Nazareth Christian Fellowship
Offerings for the week of May 13
See you at chaplain chat and Bible study today at 2!
I hope that you have all been able to get some rest these days after finals. I know that many of you had plans for your summer break that might not be happening in the way you had hoped. Maybe your summer job plans have fallen through or changed. Maybe trips you had been looking forward to have been canceled. I know that I would have been preparing to leave for Taize in 24 hours. I am sad that for the first time in 4 years that I won't be able to make a pilgrimage to a place that has come to be a spiritual home for me.
Yet even in the midst of disappointment, I am encouraged. Taize has opened their store up to the public for the first time since mid-March. Brothers are greeting visitors and offering chances to purchase pottery and books and the ubiquitous dove of Taize necklace. It's a reminder even while our world continues to reel in the wake of COVID19, that there are glimmers of hope for a new reality that allows us to visit our favorite places and be with our favorite people once again.
I've been thinking about these words in Revelation 21:5, "See, I am making all things new." Humans are notoriously resistant to change. It's not something a lot of us enjoy or seek to experience more of. Change reminds us of how little control we really have. Another thing we are hesitant to acknowledge. But this idea that God is the one who renews us, who renews our world, brings me hope. It makes me think that even in a world where black men can be gunned down simply for going for a jog, for a world where the economic disparity between rich and poor grows ever wider, for a world where innocent people are interred in detention centers simply for exercising their right to seek asylum away from violence and oppression in every despicable form...even in this world...something new can happen.
My prayer is that we would be made new. That creation would be renewed and revived. That our ability to see one another as fellow humans and not objects to exploit would be renewed. That a sense of fairness and equity and justice that has long been neglected in favor of increased profit margins would be reversed so that all persons would have access to their basic needs.
Our God makes all things new. May our eyes and ears and hearts be open to witnessing it, and may our hands and minds and feet move us to join in.
Blessings,
Nadia
NCF Sunday worship 5/17 @ 5 pm
Join Zoom Meeting https://naz.zoom.us/j/4928777096
Chaplain Chat with Nadia @ 2pm
https://naz.zoom.us/j/4928777096
Bible Study at 2:30 pm on Wednesdays
Join Zoom Meeting https://naz.zoom.us/j/4928777096
We will be looking at texts that speak to worry, uncertainty, and transitions.
Nazareth Christian Fellowship
Email: nmullin7@naz.edu
Website: www.naz.edu/spirituality
Location: Our Address
Phone: 585-389-2306
Facebook: facebook.com/nazchristianfellowship