2011 eNEWSLETTER ARTICLES

September 8  |  Peace Pole Dedication

This Sunday morning, at 8 o’clock in the morning, we will be dedicating a peace pole in front of our church building which has been hand-made and “planted” by members of our congregation under the leadership of Ed Fox.  The dedication will be part of a solemn commemoration of the 10^th anniversary of the events of 9/11 and a prayer for world peace, sponsored by Bethel’s Mission Outreach Committee. 

Some among you may have seen peace poles in other places around our country or around the world, while others among us may be unfamiliar with peace poles.  I, therefore, find it fitting to provide a bit more background information on this project, taken from the website of the World Peace Prayer Society.

 The Peace Pole Project is the official project of the World Peace Prayer Society. It started in Japan in 1955 by Masahisa Goi, who decided to dedicate his life to spreading the message, “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in response to the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Peace poles are handcrafted monuments erected the world over as international symbols of peace. Their purpose is to spread the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in the languages of the world.

Mr. Goi believed that peace begins in the heart and mind of each individual. As war begins with thoughts of war, peace begins with thoughts of peace. The peace pole reminds us to keep peace ever-present in our thoughts. As we learn to honor one another, our environment, plants, animals and all creation on earth, the vision of global peace will gradually become a natural way of life, a true culture of peace.

Peace Poles can be found in town squares, city halls, schools, places of worship, parks, and gardens - any place where the spirit of Peace is embraced by people of good will. Since the beginning of the project over 200,000 Peace Poles have been planted in over 200 countries around the world.

Some of the extraordinary locations include the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the magnetic north pole in Canada, Gorky Park in Russia, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. They are promoting healing of conflict in places like Sarajevo, the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, and the Allenby Bridge on the border between Israel and Jordan.

Mayors in many parts of the world have planted peace poles to dedicate their cities and towns to world peace. Both political leaders, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and religious leaders, such as Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa and the Dalia Lama, have dedicated Peace Poles.

I cordially invite you to arrive a bit earlier than usual at church this Sunday and join the Mission Outreach Committee in commemorating the tragic events of September 11 2001, to quiet our hearts and pray for world peace, and to dedicate the our peace pole.  This will be a much needed opportunity for our congregation to lift up in prayer the victims on the terrorist attacks and the heroes who came to their aid during and in the aftermath of the attacks.  The peace pole will remind us to work for peace, respect, and understanding in the name of the God who has granted us forgiveness and called us into a ministry of service and healing.

May peace prevail on earth!

October 20  |  The Value of Giving

What are the two most frequent topics that Jesus talked about? Was either of the two “love”, “faith”, or “Sabbath”?  No.  The two topics that Jesus addressed most frequently were the Kingdom of God and … money.  Compare that to us modern Christians, and you’ll soon notice that we are confused, at best, about the meaning of God’s Kingdom, and that we are reluctant, to say the least, to talk to one another about money—how we regard it, how we earn it, how we manage it, and how we spend it.  For that reason, I want to do now just that – talk about God’s kingdom and about money.

Two Scripture passages come to my mind – Leviticus 1 and Luke 22.  The former describes in great detail the manner in which the ancient Israelites were to make burnt offerings to God.  The latter retells Jesus’ celebration of the Lord’s Supper with his disciples.  Both are very different passages, both in style and substance.  But both have in common that they present us with acts of giving, acts in which the giver doesn’t expect to receive anything material in return.  

In Leviticus, animals, grain, and incense is burnt on God’s altar as a form of thanksgiving to God.  In Luke, Jesus gives himself away – his body, his blood, his very life – without expecting to receive anything in return.  Grain, meat, oil –they were the ancient equivalent of money. When people burnt them on God’s altar, it was as if we were to take our offering plates, place them on the altar, and then tossed in match, burning up everyone’s money or checks (o.k., I know that that’s illegal for us to do in the U.S.).

Offering the grain, the meat, and the oil was an act of worship in ancient Israel, an instance in which the Israelites were invited to give up something of value as a sacrifice to God.  When we are invited to put our money into the offering plates … that’s an act of worship, too.  Contrary to what many may think, we are invited to put our money into the offering plate not because the church needs our money, but because we want and need to give it.  Mark Allan Power writes that “we have a spiritual need to worship God and through our offerings we are able to express our love and devotion to God in a way that is simple and sincere.”[i]

Jesus, however, teaches us that the giving of money or its equivalents is not all that is required of those whom he called to participate in the building of God’s Kingdom.  Jesus did not merely give away his possessions (and asked others to do the same); rather, Jesus gave himself away and his very life in service to others, in service to the salvation of the world. While most of us are not willing nor able to make such a profound sacrifice, Jesus reminds us that those who give themselves away in service to others in the name of Jesus will gain eternal life (Matthew 16:25). 

To me, our service worship last Sunday was a token of such giving away.  The point of the service worship was not so much that the “haves” do something nice for the “have-nots.”  If that were the main point, our service worship would leave the social hierarchies between the well-off and the poor unchallenged and leave unquestioned the economic system that makes the poor poorer and the rich richer. 

I hope and pray that this service worship may strengthen in us the firm belief that Jesus has abolished the dividing line between the rich and the poor, as well as the housed and the homeless.  Jesus has come to remind us that we all are one and need one another.  We are all guests in God’s “kin-dom.”  We are one body of Christ, and together we can do work toward eradicating hunger and abolishing poverty. 

During our service worship Sunday, many among the Bethel community had opportunities to work alongside others, to encounter folks who have less than we, and to learn from them, and be changed in the process.  To me, being changed by God through the act of service is a goal that is just as important as to feed the hungry.  True change, true justice and peace won’t come about until we learn that we all need one another, that we each have something of value that we can share with the human community.

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[i] Mark Allan Powell, Giving to God: The Bible’s Good News about Living a Generous Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, p. 12.