Reflections

Walking by Faith (Isaiah 12)

Micah asks a question that just haunts you: what should I approach the Lord with? Should I come with burnt offerings? With year-old calves? Will he be pleased with thousands of rams? Should I give my oldest child for my crime?

And then Micah answers his own question. He’s already been told. God has already told you what’s good. What the Lord actually requires is this: do justice. Embrace faithful love. Walk humbly with your God.

That’s it. Do justice. Embrace faithful love. Walk humbly with your God.

Now Micah was talking to a people who’d gotten comfortable. They’d gotten powerful. They had resources and ability and education and all the things that give a person power. And power can be wonderful, but there’s power over—which is oppressive, which controls people—and there’s power to, which means the power to lift people up, to help them, to do positive things.

Here’s what I need to say: when we get power, we can be dangerous. It goes to our heads. We think it’s about us. Underneath we’re scared we’re going to lose it. So we turn mean. Abusive. Disrespecting. We hold ourselves up by holding others down.

I’m not preaching to you. I’m preaching to us. When I step on toes, I’m stepping on my own. Because all of us are flawed. All of us need grace. All of us need to repent and turn back.

So the message here is simple: the compassion of God is for whoever is on the outside. Whoever doesn’t quite fit. Whoever’s new and doesn’t know the rules. Whatever the deficit is, God wants us to help make that up. Help people feel comfortable. Feel safe. Feel good about who they are and where they are.

Because that’s God’s love flowing through us. And that love has a lot to do with how we use whatever power we’ve got.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
The Heart of Prayer

Moses reminds the people: you were immigrants in Egypt. Joseph was there first, and it was complicated. But when famine came, his family came looking for help and found him. They were invited to live. They became prosperous and numerous. They got their own territory.

And then a Pharaoh came who didn’t know Joseph and didn’t care what Joseph had done. He got worried. He made things hard. He enslaved them. And God heard their cries and sent Moses to say: let my people go.

So now, generation later, the Lord is saying to these people: you know how to treat immigrants because you know what it’s like. You’ve been treated well. You’ve been treated badly. So treat other people well. Love the stranger. The foreigner. The one who isn’t you.

It’s the same standard Jesus taught later: do to others what you’d have them do to you. But here’s the part that gets me—and it should get us—the emphasis is on us. Not on what immigrants owe us. Not on what rules they should follow. On what we owe them because we’ve been there.

All of us need the grace of God. All of us need forgiveness. All of us need to repent and turn back. And when somebody is on the outside looking in—whether it’s because they’re a literal immigrant or because they’re just new and don’t know how things work—our job is to help them feel safe. Help them feel welcome. Help them know they matter.

That’s not a political position. That’s a Jesus position. That’s what God asks of us. And it starts with remembering that we weren’t always where we are. We weren’t always comfortable. We weren’t always home.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
Wholeness and Healing

There’s this pool with five porches, and legend had it that an angel would stir the water and whoever got in first got healed. Which is kind of ridiculous, right? But if you’ve ever been desperate for healing, you’d sit by that pool for 38 years too.

Jesus sees this one man and asks him: do you want to be made well? The man doesn’t answer yes or no. He just explains why he hasn’t gotten healed yet—he’s alone, nobody to help him, everybody gets in front of him in line. That’s not what Jesus asked.

But Jesus doesn’t correct him. Jesus just says: get up. Pick up your mat. Walk.

And the man does. All those years of being helpless are gone.

Then the Sabbath police notice he’s carrying his mat on the Sabbath, which was against the law. And they give him a hard time about it. The man just says what happened—the guy who healed me told me to do this. So I did.

Here’s the thing: Jesus could have waited. Jesus had all kinds of power over water. He could have stirred up that pool. He could have thrown the man in and let him experience healing the way he expected to experience it. But he didn’t. He met that particular man where he was and gave him what he needed: not a miracle of the water, but a command to stand up and walk. That required something from the man too. It required him to try.

We keep looking for one healing template that works for everybody. But Jesus didn’t work that way. Each person was individual. Each person had their own life, their own history, their own future. And Jesus knew that. He was aware of it. And he loved each person as they actually were.

Sometimes he touched people. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he was gentle. Sometimes he was direct. But he always met people where they were.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
The Heart of Prayer

There was a widow—that’s the only detail we need to know. She was a widow and her only son was dead. And she was carrying his body out of the city for burial.

Jesus saw her and something moved in him. The Gospel says he had compassion. But compassion doesn’t quite cover it. It’s a gut-level, bone-deep recognition of someone’s suffering. Jesus knows the depth of her loss in a way nobody else can. He stops the funeral procession. He touches the stretcher. He tells the young man: get up.

And the dead man sits up. He speaks. Jesus gives him back to his mother.

Now, Jesus didn’t do that for everybody. He didn’t resuscitate everyone who’d died. We still live in a world where people die. Where grief is real. Where loss isn’t magically fixed by faith or prayer or anything else.

But this story isn’t primarily about the miracle. It’s about Jesus seeing one specific person in one specific moment and meeting her there. Not waiting for her to come to him. Not asking what she’d done to deserve this suffering. Not explaining anything. Just stopping. Looking. Acting.

We do such damage trying to explain suffering. We tell people it was God’s will. We suggest they must have done something to cause it. We come up with all kinds of theories, like Job’s friends, and we’re usually just wrong. What we know is that Jesus met this woman in her pain. And we can do that for people too. Not fix it. Not explain it. Just stop. See them. Be there.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
The Heart of Prayer

That young man came running up to Jesus and asked what he had to do to get eternal life. Jesus told him about the commandments—don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony. And the guy said, well, I’ve kept all of those since I was a boy.

And then it says something that just stops you: Jesus looked at him carefully and loved him. He hadn’t even decided yet. Hadn’t committed to anything. But Jesus looked at him carefully and loved him.

Then Jesus said: you’re missing one thing. Go sell what you own. Give the money to the poor. Then come follow me.

And the man went away sad because he had a lot of stuff.

Jesus looks at us the same way. With that same careful, loving look. And he points out the one thing that’s in the way. Not the same thing for everybody—something different for each one of us. For this guy it was his possessions. For you it might be laziness. Or selfishness. Or greed, whether you’ve got a lot or a little. Maybe it’s hatred. Maybe it’s prejudice. Maybe you’re so full of yourself there’s no room for God.

What’s the one thing standing between you and the grace God freely gives?

The disciples were terrified when they heard this because they’d left everything. They wanted to know, okay, so what’s our one thing? And Jesus said all things are possible with God. Not just possible to accomplish. Possible to transform. Possible to let go of. Possible to become whole despite.

He doesn’t ask you to be perfect. He asks you to be all in. Not just close. Not just this close. All the way in.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
The Power of Love (Matthew 9)

Jesus looked at the crowds and had compassion for them because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. That’s Matthew 9, and yeah, it’s beautiful. But here’s the thing about compassion—it can get out of hand.

When Jesus saw the damage, the lostness, the mess of people’s lives, he felt this overwhelming need to gather them all up. I mean, he wanted to hug everybody to him. He saw people who were physically sick, emotionally distressed, grieving, in anguish. And he felt it. But here’s what struck me: in the confines of his physical body, he couldn’t be everywhere at once. He knew that when his time on earth was done, there would need to be other people—flesh and blood people—who could do what he’d been doing. Who could love people the way he’d been loving them.

So he told his disciples: the fields are ripe. There’s so much need. But the workers are few. And you know what? Choosing to do what Jesus did, choosing to leave that kind of life, choosing to have that kind of compassion—it goes against our nature. Our nature is to take care of me and mine. To be closed in. To not want to worry about all those people.

This gets worse for the tender-hearted. They don’t just feel compassion—they feel the pain. They want to adopt everybody. Bring them home. And sometimes that overwhelms them right out of the game. Nope. I’m not going to be part of that. It’s too dangerous. It’s too messy. Too smelly. Too dirty.

But here’s what Jesus teaches too: be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Compassion without wisdom isn’t always helping. You have to ask yourself: is what I’m doing actually going to help, or am I making things worse? Is my compassion based on my own health staying intact? On my home? On my money? Jesus knew that sometimes the obvious problem isn’t what someone actually needs. He’d ask people: do you want to be healed? He’d ask instead of assuming.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
The Heart of Prayer

Prayer is not trying to change God’s mind. I think we get that confused sometimes. Like prayer is this negotiation where if we ask hard enough or long enough, God will do what we want.

Prayer is showing up. It’s saying, I don’t know what to do with this. I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m grateful. I’m broken. I’m here anyway. And then listening. Not even necessarily waiting for words. Just being willing to sit with God in whatever this is.

We pray for people who are sick. For people dealing with loss. For leaders who have to make impossible decisions. For people threatened by violence. For all the things that break our hearts. We pray and we don’t know if God will do what we’re asking. But we pray anyway because prayer is an act of faith. It’s saying, I believe God hears this. I believe God cares about this. I believe that matters, even when I can’t see how it matters. And showing up—being present to each other, to the world, to God—that’s what prayer is. That’s the hope right there.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
The Heart of Prayer

Prayer is not trying to change God’s mind. I think we get that confused sometimes. Like prayer is this negotiation where if we ask hard enough or long enough, God will do what we want.

Prayer is showing up. It’s saying, I don’t know what to do with this. I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m grateful. I’m broken. I’m here anyway. And then listening. Not even necessarily waiting for words. Just being willing to sit with God in whatever this is.

We pray for people who are sick. For people dealing with loss. For leaders who have to make impossible decisions. For people threatened by violence. For all the things that break our hearts. We pray and we don’t know if God will do what we’re asking. But we pray anyway because prayer is an act of faith. It’s saying, I believe God hears this. I believe God cares about this. I believe that matters, even when I can’t see how it matters. And showing up—being present to each other, to the world, to God—that’s what prayer is. That’s the hope right there.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
Called to Serve

Prayer is not trying to change God’s mind. I think we get that confused sometimes. Like prayer is this negotiation where if we ask hard enough or long enough, God will do what we want.

Prayer is showing up. It’s saying, I don’t know what to do with this. I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m grateful. I’m broken. I’m here anyway. And then listening. Not even necessarily waiting for words. Just being willing to sit with God in whatever this is.

We pray for people who are sick. For people dealing with loss. For leaders who have to make impossible decisions. For people threatened by violence. For all the things that break our hearts. We pray and we don’t know if God will do what we’re asking. But we pray anyway because prayer is an act of faith. It’s saying, I believe God hears this. I believe God cares about this. I believe that matters, even when I can’t see how it matters. And showing up—being present to each other, to the world, to God—that’s what prayer is. That’s the hope right there.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope
The Family of God

You know the hymn, ‘How Great Thou Art.’ Everybody knows it. It was written by a guy named Carl Boberg in Sweden. He was coming home after some kind of service, and there was a thunderstorm. The kind we’ve had the last few days. And when it passed over, he looked out at everything being fresh and green and alive, and he wrote a poem.

That poem got translated. Sweden to German. German to Russian. Russian to English. It traveled around the world. Billy Graham used it. And now you sing it on Sunday.

What strikes me is that somebody in Sweden looked at a thunderstorm and felt awe. And somebody else said, I know what that means. I know how to say that. And they translated it. And it kept traveling. Each person who touched it added something. Their language. Their voice. And it still said the same thing: when you really look at the world, when you really see creation, you can’t help but see God in it.

That’s what I want for us. Not to be original. But to be faithful. To see what God’s doing and then to say it in our language, in our lives, so somebody else can understand.

A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope