sunday of Easter.


[1] In The American Tradition in Literature, Volume 1, Fourth Edition, edited by Bradley, Beatty, Long and Perkins.  Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., 1974, 839-840.

[2] Bradley, Beatty, Long and Perkins, 844.

[3] In The American Heritage Dictionary.  Second College Edition.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991, 129.

[4] This sentence is adapted from Texts for Preaching:  A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year C, by Cousar, Gaventa , McCann, and Newsome.  Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, 413.

During the months of May & June, we will be collecting items for a Blessing Backpack Ministry.  After we collect the items, we will assemble the Blessing Backpacks at a potluck lunch after worship.  The backpacks will be donated to Canton Senior & Social Services and the Police Department.  You can also choose to take one to keep in your car for those times you see a person in need.  Please see the file link below for the list of items we will be collecting. You can also watch the video below for more information. Thank you. 

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