Pastor’s Corner

In our last sermon series, we looked at famous stories from the book of Luke and asked, what does this story reveal about who Jesus is? And why does it matter?

In the wilderness temptation, we learned of Jesus’ identity as the beloved Son of God. In the calming of the storm, we learned that Jesus isn’t always safe, but he’s good. In the healing of the paralytic, we learned that Jesus’ healing power is felt in community. And in the transfiguration, we learned that Jesus is a mystery worth running after.

And now, full of the hopeful knowledge of who Jesus is, we turn the corner to Lent. Our Lenten theme takes its cue from the book of Luke, too. Did you know that Jesus’ journey into Jerusalem takes up half the book? For half the book, we are on a slow march toward Jesus’ death. The ending is clear, but the beginning stretches back farther than we might imagine.

Because this story is the story. It’s the story of God’s plan to fulfill the ancient promises made to Israel. It’s the story of God’s plan to redeem the whole world. This story is the very climax of salvation history.

God set this plan in motion centuries or even eons ago. Age after age, through prophets and prostitutes, kings and shepherds, sinners and saints, God has long been at work to redeem and restore a fallen world. And on Easter Sunday in the person of Jesus, we will see God’s final solution to the problem of suffering and evil in the world.

But first … we get a few more hints of what God is up to. We get a few more glimpses of what it will look like when God’s plan is finally complete.

We’ll witness Jesus healing diseases and sending demons fleeing. We’ll watch as Jesus defeats death—at least momentarily—when he brings a little girl back to life. We’ll hear Jesus lament over Jerusalem and compare himself to a mother hen.

We’ll prepare ourselves for the audacious miracle of Easter Sunday. We’ll prepare ourselves for the day when every good promise of our good God comes true—the day when every last speck of evil and pain is finally dead in the grave. On that day we’ll see Jesus face-to-face and we’ll dance or weep— or maybe laugh!—and we’ll know. This was God’s plan all along. From beginning to end, God has been faithful. From beginning to end, God’s plan has been love. From beginning to end, God’s plan has been Jesus.

Friends, Lent is a season of repentance, but there is joy here too. We might be on a long march toward the cross, but after the cross comes the empty grave. And in the empty grave, every single one of God’s promises is found.

Come and join us for the journey.

Rev. Mackenzie Jager (she/her)

I can’t say I was surprised, but I was tremendously grateful for the wisdom, enthusiasm, and openness the elders brought to our recent Session Retreat last weekend. We spent time discussing the role of elders in the church and the role of communication in good church leadership. We learned about how to run engaging and effective meetings. We considered what we do really well at First Presbyterian Church and what some of our growth areas might be. And in a brainstorming session, we asked: Who are we? Who is our church for? And who is God calling us to be right here, right now, “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

My favorite part of the day might have been our Bible study. Small groups each discussed a different Bible story about change, and then we came back together to share what we thought God might be trying to teach us about change through these stories.

Genesis 12:1–3

In this passage, God tells Abram that he will become a great nation that will bless all the other nations … but first Abram has to leave home. We noted how scary—and exciting—that must have been. They believed that they’d received a message from God, but it must have taken a lot of courage to act on it without any kind of proof.

Abram and Sarai took a huge leap of faith, but it took years—and some failed starts and stops along the way—before God’s promise finally came true. This story reminded us that making changes takes careful discernment of God’s Word. Change also requires action; sometimes we’ll need to take leaps of faith. Once we leap, we’ll need patience because very few kinds of meaningful change pay off immediately.

Matthew 12:9–14

In this story, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath—and the Pharisees are outraged. The Pharisees are committed to the way things have always been. When Jesus comes in and shakes things up—even when his changes bring healing and new life to vulnerable people like this man with the withered hand—all the Pharisees seem to care about is that Jesus is breaking tradition.

We reflected on how this story is a familiar one. At its core, it’s a conflict between values. We challenged one another to think about what we value more: Tradition and rule-following? Or looking out for the health and flourishing of our community? As our Session elders make changes this year, we will try to keep love and care for God’s people at the heart of everything we decide.

Acts 10:9–48

Peter has a vision that suggests no foods are off-limits for Jews anymore. Immediately after the vision, the Holy Spirit tells him that three men are about to come looking for him and that he should go with them. When three messengers appear, Peter goes with them and meets Cornelius, a God-fearing Gentile. Peter finally understands the vision: no one is clean or unclean. God’s good news and grace is now available to everyone! He preaches to Cornelius and his family, and they are all baptized.

One of our elders noted that Peter receives confirmation of both his vision and the Spirit’s message: three messengers really show up! And when they take him to meet a God-fearing Gentile, Peter’s vision about the clean and unclean foods suddenly makes sense. This confirmation is an important part of the discernment process. If we think we hear God pointing us in a certain direction, we should try to confirm the Spirit’s leading through prayer, scripture reading, and paying attention to the opportunities God puts in our everyday lives.

Like the Matthew text, this story from Acts also also features a break in tradition. For the early church, welcoming Gentiles into the family of God would have been a difficult and even painful adjustment. They were fighting against centuries of prejudice, hatred, and violence. Now they were supposed to welcome the Gentiles with open arms? 

The modern church isn’t immune from this. We say that everyone is welcome in church, but how do we react when people experiencing homelessness join us for worship? Or people from the AA groups? Teenage mothers? Queer people? Together, the elders voiced a hope that we wouldn’t let tradition—or our own comfort—stand in the way of joyfully making room for all of God’s people.

Church, you have a strong team of elders. They, alongside of your staff, are eager to see where God might lead us this year. Together, we’re going to make some changes. And as we all know, change is difficult. But change can also bring new life, joy, and hope! I pray we can continue to walk into the future together, trusting on God to lead us where we need to go. May God’s Word and God’s people give us the strength and trust to walk the road ahead faithfully. Amen.

Pastor Mackenzie

“How does a weary world rejoice?” That’s our Advent theme this month, but I’ve come to believe that this is a question that matters all year long—and for our whole lives long. It’s a question that’s central to our Christian faith and our faithfulness.

At a time when droves of people were leaving the Church, I found myself giving up my career in publishing to dive deeper into the Church. And since I’m young, female, and ordained in a mainline denomination … I’m a bit of a walking target. I often get asked why I chose to go into ministry—or even how I can remain a Christian at all.

Sometimes people just want to pick a fight. But often when people ask these sorts of questions, I find they’re coming from a place of hurt rather than anger.

I think what they’re really asking me is: “What’s the point? What do we have to hope for? If God is good, then why is there so much suffering? I’m so tired of thoughts and prayers!Thoughts and prayers haven’t fixed anything. Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough in a world like ours.”

And I only ever have one answer for them. It’s this: Yes.

Yes, the world feels like a dumpster fire and none of it is fair or right. That’s actually why I am a Christian. That’s why I can’t walk away from any of this. Because I have to believe that God wants more for this world. I have to believe that this isn’t all there is or all there will ever be. I have to believe in a better story than this one.

I think that’s why I love Advent so much. For a whole month, we wait. We sit in the dark with our fears, our doubts, and our aching longing. We look around at our world and wonder where God is and when God is coming back to redeem, rescue, and restore. Advent makes space for us to ask difficult questions like: How does a weary world rejoice? How does a weary world hold onto hope?

So far in our Advent series, we’ve proposed that a weary world can rejoice when we acknowledge our weariness instead of ignoring it, when we find joy in connection, and when we allow ourselves to be amazed. I think that’s right. I think we can find moments of joy, even in a world like this.

But the promise of Advent and the promise of the Gospel story is that even when the joy runs out, we can still hope. Because when this world leaves us exhausted and angry, we don’t have to give up or give in. Even when we come to the brink of despair, we have one thing left: hope.

We have hope that God is not done writing this story.

Violence, hate, and war. Anxiety, depression, and dementia. Greed, poverty, slavery, loneliness, a groaning creation … Evil and suffering abound in our world, but they will not get the final word. Because God is not done writing this story.

We’ve been waiting on a better ending for 2000 years. That’s a long season of Advent; it’s alright that we are weary. 

So in this liturgical season of Advent, let’s not be afraid to acknowledge our weariness. Let’s shout it from the mountain tops: “We are waiting on a better ending! We believe that God dreams of so much more than this!”

Then, on Christmas Eve, we will celebrate. We will celebrate the miracle of Christ’s incarnation—and the promise of his eventual return—in hopes that it will fill us to overflowing with hope and joy. Friends, this is my prayer for all of us: May the miracle of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection fill us with enough joy and hope to sustain us while we keep on waiting for that promised ending. 

Amen.

– Pastor Mackenzie

I always wanted to be a person who loved the little things, but I’m not sure I would have managed it if it weren’t for the pandemic. When my life became small—just a basement apartment with only one window and a stack of seminary assignments to complete—I realized that my life depended on finding beauty in little things.

Finding beauty in the small, ordinary details of everyday life was a matter of survival back then. But maybe it is now, too. Because although lockdown is over, we can’t go back to those “before” times. Everything seems more precarious now. Everything seems more steeped in grief and pain. It seems like every day it’s another war. Another broken dream. Another crisis.

I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal almost a decade, and recently, I’ve started listing three things from the previous day that I’m grateful for before I even get out of bed in the morning. That way, when discontent or jealousy starts to fester, I only have to look through my gratitude journal and remember that my life might be ordinary, but it’s full of good and beautiful gifts.

November is an obvious time of the year to take stock of our lives and count up everything we’re grateful for. I hope the big things make your list: wedding anniversaries, vacations, new babies, clean bills of health. But don’t forget the small things. Don’t forget reading on the couch in a beam of Sunday afternoon sunshine. The smell of fresh laundry. The fact that butterflies exist! Cider donuts, the way your favorite person laughs, glitter, sunsets, cozy socks, and steaming mugs of tea. 

Because our lives depend on finding beauty in the little things. So thanks be to God for every good gift, even and especially the small ones. Amen.

–Pastor Mackenzie

“Friends, this is the joyful feast of the people of God! People will come from east and west …” I think that’s as far as I got into the communion liturgy before I started to sob. No tears fell down my cheeks (so at least my mascara didn’t run!), but my breath sawed in and out of my lungs and every inch of my body shook.

I’d been waiting nearly five years to preside over communion. Three years of seminary training had taught me about the mystery and beauty of the table. Two years of pandemic living had convinced me of the importance of the incarnation and how desperately I—and we—need to be fed at the table of grace. To be reminded that we are not alone, but we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and that it’s not our strength, but God’s grace that equips and encourages us to go out into the world as agents of love.

By the time I graduated from seminary, the pandemic had loosened its grip on the world and I was finally ready to be ordained and preside over the sacraments. But then the denomination I’d grown up in began questioning who was welcome at the table, who was made in God’s image, and who was welcome in their churches and their pulpits, and I knew I couldn’t stay. I became an inquirer and then a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA … and another two years went by.

And so it was that five years, two church communities, two Presbyteries, and one pandemic later, I finally found myself behind the communion table. So many years of hard work and anticipation had led up to this moment … but I don’t think that’s what made me weep.

It was looking out into the congregation and seeing a dozen faces I’ve known and loved for all twenty-nine years of my life. It was seeing friends who’ve been deeply wounded by the church looking back at me with holy tears in their eyes. For some of them, my ordination and installation service was the first time they’d set foot in a church in years. And in just a few moments, I’d be placing the body of Christ in their hands and declaring to them: “No matter what you’ve been told, this is for you. If you are hungry for grace, come to the table. This is the bread of life and the cup of salvation, and it is for you!”

So I wept.

I wept, too, because a whole host of my mentors and ministry colleagues from Illinois had driven hours and hours in the rain to witness and celebrate this moment.

It was knowing that this was the first time I would serve my new congregation communion, but it wouldn’t be the last. I wept because the faces of First Presbyterian Church are starting to become familiar to me—but soon they will become beloved. It was trusting that this spiritual discipline and all the others we practice together matter, and that as we sing, pray, study the Word, eat, laugh, and weep together, the Holy Spirit will bind us together in love and common ministry.

So yes, my hands and voice shook. It was a moment many years in the making, but I wept for joy. For the privilege and holy mystery of it all. I wept because it wasn’t about me or my hard work! It was about the goodness of God made real—so real we can hold it in our hands and taste it on our tongues. 

This is the joyful feast of the people of God! All who come in faith—all who come hungry for grace—will be fed. Thanks be to God! Amen.

– Pastor Mackenzie

God Never Says Oops?

I pass a lot of billboards on my way to work. There’s a few clever ones, a few that make me roll my eyes, but for the most part, I don’t even notice them anymore—much less remember them. But a few weeks ago, a church proudly announced in bold black and white: “God never says oops.”

Every day, I felt compelled to read those words, and every day, I wrestled with those words. I think the billboard was meant to be a comfort. I think it was meant to reassure people that God is powerful, trustworthy, and in control even in this chaotic world.

I think offering hope and comfort are a worthy goal. But that’s not how I experienced that billboard. The church might have slapped “God never says oops” onto that billboard cheerfully, but it made me squirm. It made me feel like my doubts and my questions were not welcome. Like they’d prefer I traded curiosity and confusion for a faith that was certain and simple.

Plenty of people claim that the Bible is “simple” and “clear,” but the more I study scripture, the less I believe that. 

The complexity of scripture comes up in our Dwelling in the Word group nearly every week. We’ve talked about how the Bible isn’t a singular book. It’s a collection of books by dozens of different authors who wrote to dozens of different audiences spanning dozens of cultures, contexts, and continents. The Bible doesn’t present one clear theological perspective from beginning to end. Rather than one biblical theology, the Bible contains multiple biblical theologies. 

Some passages claim that we’re saved by faith alone; others that faith without works is dead. We’re left wondering: Will God be faithful to God’s people no matter what, or will God only bestow blessings when they are obedient? Is there a time and season for everything, or is life “meaningless, meaningless”? Which creation account should we favor? Was the monarchy a triumph or a catastrophe? Is God slow to anger and abounding in love, or jealous and wrathful?

And here comes that billboard again declaring: “God never says oops.”

A pithy line meant to comfort me ended up doing the opposite. It reminded me of a question I’d tucked into the back of my mind: Does God ever change God’s mind? 

We’re supposed to answer “no,” of course. Numbers 23:19 tells us: “God is not a man, so he does not lie.He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” But … then what do we make of passages like Genesis 6:6: “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made humans and put them on the earth. It broke his heart,” and Exodus 32:14: “So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people.” At the end of the book of Jonah, God relents again and spares a whole nation from destruction!

Theologians and philosophers have proposed all kinds of solutions to ease our minds and assure us that God cannot and will not change God’s mind. But once again, I wonder if we are missing the point. I wonder if in rushing to offer comfort and certainty, we are missing out on an even richer faith experience.

God could have dictated a rule book or a fact sheet; that would have been simple. But instead, we have 66 books of poetry, parables, and prophecies. Rather than giving us a bulleted list describing who God is and how God works in the world, God gave us stories. We have stories about a gorgeous world that was spoken into existence out of nothing. Stories of floods, plagues, shepherd boys taking down giants, kings and queens, promises and sacrifices, shepherds following stars, women staring into empty tombs and meeting angels who proclaim, “He is not here! He is risen!”

Stories aren’t simple.

But they are beautiful. Stories invite us to come in, sit down, get comfy. Good stories engage our hearts and our minds, and great stories are worth wrestling with and wondering about for a whole lifetime.

So maybe God doesn’t make mistakes. But it’s worth asking the question and exploring the possible answers, don’t you think?

Hello, First Presbyterian Church! It is so exciting and humbling to finally be here serving as your next pastor. I’m only a few days in to the position, but I’ve already been so warmly welcomed by our staff and congregation. I can’t wait to meet everyone and continue learning about this community. 

In the future, I hope that this will be a place where I can share some reflections on ministry and maybe dig a little deeper into our current sermon series or an interesting bit of theology, but for now, as we’re beginning our time together, I thought I would just say hello—and thank you.

First, the hello. This summer I took a little time off between positions, and I’m so glad I did! I feel refreshed and more centered in myself, my calling, and God’s abundant grace than I have in quite a long time. I spent the summer reading lots of books, boating with my family, visiting friends, working on my novel, swimming in Lake Michigan, and eating plenty of ice cream.

Early on in the summer, one of my favorite authors posed this question on social media: How are you letting God love you? I haven’t stopped thinking about it since! Next time we meet in a hallway or during coffee hour, I’d love to know: How are you letting God love you in this season of your life?

And now, to close, here comes the thank you. Thank you for calling me to be your next pastor. I certainly can’t promise you perfection, but, with God’s help and your prayerful support, I can be faithful to the work I’ve been called to.

Thank you! I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us.

– Mackenzie Jager