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Mar 1 2017

I love Sears. Whenever I go to the mall I park outside Sears just so I can walk through the Craftsman tools section. Not everyone likes it as much as I do. They don’t get the appeal of looking at wrenches, sockets, and screwdrivers and imagining the amazing projects that could be. If that’s you, it’s ok. I understand. No, I don’t really, but read on anyway, because this story is about more than tools.

Last winter while leaving Access I met a couple in the parking lot trying to change a flat tire and offered to help. An epic battle ensued. Man, woman, and pastor wielded sockets, ratchets, wrenches, jacks, and, yes, even a hammer against an entrenched enemy that resisted to the last lug nut. After several hours we stood victorious but not without casualties: a wrench that sacrificed its ratchet and a socket driver whose metal post was literally twisted off its body during the battle.

The next day I went to Sears, showed my fallen tool comrades, and asked about replacing them and heard these words I’ll never forget: “Just go pick out new ones – no charge.” I had heard stories about things like this happening, but that was back in my dad’s day. Surely Sears didn’t still do things like that. The whole time as I walked into the aisles to pick out a socket driver and ratchet I kept wondering where the catch would be. The closer I got to the checkout, though, the more my hope began to grow. Maybe this could be real. And then when it was, and I walked out of the store with brand new tools to replace the ones I had broken, all I could think was, “wow.”

I want people to experience our church like that. Like Sears, not everyone sees the innate appeal of church. Yet, I suspect that even they would have a “wow” reaction if they encountered certain things that seem too good to be true like acceptance as you are, undeserved forgiveness, and an encounter with the divine.

Will you help me create and maintain a church community like that? Whether at Access or sanctuary worship services, on-campus or off-, worshipping or serving, at church events or other places, will you give some unexpected acceptance or forgiveness? Because if you will, people will find in your actions a reflection of the divine character of God. Wow!

I hope you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! If you’re in town I invite you to worship with me at any of FUMCR’s traditional services at 8:45, 9:45, or 11:00 on Sunday. And then don’t miss next week, Sunday, September 11th, when we’ll have a family-friendly Access worship and service event at the Richardson Civic Center at 1:30 pm!

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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Mar 1 2017

This week I came across an intriguing phrase about Jesus in Mark 3:5: “He looked around at them with anger.” This wasn’t the scene where Jesus throws over tables in the temple. It was in the midst of a conversation about healing. It got me wondering what other surprising references to God’s anger I might find in the Bible.

Along with sources of anger for God that I anticipated like worshipping other gods and plotting evil, I also found that God gets angry about:

• Pride and thinking oneself is better than another person (Isaiah 13:11-13)
• Injustice – God tells the prophet, Amos (5:21-24), that God hates worship and worship services when God’s people don’t also act outside of worship with justice and righteousness.
• Stubbornness about religious rules. The Mark 3:5 verse I mentioned at the beginning says that Jesus got angry with Pharisees – religious leaders – when they would not even engage in a conversation about whether it was right to heal someone (a legal good work) on a Sabbath day (when the law said to do no work).
• Complaining about misfortune that comes when following God (Numbers 11:1). This reminded me of Jesus telling his followers to expect (Matthew 5:11) and even seek (Luke 9:23) misfortune as part of following him.
• Failing to trust God. In Numbers 32:11-13, God expresses anger that the people “have not unreservedly followed me.”

As I read these various verses I recognized bits of my own behavior in each of them, but the last one really grabbed my attention. Does God have any idea how difficult it is to “unreservedly” follow? If I followed without reservation, what might happen? After all, the Hebrew slaves in Egypt lost their grueling-but-at-least-predictable lives and homes, many of Jesus’ disciples lost their jobs, Jesus experienced turmoil with family and neighbors, and from Old Testament to New we see followers of God experiencing their religion as uncomfortable and challenging. How God could expect me not to have reservations about following?

Then I recalled the context of that verse. God’s anger came after the people had experienced God’s care and provision in the past and then still had reservations about following God in the future. I suspect God is challenging me to remember God’s faithfulness to me in the past and to trust that God will continue to be faithful to care and provide for me in the future, so that I will unreservedly follow wherever God leads.

Take a moment to reflect on God’s care and provision for you in the past and say a prayer asking God to give you the assurance that they will continue in the future as you commit to follow God’s lead without reservation.

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

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Mar 1 2017

This past week Heather and I spent some time away celebrating our 20th anniversary. The actual day isn’t until next month, so I’ll wait a few weeks to write about our marriage, the blessing it’s been, and the role faith has played in it. This week I want to share some news about Jedi and how they’re affecting religious politics in Australia.

Every 4 years Australia conducts a census, and one of the questions asks about the participant’s religion. In 2011 over 64,000 people marked “other” and wrote in “Jedi.” With just a few days to go before the 2016 census, the Atheist Foundation of Australia is urging people carefully to consider their response this year noting that writing in “Jedi” categorizes a participant as part of a “not defined” religion rather than having “no religion.” A Twitter campaign emphasizes that this makes Australia look more religious than it is and skews religious affiliation data used for “public policy, city planning, community support facilities, and more.”

There are several things we might take away from this story, and I’ll suggest two. First we might take away the realization that atheists and Christians agree that religion goes deeper than just giving ourselves a popular label. And second, we might take away a smile that there’s a place in our world for 64,000 people to have some mostly harmless, quirky fun – and that place is Australia.

Be sure to join Access this Sunday for our final 5:00 p.m. weekly service. We’ll worship God with music from the Access band, conclude our Birds, Bees, and Christians sermon series, celebrate Holy Communion, and share ice cream after the service. We’ll also look forward to special events between now and December when Access will move in to the new Worship and Arts Center and resume weekly worship services at 11:00 a.m.

In Christ,
Rich

Rich Rindfuss
Access pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson