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Pastor’s Ponderings – The Jesus in Me Loves the Jesus in You!

Pastor's Ponderings

Dear Glen Mar friends,

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend and I’m definitely inspired by our Youth to love God and love our neighbors! I was praying today for Glen Mar and for the other churches I have served, giving thanks to God who has brought me “thus far along the way,” and God put into my spirit memory the most loved I have ever felt as a church pastor. It was during my very first appointment as a pastor—I had been here at Glen Mar as a seminarian and was, frankly, sad to be leaving, but the Bishop sent me to Waldorf to be the associate pastor for 2 churches, one largely Caucasian and one largely African American, under the leadership of Rev. Tony Love, who had been the lead pastor of the African American congregation and who would now lead both churches.

My first church on that first morning was the African American one. When I got out of the car at 7:45 am for their 8 am praise service, I could already hear the choir and the drums and the praise from the parking lot. “Lord, I thought, if I have a good sermon in me, don’t hold back,” I prayed. I had prayed for them for months every night, getting ready to meet them. When I walked in the door, I was just overwhelmed by the love, joy, and welcome that I received. They were so glad to see me, and they had never seen me before! I had done nothing to earn any of their love—I had only showed up. It was just an outpouring of love and joy. They prayed for me every day, and they loved our children, immediately and unconditionally. They had never met me and they loved me right away. Have you ever been welcomed and loved like that? It is a wonderful blessing and a fountain of grace. What they did has to do, not with me, but with Jesus, and their heart for Jesus.

The offering song we sang each week was “The Jesus in Me Loves the Jesus in You,” and I think that is pretty revealing. They loved me because they saw Jesus in me, and not because I “acted like Jesus.” Jesus tells us that when we welcome the stranger we are welcoming Jesus, no matter who the stranger is, and that we show love because we are welcoming Jesus, including the people that are different than we are or people that we think don’t “deserve our love”

I’m so grateful to have been taught how to love like Jesus by a congregation of folks who didn’t have to love me, and who didn’t look like me, or sing like me (I can’t sing) and who showed me every day what it means to be radically hospitable, like Jesus. When I hear a spiritual now or a song we used to sing there, it draws me closer to Christ and takes me back to a place where I felt truly welcome and loved. My prayer is that you can have that same feeling, in our worship, in our discipleship, in our service. The Jesus in me certainly loves the Jesus in you…and that’s what love looks like to me.

See You In Church,

Pastor Mandy

 

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