Pastor's Message

June 2006

Summertime. Perhaps you can hardly say the word without hearing, somewhere in the back of your mind, an earthly soprano singing the words from George Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess, “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” That’s what summer is about – taking it easy. Schools close down, factories slow production, offices work with skeleton staffs. It’s time for vacation, time to relax, ease up, sleep in, chill out. For some it’s travel – mountains or shore, down the road or over the sea. For some it’s a hammock in the backyard. It may be catching up with the weeks in the garden or the novels you’ve been meaning to read. It may be swimming lessons or soccer camp, or hot dogs on the grill or just sitting in the sun.

Most of all, summertime is about living. It’s about having time, time for yourself, time to do what’s important. Vacation doesn’t require travel or equipment or expense. It only requires a sense of priorities. What’s important to you? What makes you who you are? The answers to those questions will tell you how to make yourself new, how to renew yourself. And another word for that is re-creation – recreation. Vacation is about renewal, whatever that means for you.

For the church summertime often means vacation, too, in the traditional sense. It can mean a time of low attendance, low activity, low energy. Often it means that not much happens. It is simply a holding pattern, waiting for September when the real work begins again. But if vacation is indeed about living, then the same should be true for the church. Summer is for re-creating here too.

Summer worship should provide an opportunity for renewal, but that does not necessarily mean that it should be easy-going or unchallenging. Our theological understanding of Sunday is that it is not only a day of rest but also, and indeed primarily, a day of worship. During the summer as throughout the year we come to church not to escape from the world but to enter into relationship with it more fully. Our worship should be asking the same question about priorities that shape what we do with our vacation time. What matters most to us as Christians? What makes us who we are? How do we live in a way that gives us joy and fulfillment?

All of us need re-creation. Summer worship is a chance to discover what that means. Traditionally the readings for the Sundays after Pentecost have focused on the nature of faith and the Christian life. While that might seem demanding for a summer Sunday, it is in fact exactly what summer is about: living.

Summertime is about relaxing, growing, believing, serving. Mostly it’s about living and sharing. During the summer months when I ask about Joys, why not share your vacation joys. As you travel, try to worship somewhere new and share what you learn from those experiences. I will try to ask the kids regularly to share summertime experiences also. May this be a time of renewal and re-creation.

Pastor Cluley