First Galveston Rededication
It wasn’t all that long ago that Ike devastated the Gulf Coast. About 19 months. Their first service, with the Service for Healing, with individual prayer and laying on of hands, was one of the most powerful and emotional moments of my time as bishop. Today I’m back at First, Galveston where they are rededicating their refurbished buildings and lives. Check out PHOTOS of the damage.
Big day at First Galveston
Samuel Cox’ baptism this past Sunday.
Galveston County Recovery Meeting for Clergy, over breakfast THIS THURSDAY
4,000 homeowners were uninsured. 80% of those families were low income. Yet relatively few households have applied for assistance. County Judge Jim Yarborough is asking to meet with local clergy for a one-hour breakfast meeting to discuss this. Bernard Scroggin ( 979-236-2017 ) says LSSS Disaster Response is involved through a program called RISE. They are doing case management for about 2,000 clients, but believe there are many still who have given up or are unaware that assistance is available.
If this is in your neck of the woods, come Thursday, April 29 at 8:30 a.m. at Barbour’s Chapel Baptist Church, 7420 FM 1765 (across the street from LaMarque High School). If you are not able to attend this meeting, send a representative. RSVP at 409-939-8017 or 281-300-3235or gcinterfaith@aol.com.
Apologies
I’m forgetting something. My phone died, along with my notes about what to include in this email. So, if I forgot your thing, let me know, and I’ll put it out.
Loved with an Everlasting Love:
Comfort. Perseverence. Faithfulness.
First Lutheran Church, Galveston, Texas
April 25, 2010
You are loved with an everlasting love. That love is revealed to us most clearly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In the language of antiquity: God the Father loved the world so much, he sent his Son who showed us the love of God on the cross and sent us that love, which we call the Holy Spirit, the comforter. In today’s language, the Source of all life, all that we know is truly about love, and we have seen this revealed most profoundly in Jesus of Nazareth. His Spirit calls to us today, drawing us deeply into the Source of Life, which is love.
Last week we heard a Fishing story. The defeated, desjected, despondent disciples are like a ship without a rudder now that their pastor and mentor has been brutally executed. They do the only thing they know how to do. They go fishing.
And by the middle of the night they have caught nothing. They have lost everything, and have nothing to show for it. And then, at the loneliest hour of the night, the dawn begins as the light emerges from the eastern hills of Galilee. After a time they realize someone is on shore, the faint shadow of recognition. Could it be?
Cast your nets on the right side of the boat. A huge catch. Peter puts on his clothes and dives ino the water. On the shore, soaking wet, over a charcoal fire, breakfast with Jesus. Three times: “Peter, do you love me?” “Feed my sheep.” unconditional love and forgiveness, always followed with a call. Always followed with a call. Go.
Septemeber 13, 2008 a storm hit Galveston. For many in Texas the storm was an inconvenience, a blip on the screen. But for many of you here at ground zero the storm was a life-altering event.
· 194 lives were extinguished.
· Many of you lost homes.
· The destruction of a business.
· The devastation of a church.
Life on the Island has changed in some very significant and permanent ways.
Pastor Doug and I got on the island at the same time. It was overwhelming. I can’t imagine what it was like for those of you who stayed on the island. I looked at the pictures again this week. Several feet of water all through the Strand downtown. 4-5 feet if water in the Fellowship Hall. A foot in the sanctuary.
On October 4 we had the first workday. We expected 50-100. 400 showed up. They gutted St. Paul and Zion, and Carlos’ business. And in some cases they went from door-to-door. Seeing people’s homes was gut-wrenching. People standing in their muddy homes wondering where and how to even begin, carrying things one-by-one out to the curb. Save or toss? Is this worth cleaning? Every item is a memory. And then back to the house to an overwhelming task too large to handle. And then a group of people show up and say, what do you need? Some of these folks would just sit and cry.
Storms remind us that nothing is permanent. All of life is fragile. All of life is temporal. I remember one of you saying to me that weekend, “Aw, I didn’t need at that crap anyway.” Only you didn’t use the word “crap.”
The storms of life descend upon us. And if it’s not a hurricane, it’s a job loss, or a death in the family, or a call from the doctor or something else. When the storms of life come they can shake us to the core. Sometimes it feels like Jesus is asleep in the boat. “Hey! Wake UP! Don’t you care? Can’t you see that we’re drowning here?
I remember the first full worship service back in the Sanctuary. Doug wisely had us do the healing service. I learned something. He said we’d listen to each person individually, then anoint with oil, lay on hands, and pray to their specific situtation. I really wondered how long this would take, and what floodgates it would open. But you knew, Doug. The people. The context. The situation.
It did take a long time. Do you remember? Every story I heard, I felt myself getting heavier and heavier. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ,” Paul says in Galatians (6:2). It was the single most emotional and powerful worship experience I’ve had in my three short years as bishop. I remember laying hands on people and feeling them heave up and down with tears. And I myself felt the tears streaming down my own face. Thank you for sharing your grief so openly.
Storms descend upon us, but there is one who appears to us, sometimes in the boat, sometimes on the shore, with a word of peace, saying “Be not afraid, for I am with you. I have called you by name. You are mine.” “God is our refuge and strength, a present help in time of trouble. Though the mountains quake in the heart of the sea, though the waters foam, we will not fear…” (Ps 46). Everything is temporal. All flesh is grass. In the end nothing lasts but three things. “And now, faith hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” (1Cor 13:13)
In my life, achievements pass away. Memories fade. Money comes and goes. We’ve had nothing and everything. But what really matters, what is eternal is the love I’ve given and received, the love of God, experienced in
· prayer and worship,
· through family and friends,
· and in the kindness of strangers.
It is this love, the most powerful force in the universe, that draws us together and binds us together. It is this love that makes us one. It is this love that comforts us in our sorrow. It is this love that gives us the courage and stength to persevere in affliction. It is this love that sends us out to be sacraments of God’s love and grace fora needy world – bread for a hungry world.
So let us eat this bread together. Let us eat
· this bread of the Passover,
· this bread of deliverance,
· this bread of Jesus’ death and resurrection,
· this bread of comfort and strength,
· this bread of God’s everlasting love for the world, t
· his bread of life,
And then let us go out and be bread for the world, so that they may know and experience that they too are loved with an everlasting love.
Amen
שלומ سلام Peace,
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Bishop’s BLOG
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