October 2024 Tower Tidings

Greetings!

                 October is here! It brings special days of leaves turning colors and gently finding their way to the ground. The smells of bonfires, s’mores, and pumpkins being carved. All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) costumes are being planned and bags of candy are on the shelves of every grocery store. October 31^st is also known to us Protestants as “Reformation Day.” When I was in seminary, one of my church history professors would come over to the dorm and we would reenact Martin Luther nailing his 99 Thesis to the door of the Wittenburg Church…thus the beginning of the Reformation.  Oh, what began then.

The truth is that Luther was not looking to start a new faith tradition, his study of his own tradition of Roman Catholicism led him to see all the things the Church was doing that just didn’t seem “Christlike” and he wanted the Church to listen. Luther was put on trial and found guilty and excommunicated from the Church. He continued to teach the Gospel, and it started a huge division in Christianity. Of course, division has continued throughout Christianity, when will it end?

Proverbs 27:19 says this, “Just as water reflects the face, so one human heart reflects another.” Hmm, we are just a few weeks away from the Presidential election and this Proverb hits home for me. It goes along with the theme of the October Sermon Series, “Do Unto Others.” You know where that comes from right? They are words from the mouth of Jesus in Luke 6:31, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  These words are also known as “The Golden Rule” In the same passage, Jesus will also tell us to “love our enemies”, “do good”, “expect nothing in return”, how are we doing at that? As I watch the political ads on television I think of the things Jesus calls us to do…love one another. I hear name calling, bashing one side or the other, if you’re not with us you’re against us kind of thing.

Our nation, no more than our nation, our world is consumed with division. Here in the United States you are classified as living in a “Red” state or a “Blue” state. You are either Conservative or Liberal. The boxing in of people seems to be dividing us further. Have you ever thought about the fact that if you blend red and blue, you get purple? The sermon series for October “Do Unto Others” is a way to create some “Purple Space” where we just might cultivate kindness, compassion, humility, respect, and love for one another and for the good of all the world, no matter what. This series or the small groups, it is an attempt to come together, not trying to change each other, but to discover the beauty that can be created when we work together to make the world a better place. To recognize Proverbs 27:19, to see our hearts reflected in another human and their heart reflected in us.

There are a couple of books that I read preparing for this series and would recommend to you. The first is “Learning to Disagree, The Surprising Path To Navigating Differences With Empathy and Respect” by John Inazu (who by the way is a Law Professor). The second is “Love Your Enemies, How Decent People Can Save America From The Culture Of Contempt,” by Arthur C. Brooks (who by the way is an Economist). Neither author is trying to get readers to “pick a side”, they are simply trying to get us to come together. As I read each book the words from John Wesley kept rolling through my mind, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may.”

After all red and blue make purple.

Shalom,

Pastor Mona