Merriment

 April 20, 2020

Merriment

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Accompanying today’s devotion is the image of some artwork created at church in our Sunday School class. Each day this week, we’ll have a different piece to reflect upon and celebrate the topic of “Welcome”, as in “All are welcome”.

 

Our quote for the day can lead us to welcome as well. As you walk into our fellowship at church, is your goal to become wealthy from the experience? I bet not. Though we all have our unique reasons for belonging at church one of them would be to be a part of something greater than ourselves, which feeds a human instinct for human contact.

 

We know that church culture is about gathering, worship, eating, and sharing of stories. Worship itself is a microcosm of the other items in that list- gathering, eating, and sharing stories. Worship is life, ritualized. The Communion meal- life made sacramental.

 

Holy, Holy, Holy then should our lives be thought of. And while a living wage is something desirable, most of us can and do seek more than just that. Not to say that making more than we need is a bad thing, but it can become a way to ignore that which brings us a merrier world.

 

At our church, we have declared that we are not just tolerant of differences, not just accepting of differences, but that we believe that our differences are a reason to celebrate. God’s creative spirit in making us appear and act and earn and dress and speak and love differently is what makes the conversation of merriment embody a depth beyond a mere mention. Instead, our welcome of differences is worth the expense of food and cheer and song.

 

How do you welcome in your home? In your business? In your neighborhood? In your town? In your heart? Let us go beyond words. Let us go beyond supposing we know the other person, to valuing the humanity of others above and beyond the riches of gold.

 

May our fellowship shine like a diamond and become a valued and sought-after commodity.

 

Rev. Ken