Rev MaryGean Cope

Tag: family

  • Faithful Stewards

    Faithful Stewards

    Jesus tells this wild story about a manager who gets caught cooking the books. When he’s about to be fired, instead of panicking, the guy just keeps cooking—he cuts his boss’s debtors’ bills in half. And here’s the really confusing part: the boss commends him for it. For being dishonest! And then Jesus uses that story to teach the disciples about money. It makes you go, what in the world?

    John Wesley figured this out centuries ago. He knew Jesus was being practical about how people actually work. Wesley called his most famous sermon “The Use of Money,” and he didn’t get tangled up trying to justify the dishonest part. Instead, he gave us three clear rules: earn all you can, save all you can, spend all you can on what matters. But here’s where it gets serious: give all you can. Give for others. Give for God’s work.

    Wesley lived that way his whole life. Money was just a tool to him, not the point. He took care of what he needed, sure, and his wife did too. But they were always asking, what does God need us to do with what we have? There’s a story about a kid who knew Fred—one of his youth—who remembered Fred saying that money was only good for what it could do for other people. That stuck with him years later. That’s the kind of life that matters.

    So the lesson isn’t about being clever like that dishonest steward. It’s about being clever like Jesus—figuring out how to use what you have to actually love people. You’re not serving money. You’re serving God. And that changes everything about the decisions you make.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    Here’s what I’m asking you today. If I sat down with you one-on-one and asked about your faith life, your faith story, what would you tell me?

    Where did you first encounter church? Where did you first encounter God? How did you first hear about Jesus?

    Some of us would go all the way back. Some of us came to it later. Either way, there’s power in your story.

    I used to be bothered that I didn’t have a dramatic conversion story. All that pain and brokenness that other people had to go through to find God—I missed out on it. I was sorry about that. But then I realized: I’m glad I didn’t have one of those stories. I’m grateful I was spared that suffering. And that gratitude is its own kind of testimony.

    But here’s the thing. All of us, dramatic conversion story or not, all of us have areas where we need to repent and turn back toward God. All of us need that forgiveness. All of us need that grace. We just maybe express it differently.

    So what I want to know is: how has God shown up in your life? Where has God spoken to you? Where has God given you hope or forgiveness or correction and said, you need to change, or you need to come home to me?

    And here’s the bigger question: who knows your story?

    Do your children? Your grandchildren? Your nieces and nephews? Do they know the story of God’s relationship with you?

    Because I’m going to tell you something. The fastest growing religious preference group in this country is the “nones”—people who don’t claim a faith. And then there are the “dones”—people who were church people and just burned out. Then there are the spiritual-but-not-religious folks.

    They’re all looking for something. They’re spiritual nomads. They want faith. They want meaning. They just don’t see it in the church.

    And you know what would change that? If they knew you. If they knew your story. If they knew that being Christian isn’t about being perfect or better than anyone else. It’s about knowing Jesus. It’s about that love changing you.

    So tell your story. Let people know. Because they’re looking. And they might listen to you when they wouldn’t listen to me.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • The Heart of Prayer

    The Heart of Prayer

    You know this story. A guy’s beaten up on the side of the road. Priest comes by. Crosses to the other side. Doesn’t stop. Levite comes by. Same thing. Crosses over. Keeps going. Then a Samaritan comes by.

    Now here’s the thing. For Jesus’ audience, “good” and “Samaritan” did not go together. These were people they didn’t associate with. People they thought were wrong about basically everything. Wrong about where to worship. Wrong about scripture. Just wrong.

    And yet this Samaritan sees the beaten man and he’s moved with compassion. He goes to him. Bandages his wounds. Puts him on his own donkey. Takes him to an inn. Pays the innkeeper to take care of him. Says come back and I’ll pay for any extra cost.

    Over and beyond what’s required.

    So Jesus asks: which one was a neighbor? And everyone has to say: the one who showed mercy.

    Here’s what I need to ask you though. Who is the person or group you have a thing against? And I mean honestly. Not just Samaritans. What group do you think is wrong? What group makes you angry? What group do you put outside of God’s love?

    Because that’s what this story is asking. It’s asking us to retell it with our own enemies in it. Our own people we don’t like. The people we’re sure don’t deserve God’s mercy.

    I want you to know they do. I know that’s unsettling. I don’t want that either sometimes. But Jesus is pretty clear about this. There is no one outside of God’s redemption. No one outside of God’s mercy. No matter what they believe. No matter what they do.

    Now they can reject it. They can say no. They can push it away. But that’s their choice. Not ours.

    The Samaritan didn’t need to help. He had resources but he needed those resources for his own life, his own business. But he helped anyway. He had things he could lose. But he chose to love.

    So what do we have? Time. Money. Ability. Smiles. Prayers. Whatever it is we have that could help someone. Can we be neighbor to the person who doesn’t fit? The person we don’t like? The person we think is wrong?

    Can we see them as a full human being? With all the grace God gives to God’s people? Because that’s what it means to follow Jesus. It means we do that.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • 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

    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

  • Called to Serve

    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 Heart of Prayer

    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 Family of God

    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

  • The Family of God

    The Family of God

    When Jesus was little, his parents took him to the temple to do all the things the law required. And it says about Jesus that he grew up, became strong, was filled with wisdom. Just like any other kid. He had parents who loved him. A community around him. People who taught him, shaped him, told him what mattered.

    And so when we read about Jesus later, talking about being a son of God first, about God’s love and God’s ways mattering most—that didn’t come out of nowhere. That came from being loved. That came from people who showed him what love looked like. What service looked like. What it meant to keep faith.

    Your kids are watching. They’re learning from what you do, not just what you say. They’re learning whether God is actually real or just something you talk about on Sunday. They’re learning whether kindness is worth it. Whether showing up for people matters. And here’s what gets me: they’re learning all of that without you even trying. So maybe try a little anyway.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope

  • Called to Serve

    Called to Serve

    There’s a difference between being invited to serve and actually serving. One is a nice feeling. The other is showing up on the day it’s inconvenient.

    We talk about being Christ’s hands and feet, but we Methodists—I mean, we had to work for weeks to change the color on the bulletin. Weeks. So actually going out and doing the work? That takes something. It takes deciding that your comfort matters less than somebody else’s need.

    What I see happening is people finding out that when they actually do the work, something shifts. You start seeing people differently. You can’t serve someone and hate them. You can’t feed someone and dismiss them. The work changes you. And that’s God working. That’s the gospel actually moving through your hands.

    A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope