Faith, Grace, and Hope

Were you wearing a hat when you smashed the window of the church? Was it a hat that I made? Did you eat a sandwich yesterday- tossing the plastic over your shoulder? Was it a sandwich from the kitchen you set afire?  Have you come by before? Did you get a bus token, a bathroom, coffee, communion, fustrated?  Were you alone? Was it a dare? An initiation? A fruitless and annoying search for cash?  Have you sat in the building for a funeral, a wedding, a high holiday, a low Sunday?  Did you scoff at the sign about God's people all being welcomed or did you decide that hope had flown in your life, as far as you could see?  Did it matter who we were? The preschoolers, the elders, the working, the retired, the unhoused, the multiply-housed.  Or were we just there, where you were- crossing paths at a time that is now linking us both? You may have already forgotten us, but not we you.  If you are never caught, we may ...

Early on Friday morning, January 29, 2016... a person or persons broke into the church building where I serve. They smashed a concrete doorstop through a window to enter the building. Additionally, they threw said doorstop through the plate glass office window and then ransacked the office looking for money. Not finding any, they stole a small, inexpensive digital camera and tore up the office.  They proceeded to the sanctuary where they overturned the baptismal font, shattering the pottery insert that protected the brass font from water damage.  The saddest damage was found on Sunday morning, where they wrote in the liturgical leader book.  Right over the idea that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, they wrote "lie". Did they stop to read this and react to that specifically? Do they refuse to believe the body and blood of Christ were given for them? Did they simply not care what the book was? There was no other damage to the book or ...