Author Archives: joekmac

     Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and it is hard to believe that the end of a bizarre year is here. My initial response is to through my hands up in the air and shout, “Hallelujah! Good riddance to 2020!” When I think of the year in general, I stop myself and think about the blessings that came my way, despite the obstacles of a pandemic, quarantine, and moving to a new church.

     There is no doubt that the year continues to present the world with challenges not seen for over one-hundred-years. Many families were affected by a virus that crossed all imagined boundaries and left many in grief. Such loss is unimaginable, and many prayers go out to those who face a new normal this season. I hope that through tears and sadness, everyone may find a sliver of hope, even in the bleakest of circumstances.

     Hope comes to us in many ways. There are times that the message of faith overwhelms me, and light surrounds me. To ignore such a vivid radiance of the presence of the Divine is to deny reality. The thick, vibrant, intoxicating joy of the Holy Spirit permeates any gloom. We stand and bathe in joy all around us.

     But sometimes, in the darkest nights of the soul, hope comes to us in a tiny sliver of light. Its radiance is buried so deep in despair that it barely makes itself known. We happen upon the speck of hope piercing the dark, and if we hold on to the brilliance of joy, the light grows brighter until there is nothing left but a holy presence. Hope casts out despair and promises new beginnings, a new appreciation for each God-given moment.

     I cling to the faithfulness of the Divine force in the world that, while we struggle, refuses to leave us without a sliver of joy. Maybe this year is about reclaiming the presence of the Almighty, even in the worst of circumstances. Covid-19 may continue to rage against us, but we know the source of our strength. In the end, the virus will go away, but God’s love endures forever. Let us hold fast to the promise of our Creator, “I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created” (Rom. 8:38-39). May you find comfort and hope, even in the darkness of Covid-19.

     I am a pastor serving a church comprised of people from different theological backgrounds. With a constant eye on predictions for the United Methodist Church’s next General Conference, my heart races a little bit when thinking about what the church may look like in the future. Will congregants have to choose which kind of Methodist church they will attend? I do not have the answer, but I think we should begin to plan for possibilities. We must have tough conversations to determine which path we follow.

     As I feel overwhelmed, I wish I could stand up and shout, “Look! Let my church be a model of how we can continue to worship together. At the door, we lay aside our differences and enter our worship space with one thing in mind, worship. We, meaning all of us, come before God and focus our attention on the One, who gives us all things. We put first things first. Every Sunday, we invite everyone in the community to fellowship with us. As the body of Christ, we need one another for support and guidance. In our church, we give all to the Father and check our preferences at the door.

     As we approach General Conference in September of 2021, I pray for our church. If we split, I pray that we can part amicably and still hold one another in love and care. We spent too many years on anger and hatred. Let us reaffirm our baptismal covenant to love and serve God and practice kindness and forgiveness lessons. That was the focus of Jesus’ ministry. Let it be ours as well.

     One of the biggest challenges we face as a religious community in Covid is losing our identity. As a pastor, I struggle with not being as involved in my parishioners’ life as I would be under normal circumstances. I am new to the church and find it exceedingly difficult to establish deep connections in our current environment. “When will this nightmare end?”

     Faith must be our rock, our comfort, and our hope. When I get down about the news, I hold fast to the promise that the best is yet to come. How did the Hebrew people hear the words of the prophets? They must have felt abandoned by the Divine as they faced exile. It isn’t easy to believe that prosperity will flow in the land in the middle of the worst of times. The captives responded, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps. 137:4 NRSV).

     The reality is that through the harshness of whatever situations in which we find ourselves, we must remain diligent in finding a Divine presence. Holy love is right here, in this very moment. We must cling to hope until the light reveals the path by which we take to find deliverance. Hold on and remain faithful, for the promise arrives in the most peculiar of ways.

     Ministry may not look like it did pre-Covid, but that does not mean that we cannot think out of the box and try other approaches. The challenge is to discover ways to bring people together in a virtual world. Our faith community should not be a casualty in the war on this dreaded disease. We must stand together and petition God to help us find ways to share in fellowship, even if that means sitting in front of a computer.

     May divine light guide you and instruct you on the right path. I pray that your spirit illuminates with joy and that you share it with a world that needs relief right now. Let us keep the faith and continue our journey. Remember, they will know we are Christians by our love.

This past week I had the honor of officiating a cousin’s wedding. At the rehearsal, I found myself getting nervous. The family never saw me perform a wedding, and the pressure to deliver well screamed wildly in my mind. Throughout my eleven-year tenure as a pastor, I cannot remember the many services I officiated. This one was different.

Maybe the small voice inside me wanted to show my sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, and anyone else belonging to my family, that I knew how to do a great job. I am not the little kid anymore that terrorized everybody. This event is me doing what I do well. The best I had to give was on display, and I hoped that it proved good enough.

For me, I find it very tough to share my faith authentically with my extended family. They know where all of my skeletons lie buried, so the message better be authentic and ring true. Casual acquaintances are one thing, but people who know you are another story. Truth must prevail, and faith must not possess any hint of insincerity.

Everything went well. I loved spending time with those who remind me of my mother and still miss her. We shared great memories and a few not so great memories, laughing and crying (sometimes all at once). They also told me how proud they were of me and the things I achieved.

I accepted their compliments with a full heart. I gathered with people who witnessed my first steps, my first words, my first laughter. These fantastic people all gathered at a table on a hot Texas evening. I know that my mother smiled from heaven, seeing us together, celebrating another milestone.

     In church work, we throw around the word “discipleship” as if everyone understands the meaning of the word. What does it truly mean to be a discipulus (from the Latin meaning a learner or follower)? If grace is a gift from God, then why must we surrender our lives to Jesus? I know that we have simple answers to these questions, but I want to take a step back and re-examine our responses. I did not grow into the deep riches of my faith until I committed to taking a closer look at my relationship with faith, God, and what it meant for me to change my entire perception of being a follower of Christ.

     I must admit that my earliest understandings of faith and the requirement for being a disciple contained a very emotional decision to turn my life over to the care of God. I heard phrases like, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?” While I answered yes, I felt perplexed. How could I know a first-century Palestinian Jew? This way of thinking did not make sense to me, but I closed my mouth and resigned myself to be a hypocrite because I could not force myself to know the man who walked the earth over two-thousand years ago. So, I felt like a fake disciple who wanted so badly to be the real thing.

     I found an answer to my issues in my mid-forties. I remember hearing about the interpretation of a single Greek word “pistus” (faith in/of) and how that might help in the understanding of a relationship with Jesus. Interpreted one way, faith in assumes that one must believe in the first-century Palestinian Jew, and him alone to become a true disciple. Another idea caught my attention because it made more sense to me. Having the faith of Christ means deciding to follow the teachings of this man, Jesus. I found it liberating to finally answer the question, “Yes, I am a disciple of Jesus.”

    God presents us with the gift of grace. We choose to either accept the gift or reject it. I make a choice to follow, and in so doing, I surrender my self to the ways that Jesus instructed us to live with one another. I follow the two greatest commandments, love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. This new way of life requires action on my part. I must work at it every day by embracing the teachings of the one I call, Messiah. My faith illuminates a decision to turn my will over to the care of God. I follow the examples of Divine love, as shown through the actions of Christ, my savior.

     Praise God that we come to the table of the Holy One in different ways. My story is simply that, my story. Everyone encounters the sacred in their way. Through a personal understanding of what it means to be a discipulus, we find our way through the world, honoring the One who sets us on our journey. May you follow the path of Divine illumination and experience the richness of Christ along the way.

     Living through Covid-19 continues to make me aware that I miss many of the luxuries I took for granted. I miss meeting friends for coffee and/or meals. I am sad that many of the traditional activities that announce a new season (The State Fair, Balloon Fiesta, to name a couple) will not occur this Fall. I feel like my biological clock received a horrible jolt, and I cannot get back into a steady rhythm. When will this darkness end? I look to the heavens and say, “Even so Lord Jesus, quickly come!”

     As I reflect on these things, I realize that while I miss the things in life, what I long for is connection. I am a part of a clergy group that meets one day a month. It is a great group that serves as a safe space to reconnect with dear friends and to replenish our hearts and souls. Since the pandemic, we continue to meet by holding Zoom conversations. Each of us remains safe, but still, connect in the privacy of our own homes.

     I look forward to these times with dear friends, but it does not replace patting a shoulder or be swept away by the energy of the group. Online interactions do not allow for the most sacred of all human needs, a touch to remind us of our connectedness. In the spirit of the great Jewish theologian, Martin Buber would say, “I need to experience the ‘You’ and not the ‘It.’” Our need for a relationship is at the core of our restlessness.

     Hopefully, we may recover from this horrible time in our nation’s history and renew our ties with loved ones in ways that leave us breathless. Kindness must rule the day and love for our neighbor, not as an It but as a You, must mandate our reactions to the chaos of disease and brokenness. In other words, let us love well, sharing the true riches of our faith. Love one another, not as an object, but as a person. This radical approach to living with one another is a directive given by the One, who continues to love us with His whole being.

We are back in the area that we call home, thirty miles from Albuquerque and mountains right outside our windows. The size of the church is similar to past places that I served. As a pastor, I think many of us experience the highs and lows of ministry. I am no different from my fellow clergy persons. There are experiences in my past that I learned how to do things and what not to do. It is all part of the human process.

In my circumstance, it is easy to look at the new and compare it to the old. This view is not a negative judgment; it is merely a reality. My problem is that some of the negative stuff caught in my head still lingers in my mind’s crevices. One person acts like someone else, and wham, my body tenses as it waits for the scene of the past to mandate how the present will speak. Again, this is my reaction to what I experienced in the past. I need to redeem the part of me that holds on to negative messages. I must let go, but it is tough to do so.

As a child of God, I find that resentment is the hardest part of our walk. Ridding myself of sorrow is a constant struggle and must be handled, for failure to do so robs the current situation of my whole self. I am sure those who caused harm do not think about the damage done, so why should I? God ordains our calling, and so we minister right now, leaving our past behind.

What we do take forward are the truths that are revealed to us. Our calling compels us to share the Gospel by God and not by people. Sometimes there is conflict, and other times there is joy. We take all of these experiences and learn from everything, the good and the bad. Every situation informs us to move forward as we sometimes learn tough lessons on the journey.

And as far as the new surroundings, while it is great to learn from the past, I cannot let it dictate the present. Take what I learned, not how I reacted. This enlightened approach means allowing myself to objectively look at the summation of all experiences and say, “Thank you, God, for guiding me to this moment, confident that the lessons of the past may illuminate my ministry in the present.”