Maggie Gillespie – Page 4 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Ash Wednesday – Store Up

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 The poet, Mary Oliver, wrote a poem called “The Summer Day.” It begins with a question: who made the world? Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? Big questions for a lazy summer day, I would think, but then it becomes apparent that she is no longer thinking grand thoughts, head in the clouds, because she is distracted by this grasshopper in her hand. Whatever she was thinking about before, she is now completely and utterly engrossed in this singular grasshopper. the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down – who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she […]

Letters of Love, Part 4: Glimpses of Glory

Psalm 50 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Have you ever looked at one of those optical illusions where, when you first look at it you see one thing and maybe someone else sees a different thing? And then if you keep looking at it, you will probably eventually see that other thing too? But sometimes you don’t. People are saying to you, “Look, don’t you see it?” and you try all kinds of tricks with your eyes – you squint, you look at it sideways, you try the soft-focus – but you still cannot see the image other people see. You just don’t have a clue. It is somehow, in the words of the Apostle, veiled to you. In 2nd Corinthians we can see the contours of a relationship between the Apostle Paul and the church in Corinth. And if it seems a bit muddy to the reader, that is partially because […]

Letters of Love, Part 3: How to Build Up Love

Psalm 62:5-12 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 In 1864 as the Civil War was coming to an end, Jourdan Anderson and his wife Amanda, fled from the Tennessee plantation where they had been enslaved all their lives. They moved to Ohio. Jourdan found work, and their family grew and flourished. A year later, their old master, Patrick Henry Anderson, wrote Jourdan a letter asking him to consider coming back to work for him. Jourdan could have ignored the letter. He could have sent a caustic and profane reply, but he didn’t. He sent a wonderful reply to the old master. Sir, I got your letter and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdan, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have […]

Letters of Love, Part 2: Leaving the World Behind

Psalm 62:5-12 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 One day in 1780 the sky over New England turned dark at 9:00 in the morning. All of nature was disoriented and terrified. The people said, “This is the day of judgment!” It lasted until midnight, when the stars began to appear in the sky. The strange occurrence is thought to have been caused by a combination of smoke from forest fires and a heavy fog. But at the time, there was great concern, even after the darkness lifted, as people became obsessed with the idea of a pending apocalypse. There was a sect of Christians in the area that benefitted from this – the Shakers. They took advantage of this end-times anxiety and went on an evangelistic tour of New England, preaching their beliefs and practices. The Shakers believed in preparing themselves for the end by giving up their worldly goods and practicing celibacy. […]

Letters of Love, Part 1: Belonging

Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18 1 Corinthians 6: 12-20 Last weekend we celebrated the civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and I think about how his work changed the world in which we live. His sermons and other writing have left a lasting impact on our nation’s values and, even when it seems like we are moving backwards, we have his words to steer us toward a vision for a more just and loving world. He wrote one of his most impactful works while he sat in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama, arrested for taking part in nonviolent protests. The story is often told that he wrote it on toilet paper because that was all he had available. But as good as that sounds, it isn’t true. He began writing on scraps of paper and, eventually someone gave him a writing pad. He wrote in response to a letter […]

From Before Time

Genesis 1:1-5 Mark 1:4-11 I want to tell you a story about a young woman named Lauren. She was born and raised in North Carolina, the daughter of a Southern Baptist woman and a Jewish man, although neither of her parents was particularly religious. They agreed, though, that they would raise their children Jewish. And so, Lauren grew up attending Hebrew school in the Reformed Jewish tradition. Lauren, somehow, became very religious. She developed a strong affinity for the practices of orthodoxy. This created an interesting quandary for her. Although Lauren had been raised a Jew, the Orthodox community did not acknowledge her as a Jew because she was not born of a Jewish mother. So Lauren decided to convert. This involved a period of religious education, followed by an examination by three rabbis. Then the final step was the mikvah, which is a ritual bath – a kind of […]

Assurance

Luke 2:22-40 We don’t hear much from the gospels about Jesus’ early life – his infancy and childhood, nothing at all about his teen years. But we do get a few important highlights from Luke. After the journey to Bethlehem, the birth, the angels and the shepherds. Then very briskly, 8 days later, at the appropriate time, the baby was circumcised and named Jesus, in accordance with what they had been told by the angel. Then came the time for the purification at the temple. It is prescribed in the book of Leviticus that a woman, after giving birth, should go through a ritual of purification which ends with the offer of sacrifices at the temple. Mary and Joseph travel to the temple where they will offer two turtle doves, which is an acceptable alternative for those who cannot afford to offer a sheep. This would have happened about 40 […]

Christmas Eve: Light

Climb into the wayback machine with me for a few minutes. All the way back to Christmas, 1980. It was a special Christmas for my family because we knew that it would be my grandmother’s last. And everyone wanted to give her something special. We all wanted to make her wishes come true. It was an extravagant Christmas that year. She got all the things she had dreamed of. There was a plush velour rose-colored blanket. To be precise, the color was mauve, which was a very big color in the eighties. Mauve velour was all the rage. It would have been perfect if it could have been a mauve-colored velour electric blanket, but I think the heating elements would have melted that old velour material, so it wasn’t a choice. Then there was an exquisitely beautiful doll. Yes, this might seem a bit childish. But you need to understand […]

Advent 4: Love

Luke 1:26-38 Probably the Bible verse known by the most people is John 3:16. Most of you can say it on cue: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that those who believe in him may not perish but may have eternal life. The verse isn’t a part of our Advent or Christmas readings, but it is in the background of all of it. For God so loved the world. It is in the background of the story we hear this morning about King David. Sitting in his palace, feeling quite full of himself – he has, after all, defeated all his enemies. I imagine David’s approval ratings were sky high. And so now, with satisfaction, he looks around and says, “It’s a darn shame, isn’t it? I have this nice house and poor old God has to live in a tent. I’m going […]

Advent 2: Peace

Isaiah 40:1-11 Mark 1:1-8 You know what I love about Mark? It is that he goes straight to business. The remarkable thing about Mark is that he is in a hurry – he has this urgency about getting the good news to us. Listen, he says. Pay attention. Here it is. Here is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Listen up, people, I’ll only say it once. Which is not exactly true. He does repeat himself – a lot, but that’s okay. It’s how you give emphasis to something you know is important: you say it twice. Like Isaiah saying, “Comfort, comfort my people; speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” Comfort. All caps, underlined and highlighted, comfort. Here is the beginning of the good news, Mark says to us. It’s like what Isaiah said hundreds of years ago: Clear a path. Make the way straight. […]

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