Dear St. Paul's Family,
It's funny the memories that come to mind on the eve of one's fortieth birthday. I've been spending time over the last week reminiscing over all the people, places, and life stage events that have marked my four decades on this earth. As those memories converged with my preparations for this Sunday's sermon, my thoughts converged on a certain mundane object: a yellow Tupperware water pitcher.
Until 1995, when I was twenty-two years old, I had never lived more than thirty minutes from my childhood home. I attended the same school for twelve years, gone to college in my hometown, and even moved back to live with my parents for a year after graduation as God was calling me into ministry. Then, in 1995, my family loaded up my belongings in a cargo van and drove me nearly 1,000 miles to my new residence for the next three years, United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.
After my parents and two brothers helped me unpack my boxes and settle into my on-campus apartment, I felt a pit in my gut as I watched them drive away for their long trek back to Florida. My first year in seminary was a time of rapid, jarring adjustment, a mixture of theological maturation, career discernment, and, of course, profound homesickness.
Soon after my family left, I noticed they left in my refrigerator a water pitcher that my mother had filled with kitchen tap water prior to our trip up to Ohio, for us to drink along the way. It was water from Florida, water from my family, water from home. I'm still sheepish to admit this now, but given that I turn forty tomorrow, I'm a bit less reluctant to admit some of the more childish things I believed and did when I was younger.
So do you want to know what I did?
For a whole year, I refused to drink the water from that pitcher. It stayed in the back of my refrigerator, right where my mother left it. It was my singular connection to home, to my roots, and to my identity. So, I chose to cherish it, preserve it, and let it remind me of who I was. Whenever I was homesick, I merely had to open the refrigerator, and know that despite all the traumatic change happening around me and within me, I always had a bit of home right there with me.
We tend to journey through life in an arc, not a straight line. The older we get, the more we realize that life is not a succession of past-present-future, but of growing up at home, leaving home, and eventually longing for home. For some of us, that home is a return to a physical place, with loved ones who have always been part of our journey. For others of us, even most of us, home is the experience of discovering who we really are, who we are meant to be, and who we have been all along.
For people of faith like us, those moments of epiphany are symbolized by another kind of water. Not that which is contained in a yellow Tupperware pitcher, but that which is given freely to us as an outward and visible sign of our membership in God's family.
Whenever we are homesick, longing to return to an experience of unconditional love, we need only remember our baptism. Whenever we struggle with our identity - who we are and why we are here - we need only remember our baptism. Whenever we feel lost on a wayward course, feeling alone and discouraged, we need only remember our baptism. Whenever we wonder if there is a God, and where that God is in the midst of our hardship, we need only remember our baptism. And when we feel stretched by the pressure to please everyone around us, including the harshest critic within us, we need only remember the baptismal words of God: “You are my child, my beloved, and in you I am well pleased.”
Join me this Sunday for a service in which we will remember our baptism and reaffirm our baptismal vows. Together, let’s head for home.
Grace and Peace,
Magrey
The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
Email: mdevega@sp-umc.org
YEAR-END THANK YOU!
Thank you, St. Paul's UMC, for your faithful stewardship over the past year! We are grateful to announce that we have finished 2012 by paying all of our expenses, including 100% of our apportionments, and it looks like we will again achieve third-mile status in our giving to local and global missions. Thanks be to God for your generosity!
IMPORTANT MEETING TODAY
Several important lay leaders of this church have been very active over the past several weeks negotiating with our insurance company on a final settlement for our kitchen and dining hall. We started with a $400,000 gap between what they were offering and our estimates for construction, and now we are still $250,000 apart. Today, our insurance company is bringing in a third-party, independent claims adjuster who specializes in church facilities. That person will be accompanied by our own architects and our own lay leaders as they conduct a walk-through in our damaged areas and come up with another estimate. Please be in prayer for that meeting today. Thank you for your patience throughout this time of transition, and thank you for your prayers as we work to bring this to a resolution soon.
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