July 5, 2020

Join us for a Service of Worship

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Virtual Church – Online

Rev. Dr. Libby Grammer will preach a sermon entitled, “A Tale of Two Churches”

Scriptures include: Psalm 145:8-14 and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.

Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities says, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The Gospel of Matthew says, “We played the flute for you and you did not dance, we wailed, and you did not mourn.” When Christianity began, it looked nothing like the religion people had always known, and in fact looked different even from John the Baptist’s announcement of the Messiah to Jesus of Nazareth’s life and teachings. We try and try to make Christianity a monolith, our church one kind of church. But the truth is that Jesus calls us beyond those ways in which we try to limit God’s message through Christ. There are many different ways, and we must be open to them all or we are missing the point.

As we embark on a new venture of “The Open Church” – an outdoor, casual service where we invite anyone to come, I think we’re headed in the direction of God’s wider, more expansive kingdom. But it means setting aside some of our preconceived notions about what church is – because even Jesus Christ can’t catch a break! (Here in our text it says Jesus was “a glutton, drunkard, friend of tax collectors and sinners.”) But Wisdom teaches us that following Jesus doesn’t just look one way. And this small iteration of the Church universal and First Baptist Church, the one outside on the grass in jeans and shorts, may look different and may seem like a whole different church – but it’s one that stretches as Matthew tells us to in our text today. And when we lean into it, we can be released from our weariness and rest (trust) in God’s plans for our witness in Martinsville and Henry County. I’m excited. Are you?