Reformation Sunday
While talking with Cornelius, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. So when I was sent for, I came without raising any objection.
May I ask why you sent for me?” -Acts 10:27-29
“The only constant in life is change.” This famous quote, attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, reminds us of our reformation motto: “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda”, a Latin phrase that means “the church reformed, always reforming”. The phrase is based on the idea that the church should always be conforming to the standard of God’s Word. God’s Word doesn’t change, but our understanding of God’s work in the world and God’s Word to us can adapt to our ever changing circumstances. That is why Peter was open to meeting with Gentile believers.
The vision Peter experienced of God calling the unclean foods “clean” opened Peter’s mind and heart to God doing a new thing in the world. Jesus commanded the disciples to take his teaching to the ends of the earth, this clearly would include Gentiles. But how were these Jewish Christians going to find an avenue of sharing in Gentile communities? Cornelius and his friends became some of the first Gentile believers.
God continues to reach people with the gospel in new and creative ways. Are we open to being formed and re-formed by God’s Holy Spirit in the world? Are we being re-formed through our study of God’s word?
This Sunday, we celebrate Reformation Sunday with a single worship service at 10am. We welcome members of the Columbia Regional Pipe Band to share in worship and this year we will give a special prayer of blessing through the “kirkin’ o’ the tartan”.
We invite you to bring your “tartan” or another small symbol of your heritage to bless. This practice of celebrating our ancestral heritage and thanking God for those who have gone before us will also be incorporated into our necrology report, honoring those members of our church who died this past year, entering the church triumphant.
I pray you will join us for this special worship service. We will also hold a Congregational Meeting for the purpose of electing new church officers and enjoy a chili feed fundraiser put on by our Boy Scout Troop 148.
O God, you are always true to us in love and we are left wanting to say sorry for our faithlessness to you and to one another, for our forgetting of the poor and the broken, for our failure to cherish creation. Give us life, O God, to change and enable us to be re-formed, that we may live.
