Morning Meditation
June 30, 2025
Luke 22:52-62
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders who had come for him, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit? When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!’
Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house. But Peter was following at a distance. When they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them. Then a servant-girl, seeing him in the firelight, stared at him and said, ‘This man also was with him.’ But he denied it, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know him.’ A little later someone else, on seeing him, said, ‘You also are one of them.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I am not!’ Then about an hour later yet another kept insisting, ‘Surely this man also was with him; for he is a Galilean.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about!’ At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.
Meditation by Rebecca Northington
On June 21st, the Redeemer Youth Group returned from Asheville, NC after a week of service there. We had an incredible trip, but were certainly surprised by many of the people and places we visited there. The kids and adults alike were shocked by the size of the mountains and the scale of the waterfalls. Nestled in among some of the biggest peaks of the Eastern United States, including Mount Mitchell at nearly 7000 feet, Asheville’s rugged landscape is breathtaking. Downtown Asheville boasts quaint boutiques and countless coffee shops and breweries, but at nearly every corner one finds a panhandler or a strung out opioid user asleep in a doorway. The Ashville arts community has been robust since the 1970’s and the retiree community becomes larger each year. Before the flood Ashevilee’s real estate prices were among the fastest growing in the state of North Carolina.
But the impact of Hurricane Helene is felt everywhere. From destroyed and vacant buildings along the river to a decimated Arts District, to folks on the street who lost everything in the hurricane and are still awaiting government support. It is clear that many people are still suffering from some degree of PTSD.
Planning these trips takes months of correspondence between myself and our site hosts explaining who we are and what we hope to get out of the trip; learning about the organization and how they serve their population. I knew we would be doing more urban outreach in Asheville (less building and manual labor), and that we would be bringing supplies to families living in government subsidized housing – some of whom had found their way there after their homes had been destroyed in the hurricane. I also knew from other experiences serving in Appalachia, that unless we stayed with an Episcopal Church, our host church would likely have a different faith tradition than our own. Our host site, The Asheville Dream Center, is a kind of hybrid Fundamentalist, Pentecostal and Evangelical Church and the worship and outreach we experienced reflected this very different expression of Christianity.
Our first day was spent preparing packages of food and toiletries in the warehouse to be given out on day two, three, and four. On day two we had a lengthy morning worship with praise music and prayer led by Dream Center staff. The kids were encouraged to listen to God’s voice in their lives and to prepare to pray over people to whom we gave food and goods. Throughout the worship it became very clear that it was more important to leave the people we encountered with “Jesus”, than the food or supplies we carried. It was a different kind of worship than any of us had ever experienced, and the kids were anxious about the idea of asking strangers to pray with them, especially if it included making assumptions about those strangers and their living conditions. Encouraging these strangers to give their lives to Jesus was outside of our comfort zone and foreign to our own expression of God’s love.
But the kids were amazing. They went door to door in these housing projects offering food bags, their smiles, their ears, and, in many cases, prayer. Their prayer reflected a more Episocpal tone and brought many of them face to face with their own identity around Christianity. We were all forced to ask “how comfortable are we talking about our faith?”. When I spoke to our host site coordinator I explained that we come from a very pluralistic society. Most of the kids go to school with kids of every religious background and no religious background. In this setting talking about religion can be impolite at best, and offensive at worst. The idea of trying to convert strangers is well beyond any endeavor these kids could undertake in the Philadelphia region. But the Dream Center folks were unabashed in their call to evangelize. As you can imagine, this was fodder for rich conversation throughout the week.
One concept that this text from Luke elicits, is God’s hope for us not to be embarrassed about our love for Jesus. Peter is devastated at his inclination to deny Jesus, and yet we all do that every day in most activities in our lives. The Dream Center folks talked about Jesus and the Lord in nearly every sentence that they uttered; and while this made us all uncomfortable at times, maybe it can be an example worth truly considering.
Talking about God or the influence of our faith on our lives should not be something that offends others or embarrasses us. When I consider my Hindu, Muslim, Orthodox Jewish or Bahai friends, I am always intrigued by their traditions and the role that faith plays in their lives. Their expression does not offend me – if anything it inspires me. As we process the trip and consider the many take-aways, good and bad, I hope we consider the power of including God in our daily thoughts and deeds more intentionally. Giving thanks for the gift of our lives, the gift of a culture and community steeped in reason, scripture and tradition is worth acknowledging with regularity and awe. I hope we all try to do this a little more overtly and with pride. Jesus was not a “bandit”, to be persecuted, scorned or denied. He is our Messiah and our liberator. He deserves our adoration and our constant devotion. I pray we all attempt to lean into some kind of expression of that love, whether in word or deed, or both.
Prayer
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from
whom every family in heaven and earth is named, grant you
to be strengthened with might by his Holy Spirit, that, Christ
dwelling in your hearts by faith, you may be filled with all the
fullness of God. Amen.
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